Isaiah 13:2-12

2 "Run up a flag on an open hill. Yell loud. Get their attention. Wave them into formation. Direct them to the nerve center of power.
3 I've taken charge of my special forces, called up my crack troops. They're bursting with pride and passion to carry out my angry judgment."
4 Thunder rolls off the mountains like a mob huge and noisy - Thunder of kingdoms in an uproar, nations assembling for war. God-of-the-Angel-Armies is calling his army into battle formation.
5 They come from far-off countries, they pour in across the horizon. It's God on the move with the weapons of his wrath, ready to destroy the whole country.
6 Wail! God's Day of Judgment is near - an avalanche crashing down from the Strong God!
7 Everyone paralyzed in the panic,
8 and unstrung, Doubled up in pain like a woman giving birth to a baby. Horrified - everyone they see is like a face out of a nightmare.
9 "Watch now. God's Judgment Day comes. Cruel it is, a day of wrath and anger, A day to waste the earth and clean out all the sinners.
10 The stars in the sky, the great parade of constellations, will be nothing but black holes. The sun will come up as a black disk, and the moon a blank nothing.
11 I'll put a full stop to the evil on earth, terminate the dark acts of the wicked. I'll gag all braggarts and boasters - not a peep anymore from them - and trip strutting tyrants, leave them flat on their faces.
12 Proud humanity will disappear from the earth. I'll make mortals rarer than hens' teeth.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.