Isaiah 13

1The oracle about Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw. 2Hoist a signal flag on a bare hilltop; shout out to them; wave them on, so they march in through the gates of the nobles. 3I myself have given orders to my consecrated troops; I have called up my warriors to carry out my anger, those who exult in my majesty. 4Hear the roar on the mountains, like a vast multitude! Hear the din of kingdoms, of nations assembling! the LORD of Armies is gathering an army for war. 5They come from a faraway land, from the ends of the sky: the LORD and the weapons of his fury, to ruin the whole earth. 6Howl, for the day of the LORD is close at hand! It will come like ruin from the Almighty. 7So every hand will hang helpless, and the heart of every mortal will melt. 8They will be filled with dread; cramps and pains will take hold of them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will stare at one another in shock, their faces flushed like fire. 9Look, the day of the LORD is on its way, merciless, full of fury and blazing anger, to turn the earth into a wasteland; and he will wipe out the sinners who live in it. 10The stars of the sky and their constellations will not send out their light; the sun will be darkened as it comes up, and the moon will not let its light shine. 11I will call the world to account for its evil and the wicked for their guilt. I will end the pride of the arrogant and bring down the haughtiness of tyrants. 12I will make human beings harder to find than refined gold, and mortals scarcer than gold from Ophir. 13So I will make the sky shudder, and the earth will be jolted out of its place by the fury of the LORD of Armies, on the day his anger blazes. 14Like a gazelle being chased, like sheep that no one rounds up, they will each turn back to their own people and run off, each one to their own country. 15Anyone who is found will be run through, and anyone who is seized will be cut down by the sword. 16Before their eyes their little children will be smashed; their houses will be looted and their wives raped. 17Look, I am rousing the Medes to attack them, a people who count silver as nothing and care nothing for gold. 18Their bows will strike down the young men; they will show no mercy to newborn babies, and they will look on children without pity. 19Babylon, the gem among kingdoms, the splendor the Chaldeans are so proud of, will become what Sodom and Gomorrah became when God overturned them. 20No one will ever live there again or settle there, from one generation to the next. No Arab will set up a tent there, and no shepherds will bed down their flocks there. 21Desert beasts will make their dens there instead; screeching creatures will crowd the houses. Ostriches will settle there, and wild goats will prance there. 22Hyenas will call to one another in its fortresses, and jackals in its luxurious palaces. Its hour has nearly come; its days will not be drawn out.