Isaiah 14:1-22 ▼

1 For the LORD will have compassion on Jacob and will choose Israel again. He will settle them on their own land. The resident alien will join them and be united with the house of Jacob.

2 The nations will escort Israel and bring it to its homeland. Then the house of Israel will possess them as male and female slaves in the LORD’s land. They will make captives of their captors and will rule over their oppressors.

3 When the LORD gives you rest from your pain, torment, and the hard labor you were forced to do,

4 you will sing this song of contempt about the king of Babylon and say: How the oppressor has quieted down, and how the raging has become quiet!

5 The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers.

6 It struck the peoples in anger with unceasing blows. It subdued the nations in rage with relentless persecution.

7 The whole earth is calm and at rest; people shout with a ringing cry.

8 Even the cypresses and the cedars of Lebanon rejoice over you: “Since you have been laid low, no lumberjack has come against us.”

9 Sheol below is eager to greet your coming, stirring up the spirits of the departed for you — all the rulers of the earth — making all the kings of the nations rise from their thrones.

10 They all respond to you, saying, “You too have become as weak as we are; you have become like us!

11 Your splendor has been brought down to Sheol, along with the music of your harps. Maggots are spread out under you, and worms cover you.”

12 Shining morning star, how you have fallen from the heavens! You destroyer of nations, you have been cut down to the ground.

13 You said to yourself, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will set up my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of the gods’ assembly, in the remotest parts of the North.

14 I will ascend above the highest clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”

15 But you will be brought down to Sheol into the deepest regions of the Pit.

16 Those who see you will stare at you; they will look closely at you: “Is this the man who caused the earth to tremble, who shook the kingdoms,

17 who turned the world into a wilderness, who destroyed its cities and would not release the prisoners to return home? ”

18 All the kings of the nations lie in splendor, each in his own tomb.

19 But you are thrown out without a grave, like a worthless branch, covered by those slain with the sword and dumped into a rocky pit like a trampled corpse.

20 You will not join them in burial, because you destroyed your land and slaughtered your own people. The offspring of evildoers will never be mentioned again.

21 Prepare a place of slaughter for his sons, because of the iniquity of their ancestors. They will never rise up to possess a land or fill the surface of the earth with cities.

22 “I will rise up against them”—this is the declaration of the LORD of Armies—“and I will cut off from Babylon her reputation, remnant, offspring, and posterity”—this is the LORD’s declaration.