Isaiah 13
1A vision which Esaias son of Amos saw respecting Babylon:
2ON a mount in the plain, erect a standard [saith the Lord]; raise the voice to them; beckon with the hand. Open O princes!
3It is I Who command. It is I, Who am leading these on. Giants are coming to execute My wrath, rejoicing and at the same time arrogant.
4A sound of many nations on the mountains! A tumultuous sound of many nations. A sound of kings and nations gathered together! the Lord of Hosts hath issued orders to a nation trained for battle.
5They are come from a far distant country—from the extreme abutment of heaven—the Lord and His trained warriors, to destroy all that inhabited land.
6Raise the mournful cry! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and destruction from God will come:
7therefore every hand shall be enfeebled; and every man’s heart shall be dismayed.
8The men in power shall be confounded; and pangs shall seize them, like those of a woman in travail. And they shall bewail their calamities, one to another, and be amazed; and their countenances will quiver like a flame.
9For behold the remediless day of the Lord is coming—a day of wrath and indignation, to make the empire a desolation; and to destroy the sinners out of it.
10For the stars of heaven—even Orion and the whole host of heaven, shall not give light; even that of the rising sun shall be darkened; and the moon shall not give her light.
11I will indeed order evils for the whole empire [saith the Lord], and on the wicked their transgressions; and destroy the arrogance of the wicked; and humble the haughtiness of the proud;
12so that those left shall be more precious than tried gold and a man more precious than the ore of Souphir.
13For the heaven shall be filled with wrath; and the earth shaken from its foundations; at the fierce anger of the Lord of Hosts,
14on the day when His wrath shall come: and those left shall be like a chased roe and wandering sheep; and there shall be none to collect them together; so that they may return every man to his place, when every one shall be seeking his own country.
15For whosoever is taken shall be thrust through, and those collected in a body shall fall by the sword.
16And their infants shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; and their houses shall be plundered and their wives ravished.
17Behold, I am raising up against you the Medes, who disregard silver and have no need of gold.
18They shall break the bows of the young men, and on your infants they will have no compassion; nor will their eyes spare thee for thy children.
19And Babylon, which is stiled Glorious by the king of the Chaldeans, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorra.
20It shall not be inhabited for a great length of time, nor shall it be entered for many generations. The Arabians shall not pass through it; nor shall shepherds make their folds therein.
21But wild beasts shall there go to rest; and the houses shall be filled with howling. There sirens shall make their abode; and there demons shall hold their revels.
22And satyrs shall inhabit there; and porcupines shall breed in the houses. He is coming quickly and will not tarry.