Isaiah 13; Isaiah 14; Isaiah 15; Isaiah 16; Isaiah 17

Isaiah 13

1 The burden of Babylon which Isaias the son of Amos saw.

2 Upon the dark mountain lift ye up a banner, exalt the voice, lift up the hand, and let the rulers go into the gates.

3 I have commanded my sanctified ones, and have called my strong ones in my wrath, them that rejoice in my glory.

4 The noise of a multitude in the mountains, as it were of many people, the noise of the sound of kings, of nations gathered together: the Lord of hosts hath given charge to the troops of war.

5 To them that come from a country afar off, from the end of heaven: the Lord and the instruments of his wrath, to destroy the whole land.

6 Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is near: it shall come as a destruction from the Lord.

7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every heart of man shall melt,

8 And shall be broken. Gripings and pains, shall take hold of them, they shall be in pain as a woman in labour. Every one shall be amazed at his neighbour, their countenances shall be as faces burnt.

9 Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and full of indignation, and of wrath, and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it.

10 For the stars of heaven, and their brightness shall not display their light: the sun shall be darkened in his rising, and the moon shall not shine with her light.

11 And I will visit the evils of the world, and against the wicked for their iniquity: and I will make the pride of infidels to cease, and will bring down the arrogancy of the mighty.

12 A man shall be more precious than gold, yea a man than the finest of gold.

13 For this I will trouble the heaven: and the earth shall be moved out of her place, for the indignation of the Lord of hosts, and for the day of his fierce wrath.

14 And they shall be as a doe fleeing away, and as a sheep: and there shall be none to gather them together: every man shall turn to his own people, and every one shall flee to his own land.

15 Every one that shall be found, shall be slain: and every one that shall come to their aid, shall fall by the sword.

16 Their inhabitants shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes: their houses shall be pillaged, and their wives shall be ravished.

17 Behold I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not seek silver, nor desire gold:

18 But with their arrows they shall kill the children, and shall have no pity upon the sucklings of the womb, and their eye shall not spare their sons.

19 And that Babylon, glorious among kingdoms, the famous pride of the Chaldeans, shall be even as the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha.

20 It shall no more be inhabited for ever, and it shall not be founded unto generation and generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch his tents there, nor shall shepherds rest there.

21 But wild beasts shall rest there, and their houses shall be filled with serpents, and ostriches shall dwell there, and the hairy ones shall dance there:

22 And owls shall answer one another there, in the houses thereof, and sirens in the temples of pleasure.

Isaiah 14

1 Her time is near at hand, and her days shall not be prolonged. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose out of Israel, and will make them rest upon their own ground: and the stranger shall be joined with them, and shall adhere to the house of Jacob.

2 And the people shall take them, and bring them into their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids: and they shall make them captives that had taken them, and shall subdue their oppressors.

3 And it shall come to pass in that day, that when God shall give thee rest from thy labour, and from thy vexation, and from the hard bondage, wherewith thou didst serve before,

4 Thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and shalt say: How is the oppressor come to nothing, the tribute hath ceased?

5 The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, the rod of the rulers,

6 That struck the people in wrath with an incurable wound, that brought nations under in fury, that persecuted in a cruel manner.

7 The whole earth is quiet and still, it is glad and hath rejoiced.

8 The fir trees also have rejoiced over thee, and the cedars of Libanus, saying: Since thou hast slept, there hath none come up to cut us down.

9 Hell below was in an uproar to meet thee at thy coming, it stirred up the giants for thee. All the princes of the earth are risen up from their thrones, all the princes of nations.

10 All shall answer, and say to thee: Thou also art wounded as well as we, thou art become like unto us.

11 Thy pride is brought down to hell, thy carcass is fallen down: under thee shall the moth be strewed, and worms shall be thy covering.

12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? how art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations?

13 And thou saidst in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north.

14 I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High.

15 But yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit.

16 They that shall see thee, shall turn toward thee, and behold thee. Is this the man that troubled the earth, that shook kingdoms,

17 That made the world a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof, that opened not the prison to his prisoners?

18 All the kings of the nations have all of them slept in glory, every one in his own house.

19 But thou art cast out of thy grave, as an unprofitable branch defiled, and wrapped up among them that were slain by the sword, and art gone down to the bottom of the pit, as a rotten carcass.

20 Thou shalt not keep company with them, even in burial: for thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people: the seed of the wicked shall not be named for ever.

21 Prepare his children for slaughter for the iniquity of their fathers: they shall not rise up, nor inherit the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

22 And I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts: and I will destroy the name of Babylon, and the remains, and the bud, and the offspring, saith the Lord.

23 And I will make it a possession for the ericius and pools of waters, and I will sweep it and wear it out with a besom, saith the Lord of hosts.

24 The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying: Surely as I have thought, so shall it be: and as I have purposed,

25 So shall it fall out: That I will destroy the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: and his yoke shall be taken away from them, and his burden shall be taken off their shoulder.

26 This is the counsel, that I have purposed upon all the earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all nations.

27 For the Lord of hosts hath decreed, and who can disannul it? and his hand is stretched out: and who shall turn it away?

28 In the year that king Achaz died, was this burden:

29 Rejoice not thou, whole Philistia, that the rod of him that struck thee is broken in pieces: for out of the root of the serpent shall come forth a basilisk, and his seed shall swallow the bird.

30 And the firstborn of the poor shall be fed, and the poor shall rest with confidence: and I will make thy root perish with famine, and I will kill thy remnant.

31 Howl, O gate; cry, O city: all Philistia is thrown down: for a smoke shall come from the north, and there is none that shall escape his troop.

32 And what shall be answered to the messengers of the nations? That the Lord hath founded Sion, and the poor of his people shall hope in him.

Isaiah 15

1 The burden of Moab. Because in the night Ar of Moab is laid waste, it is silent: because the wall of Moab is destroyed in the night, it is silent.

2 The house is gone up, and Dibon to the high places to mourn over Nabo, and over Medaba, Moab hath howled: on all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard shall be shaven.

3 In their streets they are girded with sackcloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their streets all shall howl and come down weeping.

4 Hesebon shall cry, and Eleale, their voice is heard even to Jasa. For this shall the well appointed men of Moab howl, his soul shall howl to itself.

5 My heart shall cry to Moab, the bars thereof shall flee unto Segor a heifer of three years old: for by the ascent of Luith they shall go up weeping: and in the way of Oronaim they shall lift up a cry of destruction.

6 For the waters of Nemrim shall be desolate, for the grass is withered away, the spring is faded, all the greenness is perished.

7 According to the greatness of their work, is their visitation also: they shall lead them to the torrent of the willows.

8 For the cry is gone round about the border of Moab: the howling thereof unto Gallim, and unto the well of Elim the cry thereof.

9 For the waters of Dibon are filled with blood: for I will bring more upon Dibon: the lion upon them that shall flee of Moab, and upon the remnant of the land.

Isaiah 16

1 Send forth, O Lord, the lamb, the ruler of the earth, from Petra of the desert, to the mount of the daughter of Sion.

2 And it shall come to pass, that as a bird fleeing away, and as young ones flying out of the nest, so shall the daughters of Moab be in the passage of Arnon.

3 Take counsel, gather a council: make thy shadow as the night in the midday: hide them that flee, and betray not them that wander about.

4 My fugitives shall dwell with thee: O Moab, be thou a covert to them from the face of the destroyer: for the dust is at an end, the wretch is consumed: he hath failed, that trod the earth under foot.

5 And a throne shall be prepared in mercy, and one shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking judgment and quickly rendering that which is just.

6 We have heard of the pride of Moab, he is exceeding proud: his pride and his arrogancy, and his indignation is more than his strength.

7 Therefore shall Moab howl to Moab, every one shall howl: to them that rejoice upon the brick walls, tell ye their stripes.

8 For the suburbs of Hesebon are desolate, and the lords of the nations have destroyed the vineyard of Sabama: the branches thereof have reached even to Jazer: they have wandered in the wilderness, the branches thereof are left, they are gone over the sea.

9 Therefore I will lament with the weeping of Jazer the vineyard of Sabama: I will water thee with my tears, O Hesebon, and Eleale: for the voice of the treaders hath rushed in upon thy vintage, and upon thy harvest.

10 And gladness and joy shall be taken away from Carmel, and there shall be no rejoicing nor shouting in the vineyards. He shall not tread out wine in the press that was wont to tread it out: the voice of the treaders I have taken away.

11 Wherefore my bowels shall sound like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for the brick wall.

12 And it shall come to pass, when it is seen that Moab is wearied on his high places, that he shall go in to his sanctuaries to pray, and shall not prevail.

13 This is the word, that the Lord spoke to Moab from that time:

14 And now the Lord hath spoken, saying: In three years, as the years of a hireling, the glory of Moab shall be taken away for all the multitude of the people, and it shall be left small and feeble, not many.

Isaiah 17

1 The burden of Damascus. Behold Damascus shall cease to be a city, and shall be as a ruinous heap of stones.

2 The cities of Aroer shall be left for flocks, and they shall rest there, and there shall be none to make them afraid.

3 And aid shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: and the remnant of Syria shall be as the glory of the children of Israel: saith the Lord of hosts.

4 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the glory of Jacob shall be made thin, and the fatness of his flesh shall grow lean.

5 And it shall be as when one gathereth in the harvest that which remaineth, and his arm shall gather the ears of corn: and it shall be as he that seeketh ears in the vale of Raphaim.

6 And the fruit thereof that shall be left upon it, shall be as one cluster of grapes, and as the shaking of the olive tree, two or three berries in the top of a bough, or four or five upon the top of the tree, saith the Lord the God of Israel.

7 In that day man shall bow down himself to his Maker, and his eyes shall look to the Holy One of Israel.

8 And he shall not look to the altars which his hands made; and he shall not have respect to the things that his fingers wrought, such as groves and temples.

9 In that day his strong cities shall be forsaken, as the ploughs, and the corn that were left before the face of the children of Israel, and thou shalt be desolate.

10 Because thou hast forgotten God thy saviour, and hast not remembered thy strong helper: therefore shalt thou plant good plants, and shalt sow strange seed.

11 In the day of thy planting shall be the wild grape, and in the morning thy seed shall flourish: the harvest is taken away in the day of inheritance, and shall grieve thee much.

12 Woe to the multitude of many people, like the multitude of the roaring sea: and the tumult of crowds, like the noise of many waters.

13 Nations shall make a noise like the noise of waters overflowing, but he shall rebuke him, and he shall flee far off: and he shall be carried away as the dust of the mountains before the wind, and as a whirlwind before a tempest.

14 In the time of the evening, behold there shall be trouble: the morning shall come, and he shall not be: this is the portion of them that have wasted us, and the lot of them that spoiled us.