Study Desk

The burden of Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw:

Lift up a banner on a bare mountain; make the voice rise to them; wave the hand that they may enter the gates of nobles.

I have commanded My holy ones; I have also called My warriors for My anger, those exultant at My majesty.

The noise of a multitude in the mountains, as of a great people! A noise of tumult of the kingdoms of nations gathered together; Jehovah of Hosts is calling up an army for the battle.

They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, Jehovah and the weapons of His wrath, to destroy all the land.

Howl! For the day of Jehovah is at hand. It shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.

On account of this all hands shall droop, and every heart of man shall melt;

and they shall be afraid. Pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain like one giving birth; they shall be amazed, each man to his neighbor; faces of flames shall be their faces.

Behold, the day of Jehovah comes, cruel and with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land waste. And He shall destroy its sinners out of it.

For the stars of the heavens and their constellations shall not give light; the sun shall be darkened in its going forth, and the moon shall not reflect its light.

And I will visit evil on the world, and their iniquity on the wicked. And I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease; and I will humble the pride of tyrants.

I will make a man more rare than fine gold; even a man more than the carvings of Ophir.

So I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall move out of its place, in the wrath of Jehovah of Hosts, and in the day of His fierce anger.

And it shall be as a gazelle driven away, and as a sheep no one gathers; each man shall look to his own people, and each one shall flee to his land.

Everyone who is found shall be pierced through; yea, everyone who is swept away shall fall by the sword.

And their children shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be robbed, and their wives raped.

Behold! I stir up the Medes against them, who shall not value silver. And they shall not delight in gold.

And bows shall also smash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare sons.

And Babylon, the glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the pride of the Chaldeans, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

It shall not be lived in forever, nor shall it be lived in from generation to generation. And the Arabian shall not pitch a tent there, nor shall the shepherds make flocks lie down there.

But the desert creatures shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of howling creatures; and daughters of ostriches shall dwell there; and he goats shall skip there.

And hyenas shall cry along with his widows; and jackals in palaces of delight. Yea, her time to come is near, and her days shall not be prolonged.