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13The oracle concerning Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw. ²On a bare hill raise a signal, cry aloud to them; wave the hand for them to enter the gates of the nobles. ³I myself have commanded my consecrated ones, have summoned my warriors, my proudly exulting ones, to execute my anger. ⁴Listen, a tumult on the mountains as of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together! The Lord of hosts is mustering an army for battle. ⁵They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the Lord and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole earth.

⁶Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty! ⁷Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every human heart will melt, ⁸and they will be dismayed. Pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame. ⁹See, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation, and to destroy its sinners from it. ¹⁰For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light. ¹¹I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant, and lay low the insolence of tyrants. ¹²I will make mortals more rare than fine gold, and humans than the gold of Ophir. ¹³Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place, at the wrath of the Lord of hosts in the day of his fierce anger. ¹⁴Like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep with no one to gather them, all will turn to their own people, and all will flee to their own lands. ¹⁵Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword. ¹⁶Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered, and their wives ravished. ¹⁷See, I am stirring up the Medes against them, who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold. ¹⁸Their bows will slaughter the young men; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; their eyes will not pity children.

¹⁹And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor and pride of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them. ²⁰It will never be inhabited or lived in for all generations; Arabs will not pitch their tents there, shepherds will not make their flocks lie down there. ²¹But wild animals will lie down there, and its houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will live, and there goat-demons will dance. ²²Hyenas will cry in its towers, and jackals in the pleasant palaces; its time is close at hand, and its days will not be prolonged.