¹The 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.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.

⁶Wail, for the day of the LORD is near; as destruction from the Almighty 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 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 will dwell, and there wild goats 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.