Isaiah 14

1Yes, the LORD will show mercy to Jacob. He will choose Israel once more and let them settle in peace on their own soil. The foreigner living among them will join them, and such people will bind themselves to the house of Jacob. 2Peoples will take them and bring them home, and the house of Israel will hold those peoples as their own, male and female servants on the land of the LORD. Those who once carried them off will become their captives, and they will rule over those who oppressed them.

3And on the day when the LORD gives you rest from your sorrow and your unrest, and from the cruel bondage forced on you, 4you will sing this mocking song about the king of Babylon: How still the oppressor has become! How his raging has come to an end! 5The LORD has snapped the rod of the wicked, the scepter held by tyrants, 6the rod that beat the peoples in fury with blow after blow that never let up, that ruled the nations in anger and hunted them down with no one to hold it back. 7Now all the earth lies still and calm; people burst out in shouts of joy. 8Even the junipers and the cedars of Lebanon are glad over you: “Ever since you lay down, no one climbs up here to chop us down.” 9Down below, Sheol is astir because of you, waiting to meet you as you arrive. It wakes the dead for your sake, all who once led the earth; it makes every king of the nations rise from his throne. 10They will all speak up and say to you, “So you too have been brought low, as weak as we are! Now you are one of us!” 11Your splendor has gone down to Sheol, along with the music of your harps. Under you a mattress of maggots is spread, and worms are your blanket. 12How you have fallen from the heavens, shining one, son of Dawn! You have been hewn down to the earth, you who brought the nations to their knees! 13In your heart you said, “I will climb into the heavens and lift my throne higher than the stars of God. I will take my seat on the mountain where the assembly meets, in the far heights of Zaphon. 14I will rise higher than the cloud tops; I will make myself the equal of the Most High.” 15Instead you are dragged down to Sheol, into the deepest corners of the pit. 16All who see you will gaze at you and look you over closely: “Can this be the man who set the earth trembling and made kingdoms quake, 17who turned the world into a wasteland and pulled down its cities, who never set his prisoners free to go home?” 18Every king of the nations, every one of them, lies at rest with honor, each in a tomb of his own, 19But you have been flung away from your grave like a branch nobody wants, dressed in the bodies of the slain, of those run through by the sword, who sink down to the stones of the pit, like a corpse that feet have trampled. 20You will have no share with them in a grave, because you ruined your own land and put your own people to death. The descendants of evildoers will never again be spoken of. 21Make ready a place to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers, so that they never rise up to take over the earth and crowd the whole world with their cities. 22I will rise against them, declares the LORD of Armies. I will wipe out Babylon’s name and every survivor, its children and its children’s children, declares the LORD. 23I will turn it into a home for hedgehogs and a land of marshy pools, and I will sweep it clean with destruction as with a broom, declares the LORD of Armies.

24The LORD of Armies has taken an oath: What I have had in mind will surely happen; what I have decided will stand firm, 25to shatter Assyria in my own land and trample it on my mountains. Its yoke will be lifted off them, and its load will slip from their shoulders. 26This is the purpose decided for the whole world, and this is the hand stretched out over every nation. 27The LORD of Armies has made up his mind; who can overturn it? His hand is outstretched; who can pull it back?

28In the year of King Ahaz’s death, this oracle came: 29Philistia, do not celebrate, any of you, because the stick that beat you has been snapped. Out of the snake’s root a viper will spring up, and what it bears will be a winged fiery serpent. 30The very poorest will have pasture to feed on, and the needy will rest in safety. But I will make your root die of hunger, and what is left of you it will kill. 31Gate, howl! City, cry for help! All Philistia, you are melting in fear! Smoke is pouring down from the north, and no one in its ranks lags behind. 32What reply should be given to the envoys of that nation? This: The LORD has laid the foundation of Zion, and the downtrodden among his people will find shelter in her.