Isaiah 13:9

¹“For behold, the day comes, burning like a furnace, when all the proud and all who work wickedness will be stubble. The day that comes will burn them up,” says the LORD of Armies, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

⁶Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the fierceness of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken apart by him.

¹⁵Everyone who is found will be thrust through. Everyone who is captured will fall by the sword. ¹⁶Their infants also will be dashed in pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be ransacked, and their wives raped.

¹⁷Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who will not value silver, and as for gold, they will not delight in it. ¹⁸Their bows will dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb. Their eyes will not spare children.

⁶Wail, for the LORD’s day is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty.

²The LORD ^[+] is a jealous God ^[+] and avenges. The LORD avenges and is full of wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he maintains wrath against his enemies.

⁴⁰As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and its neighbor cities,” says the LORD, “so no man will dwell there, neither will any son of man live therein. ⁴¹“Behold, a people comes from the north. A great nation and many kings will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. ⁴²They take up bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea. They ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Babylon.

¹⁶The ten horns which you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute, will make her desolate, will strip her naked, will eat her flesh, and will burn her utterly with fire. ¹⁷For God has put in their hearts to do what he has in mind, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God should be accomplished.

²²The LORD says, “Behold, a people comes from the north country. A great nation will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. ²³They take hold of bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Zion.”

³⁵May the violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon!” the inhabitant of Zion will say; and, “May my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea!” will Jerusalem say.

³⁶Therefore the LORD says: “Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry. ³⁷Babylon will become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant. ³⁸They will roar together like young lions. They will growl as lions’ cubs. ³⁹When they are inflamed, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says the LORD. ⁴⁰“I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats. ⁴¹“How Sheshach is taken! How the praise of the whole earth is seized! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations! ⁴²The sea has come up on Babylon. She is covered with the multitude of its waves. ⁴³Her cities have become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no man dwells. No son of man passes by it. ⁴⁴I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up. The nations will not flow any more to him. Yes, the wall of Babylon will fall. ⁴⁵“My people, go away from the middle of her, and each of you save yourselves from the LORD’s fierce anger. ⁴⁶Don’t let your heart faint. Don’t fear for the news that will be heard in the land. For news will come one year, and after that in another year news will come, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler. ⁴⁷Therefore behold, the days come that I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole land will be confounded. All her slain will fall in the middle of her. ⁴⁸Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, will sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers will come to her from the north,” says the LORD. ⁴⁹“As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so the slain of all the land will fall at Babylon. ⁵⁰You who have escaped the sword, go! Don’t stand still! Remember the LORD from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.” ⁵¹“We are confounded because we have heard reproach. Confusion has covered our faces, for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of the LORD’s house.” ⁵²“Therefore behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will execute judgment on her engraved images; and through all her land the wounded will groan. ⁵³Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet destroyers will come to her from me,” says the LORD. ⁵⁴“The sound of a cry comes from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! ⁵⁵For the LORD lays Babylon waste, and destroys out of her the great voice! Their waves roar like many waters. The noise of their voice is uttered. ⁵⁶For the destroyer has come on her, even on Babylon. Her mighty men are taken. Their bows are broken in pieces, for the LORD is a God of retribution. He will surely repay. ⁵⁷I will make her princes, her wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men drunk. They will sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says the King, whose name is the LORD of Armies.

⁵⁸The LORD of Armies says: “The wide walls of Babylon will be utterly overthrown. Her high gates will be burned with fire. The peoples will labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they will be weary.”

¹⁰For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you. You have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’ ¹¹Therefore disaster will come on you. You won’t know when it dawns. Mischief will fall on you. You won’t be able to put it away. Desolation will come on you suddenly, which you don’t understand. ¹²“Stand now with your enchantments and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth, as if you might profit, as if you might prevail. ¹³You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you. ¹⁴Behold, they are like stubble. The fire will burn them. They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by. ¹⁵The things that you labored in will be like this: those who have trafficked with you from your youth will each wander in his own way. There will be no one to save you.