Isaiah 34

1 Come near, you nations, and give ear; take note, you peoples: let the earth and everything in it give ear; the world and all those living in it.

Come near, ye Gentiles, and hear, and hearken, ye people: let the earth hear, and all that is therein, the world, and every thing that cometh forth of it.

2 For the Lord is angry with all the nations, and his wrath is burning against all their armies: he has put them to the curse, he has given them to destruction.

For the indignation of the Lord if upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies: he hath killed them, and delivered them to slaughter.

3 Their dead bodies will be thick on the face of the earth, and their smell will come up, and the mountains will be flowing with their blood, and all the hills will come to nothing.

Their slain shall be cast forth, and out of their carcasses shall rise a slink: the mountains shall be melted with their blood.

4 And the heavens will be rolled together like the roll of a book: and all their army will be gone, like a dead leaf from the vine, or a dry fruit from the fig-tree.

And all the host of the heavens shall pine away, and the heavens shall be folded together as a book: and all their host shall fall down as the leaf falleth from the vine, and from the fig tree.

5 For my sword in heaven is full of wrath: see, it is coming down on Edom, in punishment on the people of my curse.

For my sword is inebriated in heaven: behold it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my slaughter unto judgment.

6 The sword of the Lord is full of blood, it is fat with the best of the meat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the best parts of the sheep: for the Lord has a feast in Bozrah, and much cattle will be put to death in the land of Edom.

The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made thick with the blood of lambs and buck goats, with the blood of rams full of marrow: for there is a victim of the Lord in Bosra and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

7 And the strong oxen will go down to death together with the smaller cattle.

And the unicorns shall go down with them, and the bulls with the mighty: their land shall be soaked with blood, and their ground with the fat of fat ones.

8 For it is the day of the Lord's punishment, when he gives payment for the wrongs done to Zion.

For it is the day of the vengeance of the Lord, the year of recompenses of the judgment of Sion.

9 And its streams will be turned into boiling oil, and its dust into burning stone, and all the land will be on fire.

And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the ground thereof into brimstone: and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.

10 It will not be put out day or night; its smoke will go up for ever: it will be waste from generation to generation; no one will go through it for ever.

Night and day it shall not be quenched, the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste, none shall pass through it for ever and ever.

11 But the birds of the waste land will have their place there; it will be a heritage for the bittern and the raven: and it will be measured out with line and weight as a waste land.

The bittern and ericius shall possess it: and the ibis and the raven shall dwell in it: and a line shall be stretched out upon it, to bring it to nothing, and a plummet, unto desolation.

12 The jackals will be there, and her great ones will be gone; they will say, There is no longer a kingdom there, and all her chiefs will have come to an end.

The nobles thereof shall not be there: they shall call rather upon the king, and all the princes thereof shall be nothing.

13 And thorns will come up in her fair houses, and waste plants in her strong towers: and foxes will make their holes there, and it will be a meeting-place for ostriches.

And thorns and nettles shall grow up in its houses, and the thistle in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be the habitation of dragons, and the pasture of ostriches.

14 And the beasts of the waste places will come together with the jackals, and the evil spirits will be crying to one another, even the night-spirit will come and make her resting-place there.

And demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy ones shall cry out one to another, there hath the lamia lain down, and found rest for herself.

15 The arrowsnake will make her hole and put her eggs there, and get her young together under her shade: there the hawks will come together by twos.

There hath the ericius had its hole, and brought up its young ones, and hath dug round about, and cherished them in the shadow thereof: thither are the kites gathered together one to another.

16 See what is recorded in the book of the Lord: all these will be there, not one without the other: the mouth of the Lord has given the order, and his spirit has made them come together.

Search ye diligently in the book of the Lord, and read: not one of them was wanting, one hath not sought for the other: for that which proceedeth out of my mouth, he hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them.

17 And he has given them their heritage, and by his hand it has been measured out to them: it will be theirs for ever, their resting-place from generation to generation.

And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it to them by line: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to generation they shall dwell therein.