Isaiah 13:1-13 ▼

1 A message that Amoz's son Isaiah received about Babylon:

2 |Raise a banner on a bare hilltop! Cry out loud to them! Give a wave of the hand, signaling for them to enter the gates of the nobles.

3 I myself have commanded my consecrated ones; I have also summoned my warriors, those who rejoice in my triumph, to carry out my angry judgments.

4 |Listen! There's a noise on the mountains like that of a great multitude! Listen! There's an uproar among the kingdoms, like that of nations massing together! The LORD of the Heavenly Armies is mustering an army for battle.

5 They're coming from a faraway land, from the distant horizon— the LORD and the weapons of his anger— to destroy the entire land.|

6 Wail out loud, because the Day of the LORD is near. It will come like destruction from the Almighty!

7 Because of this, every hand will go limp, and every man's courage will melt.

8 They will be terrified; pain and anguish will seize them; they'll writhe like a woman in labor. They'll look aghast at one another; and their faces will be ablaze with fear.

9 Watch out! The Day of the LORD is coming— cruel, with wrath and fierce anger— to turn the entire inhabited earth into a desolation and to annihilate sinners from it.

10 For the stars of the heavens and their constellations won't shine their light; the sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon won't shine its light.

11 I'll punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I'll put an end to the pomposity of the arrogant, and overthrow the insolence of tyrants.

12 I'll make people scarcer than pure gold, and mankind rarer than gold from Ophir.

13 Therefore I'll make the heavens tremble. The earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, at the time of his burning anger.