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Judgement on the Nations

34Draw near, O nations, to hear;
   O peoples, give heed!
Let the earth hear, and all that fills it;
   the world, and all that comes from it.
² For the Lord is enraged against all the nations,
   and furious against all their hordes;
   he has doomed them, has given them over for slaughter.
³ Their slain shall be cast out,
   and the stench of their corpses shall rise;
   the mountains shall flow with their blood.
⁴ All the host of heaven shall rot away,
   and the skies roll up like a scroll.
All their host shall wither
   like a leaf withering on a vine,
   or fruit withering on a fig tree.

⁵ When my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens,
   lo, it will descend upon Edom,
   upon the people I have doomed to judgement.
⁶ The Lord has a sword; it is sated with blood,
   it is gorged with fat,
   with the blood of lambs and goats,
   with the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For the Lord has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
   a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
⁷ Wild oxen shall fall with them,
   and young steers with the mighty bulls.
Their land shall be soaked with blood,
   and their soil made rich with fat.

⁸ For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
   a year of vindication by Zion’s cause.^*
9 And the streams of Edom^* shall be turned into pitch,
   and her soil into sulphur;
   her land shall become burning pitch.
¹⁰ Night and day it shall not be quenched;
   its smoke shall go up for ever.
From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
   no one shall pass through it for ever and ever.
¹¹ But the hawk^* and the hedgehog^* shall possess it;
   the owl^* and the raven shall live in it.
He shall stretch the line of confusion over it,
   and the plummet of chaos over^* its nobles.
¹² They shall name it No Kingdom There,
   and all its princes shall be nothing.
¹³ Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,
   nettles and thistles in its fortresses.
It shall be the haunt of jackals,
   an abode for ostriches.
¹⁴ Wildcats shall meet with hyenas,
   goat-demons shall call to each other;
there too Lilith shall repose,
   and find a place to rest.
¹⁵ There shall the owl nest
   and lay and hatch and brood in its shadow;
there too the buzzards shall gather,
   each one with its mate.
¹⁶ Seek and read from the book of the Lord:
   Not one of these shall be missing;
   none shall be without its mate.
For the mouth of the Lord has commanded,
   and his spirit has gathered them.
¹⁷ He has cast the lot for them,
   his hand has portioned it out to them with the line;
they shall possess it for ever,
   from generation to generation they shall live in it.

The Return of the Redeemed to Zion

35The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
   the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus ²it shall blossom abundantly,
   and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
   the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
   the majesty of our God.

³ Strengthen the weak hands,
   and make firm the feeble knees.
⁴ Say to those who are of a fearful heart,
   ‘Be strong, do not fear!
Here is your God.
   He will come with vengeance,
with terrible recompense.
   He will come and save you.’

⁵ Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
   and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
⁶ then the lame shall leap like a deer,
   and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
   and streams in the desert;
⁷ the burning sand shall become a pool,
   and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,^*
   the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

⁸ A highway shall be there,
   and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,^*
   but it shall be for God’s people;^*
   no traveller, not even fools, shall go astray.
⁹ No lion shall be there,
   nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
   but the redeemed shall walk there.
¹⁰ And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
   and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
   they shall obtain joy and gladness,
   and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Sennacherib Threatens Jerusalem

36In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. ²The king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem, with a great army. He stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller’s Field. ³And there came out to him Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder.

4 The Rabshakeh said to them, ‘Say to Hezekiah: Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you base this confidence of yours? ⁵Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? On whom do you now rely, that you have rebelled against me? ⁶See, you are relying on Egypt, that broken reed of a staff, which will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him. ⁷But if you say to me, “We rely on the Lord our God”, is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar”? ⁸Come now, make a wager with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. ⁹How then can you repulse a single captain among the least of my master’s servants, when you rely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? ¹⁰Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.’

11 Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, ‘Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; do not speak to us in the language of Judah within the hearing of the people who are on the wall.’ ¹²But the Rabshakeh said, ‘Has my master sent me to speak these words to your master and to you, and not to the people sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?’

13 Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out in a loud voice in the language of Judah, ‘Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! ¹⁴Thus says the king: “Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you. ¹⁵Do not let Hezekiah make you rely on the Lord by saying, The Lord will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ¹⁶Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria: “Make your peace with me and come out to me; then every one of you will eat from your own vine and your own fig tree and drink water from your own cistern, ¹⁷until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. ¹⁸Do not let Hezekiah mislead you by saying, The Lord will save us. Has any of the gods of the nations saved their land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? ²⁰Who among all the gods of these countries have saved their countries out of my hand, that the Lord should save Jerusalem out of my hand?” ’

21 But they were silent and answered him not a word, for the king’s command was, ‘Do not answer him.’ ²²Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.