12 The Lord Is My Strength and My Song

12:1 You[1] will say in that day: “I will give thanks to you, O Lord, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me.

²“Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God[2] is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” ³With joy you[3] will draw water from the wells of salvation. ⁴And you will say in that day:

“Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples, proclaim that his name is exalted.

⁵“Sing praises to the Lord, for he has done gloriously; let this be made known[4] in all the earth. ⁶Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your[5] midst is the Holy One of Israel.”

[1] The Hebrew for you is singular in verse 1 [2] Hebrew for Yah, the Lord [3] The Hebrew for you is plural in verses 3, 4 [4] Or this is made known [5] The Hebrew for your in verse 6 is singular, referring to the inhabitant of Zion

13 The Judgment of Babylon

13:1 The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the 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, and have summoned my mighty men to execute my anger, my proudly exulting ones.^[6]

⁴The sound of a tumult is on the mountains as of a great multitude! The sound of an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathering together! The Lord of hosts is mustering a host 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 land.^[7]

⁶Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; as destruction from the Almighty[8] it will come! ⁷Therefore all hands will be feeble, and every human heart will melt. ⁸They 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.

⁹Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land 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 pomp of the arrogant, and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless. ¹²I will make people more rare than fine gold, and mankind 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. ¹⁴And like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep with none to gather them, each will turn to his own people, and each will flee to his own land. ¹⁵Whoever is found will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall by the sword. ¹⁶Their infants will be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses will be plundered and their wives ravished.

¹⁷Behold, I am stirring up the Medes against them, who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold. ¹⁸Their bows will slaughter[9] 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 pomp of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them. ²⁰It will never be inhabited or lived in for all generations; no Arab will pitch his tent there; no shepherds will make their flocks lie down there. ²¹But wild animals will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches[10] will dwell, and there wild goats will dance. ²²Hyenas[11] will cry in its towers, and jackals in the pleasant palaces; its time is close at hand and its days will not be prolonged.

[6] Or those who exult in my majesty [7] Or earth; also verse 9 [8] The Hebrew words for destruction and almighty sound alike [9] Hebrew dash in pieces [10] Or owls [11] Or foxes

14 The Restoration of Jacob

14:1 For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land, and sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob. ²And the peoples will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them in the Lord’s land as male and female slaves. They will take captive those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppressed them.

Israel’s Remnant Taunts Babylon

³When the Lord has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve, ⁴you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:

“How the oppressor has ceased, the insolent fury[12] ceased! ⁵The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of rulers, ⁶that struck the peoples in wrath with unceasing blows, that ruled the nations in anger with unrelenting persecution. ⁷The whole earth is at rest and quiet; they break forth into singing. ⁸The cypresses rejoice at you, the cedars of Lebanon, saying, ‘Since you were laid low, no woodcutter comes up against us.’ ⁹Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come; it rouses the shades to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth; it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations. ¹⁰All of them will answer and say to you: ‘You too have become as weak as we! You have become like us!’ ¹¹Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, the sound of your harps; maggots are laid as a bed beneath you, and worms are your covers.

¹²“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! ¹³You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north;^[13]¹⁴I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ ¹⁵But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit. ¹⁶Those who see you will stare at you and ponder over you: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, ¹⁷who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities, who did not let his prisoners go home?’ ¹⁸All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb;^[14]¹⁹but you are cast out, away from your grave, like a loathed branch, clothed with the slain, those pierced by the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit, like a dead body trampled underfoot. ²⁰You will not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land, you have slain your people.

“May the offspring of evildoers nevermore be named! ²¹Prepare slaughter for his sons because of the guilt of their fathers, lest they rise and possess the earth, and fill the face of the world with cities.” ²²“I will rise up against them,” declares the Lord of hosts, “and will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, descendants and posterity,” says the Lord. ²³“And I will make it a possession of the hedgehog,[15] and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord of hosts.

An Oracle Concerning Assyria

²⁴The Lord of hosts has sworn: “As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand, ²⁵that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and on my mountains trample him underfoot; and his yoke shall depart from them, and his burden from their shoulder.”

²⁶This is the purpose that is purposed concerning the whole earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. ²⁷For the Lord of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?

An Oracle Concerning Philistia

²⁸In the year that King Ahaz died came this oracle:

²⁹Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod that struck you is broken, for from the serpent’s root will come forth an adder, and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent. ³⁰And the firstborn of the poor will graze, and the needy lie down in safety; but I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant it will slay. ³¹Wail, O gate; cry out, O city; melt in fear, O Philistia, all of you! For smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.

³²What will one answer the messengers of the nation? “The Lord has founded Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people find refuge.”

[12] Dead Sea Scroll (compare Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate); the meaning of the word in the Masoretic Text is uncertain [13] Or in the remote parts of Zaphon [14] Hebrew house [15] Possibly porcupine, or owl

15 An Oracle Concerning Moab

15:1 An oracle concerning Moab.

Because Ar of Moab is laid waste in a night, Moab is undone; because Kir of Moab is laid waste in a night, Moab is undone. ²He has gone up to the temple,[16] and to Dibon, to the high places[17] to weep; over Nebo and over Medeba Moab wails. On every head is baldness; every beard is shorn; ³in the streets they wear sackcloth; on the housetops and in the squares everyone wails and melts in tears. ⁴Heshbon and Elealeh cry out; their voice is heard as far as Jahaz; therefore the armed men of Moab cry aloud; his soul trembles. ⁵My heart cries out for Moab; her fugitives flee to Zoar, to Eglath-shelishiyah. For at the ascent of Luhith they go up weeping; on the road to Horonaim they raise a cry of destruction; ⁶the waters of Nimrim are a desolation; the grass is withered, the vegetation fails, the greenery is no more. ⁷Therefore the abundance they have gained and what they have laid up they carry away over the Brook of the Willows. ⁸For a cry has gone around the land of Moab; her wailing reaches to Eglaim; her wailing reaches to Beer-elim. ⁹For the waters of Dibon[18] are full of blood; for I will bring upon Dibon even more, a lion for those of Moab who escape, for the remnant of the land.

[16] Hebrew the house [17] Or temple, even Dibon to the high places [18] Dead Sea Scroll, Vulgate (compare Syriac); Masoretic Text Dimon (twice in this verse)