Isaiah - The Old Testament

¹ Yahweh will have pity on Jacob, he will choose Israel once more and resettle them on their native soil. Foreigners will join them, attaching themselves to the House of Jacob.

² Peoples will take them and escort them home, and the House of Israel will take them as slaves, men and women on Yahweh's soil. They will enslave those who enslaved them and will master their oppressors.

³ When that day comes, and Yahweh gives you rest from your suffering and torment and the grim servitude to which you have been subjected,

⁴ you will recite this satire on the king of Babylon and say: 'How did the tyrant end? How did his arrogance end?

⁵ Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked, the sceptre of rulers,

⁶ furiously lashing peoples with continual blows, angrily hammering nations, pursuing without respite.

⁷ The whole world is at rest and calm, shouts of joy resounding,

⁸ the cypresses, the cedars of Lebanon, rejoice aloud at your fate, "Now that you have been laid low, no one comes up to fell us."

⁹ 'On your account, Sheol below is astir to greet your arrival. He has roused the ghosts to greet you, all the rulers of the world. He has made all the kings of the nations get up from their thrones.

¹⁰ They will all greet you with the words, "So, you too are now as weak as we are! You, too, have become like us.

¹¹ Your pride has been flung down to Sheol with the music of your lyres; under you a mattress of maggots, over you a blanket of worms.

¹² How did you come to fall from the heavens, Daystar, son of Dawn? How did you come to be thrown to the ground, conqueror of nations?

¹³ You who used to think to yourself: I shall scale the heavens; higher than the stars of God I shall set my throne. I shall sit on the Mount of Assembly far away to the north.

¹⁴ I shall climb high above the clouds, I shall rival the Most High."

¹⁵ Now you have been flung down to Sheol, into the depths of the abyss!

¹⁶ 'When they see you, they will scrutinise you and consider what you have become, "Is this the man who made the world tremble, who overthrew kingdoms?

¹⁷ He made the world a desert, he levelled cities and never freed his prisoners to go home."

¹⁸ All other kings of nations, all of them, lie honourably, each in his own tomb;

¹⁹ but you have been thrown away, unburied, like a loathsome branch, covered with heaps of the slain pierced by the sword who fall on the rocks of the abyss like trampled carrion.

²⁰ 'You will not rejoin them in the grave, for you have brought your country to ruin and destroyed your people. The offspring of the wicked leave no name behind them.

²¹ Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their father! Never again must they rise to conquer the world and cover the face of the earth with their cities.

²² 'I will rise against them, declares Yahweh Sabaoth, and deprive Babylon of name, remnant, offspring and posterity, declares Yahweh.

²³ I shall turn it into the haunt of hedgehogs, a swamp. I shall sweep it with the broom of destruction, declares Yahweh Sabaoth.'

²⁴ Yahweh Sabaoth has sworn it, 'Yes, what I have planned will take place, what I have decided will be so:

²⁵ 'I shall break Assyria in my country, I shall trample on him on my mountains. Then his yoke will slip off them, his burden will slip from their shoulders.'

²⁶ This is the decision taken in defiance of the whole world; this, the hand outstretched in defiance of all nations.

²⁷ Once Yahweh Sabaoth has decided, who will stop him? Once he stretches out his hand, who can withdraw it?

²⁸ In the year Ahaz died came this proclamation:

²⁹ All Philistia, do not rejoice because the rod which used to beat you is now broken, for the serpent stock will produce a viper, its offspring will be a flying dragon.

³⁰ While the first-born of the poor are grazing and the destitute are resting in safety, I shall make your stock die of hunger and then slaughter what remains of you.

³¹ Howl, gate! Shriek, city! Totter, all Philistia! For a smoke is coming from the north, and there are no deserters in those battalions.

³² What reply will be given then to the messengers of that nation? - That Yahweh founded Zion and there the poor of his people will find refuge.