English Standard Version ESV
The Message Bible MSG
1 The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.
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The Message on Babylon. Isaiah son of Amoz saw it:
2 On a bare hill raise a signal; cry aloud to them; wave the hand for them to enter the gates of the nobles.
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"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 myself have commanded my consecrated ones, and have summoned my mighty men to execute my anger, my proudly exulting ones.
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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 The sound of a tumult is on the mountains as of a great multitude! The sound of an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together! The LORD of hosts is mustering a host for battle.
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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 a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the LORD and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.
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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, for the day of the LORD is near; as destruction from the Almighty it will come!
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Wail! God's Day of Judgment is near - an avalanche crashing down from the Strong God!
7 Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every human heart will melt.
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Everyone paralyzed in the panic,
8 They will be dismayed: pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame.
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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 Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it.
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"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 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.
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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 will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.
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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 I will make people more rare than fine gold, and mankind than the gold of Ophir.
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Proud humanity will disappear from the earth. I'll make mortals rarer than hens' teeth.
13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the LORD of hosts in the day of his fierce anger.
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And yes, I'll even make the sky shake, and the earth quake to its roots Under the wrath of God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the Judgment Day of his raging anger.
14 And like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep with none to gather them, each will turn to his own people, and each will flee to his own land.
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Like a hunted white-tailed deer, like lost sheep with no shepherd, People will huddle with a few of their own kind, run off to some makeshift shelter.
15 Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword.
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But tough luck to stragglers - they'll be killed on the spot, throats cut, bellies ripped open,
16 Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.
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Babies smashed on the rocks while mothers and fathers watch, Houses looted, wives raped.
17 Behold, I am stirring up the Medes against them, who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold.
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"And now watch this: Against Babylon, I'm inciting the Medes, A ruthless bunch indifferent to bribes, the kind of brutality that no one can blunt.
18 Their bows will slaughter the young men; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; their eyes will not pity children.
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They massacre the young, wantonly kick and kill even babies.
19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them.
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And Babylon, most glorious of all kingdoms, the pride and joy of Chaldeans, Will end up smoking and stinking like Sodom, and, yes, like Gomorrah, when God had finished with them.
20 It will never be inhabited or lived in for all generations; no Arab will pitch his tent there; no shepherds will make their flocks lie down there.
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No one will live there anymore, generation after generation a ghost town. Not even Bedouins will pitch tents there. Shepherds will give it a wide berth.
21 But wild animals will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will dwell, and there wild goats will dance.
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But strange and wild animals will like it just fine, filling the vacant houses with eerie night sounds. Skunks will make it their home, and unspeakable night hags will haunt it.
22 Hyenas will cry in its towers, and jackals in the pleasant palaces; its time is close at hand and its days will not be prolonged.
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Hyenas will curdle your blood with their laughing, and the howling of coyotes will give you the shivers. "Babylon is doomed. It won't be long now."
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.
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.