Judgment of the Nations

1“Come near, you nations, to listen,

and pay attention, you peoples!

Let the earth hear, and all that fills it;

the world, and all that comes out of it.

2For the LORD is angry against all the nations,

and furious against all their armies.

He has doomed them to destruction,

anda given them up to be slaughtered.b

3Their slainc will be thrown out;

and as for their dead bodies—

their stench will ascend;

thed mountains will be soaked with their blood.

4The valleys will be split,

all the starse in the heavens will fall down,f

and the skies will be rolled up like a scroll.

All their starry host will fade away

like leaves withering on a vine,

or fruit withering on a fig tree.

5For my sword will be seeng in the heavens.

Look! It descends in judgment on Edom,

on the people I have doomed to destruction.

6The LORD has a sword bathed in blood;

it’s coveredh with fat,

with the blood of lambs and goats,

and with fat from the kidneys of rams.”

Judgment on Bozrah and Edom

“For the LORD holds a sacrifice in Bozrah,

and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

7Wild oxen will fall together with them—

young steers and mighty bulls.

Their land will be drenchedi with blood,

and their soil will be swollen with fat.

8For the LORD has a day of vengeance,

a year of recompense for Zion’s cause.

9Edom’sj streams will be turned into burning sulfur,

and its dust into sulfur;

its land will become pitch.

10It will burn night and day,

and will never be extinguished.

Its smoke will rise from generation to generation,

and it will lie desolate forever and ever.

And no one will pass through it.k

11“But hawks and hedgehogs will possess it;

owls and ravens will nest in it.

Godl will stretch out over it a measuring line, and chaos,m

and plumb lines of emptiness, and its nobles.n

12They will name it “No Kingdom There,”

and all its princes will come to nothing.

13Thorns will grow over its palaces,

nettles and brambles its fortresses.

It will become a haunt for jackals,

a home for ostriches.

14And desert creatures will meet with hyenas,

and goat-demons will call out to each other.

There also Lilithso will settle,

and find for themselvesp a resting place.

15Owlsq will nest there, lay eggs,

hatch them, and care for their young

under the shadow of their wings;r

yess indeed, vultures will gather there,

each one with its mate.”

The Certainty of God’s Deliverance

16“Study and read from the book of the LORD:

And not onet will be missing,

each will not long for its mate.u

For it is the mouth of the LORD that has issued the order,

and it is his Spirit that has gathered them.

17It is he who has allotted their portions,v

and his hand has divided it for them with a measuring line forever.w

They will possess it forever;x

from generation to generation they will live in it.”y