Isaiah 14

1For Yahweh will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and he will settle them on their own land. The foreigner will join them, and they will attach themselves to the house of Jacob.

2Peoples will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them on the land of Yahweh as male servants and female servants. They will become captors of their captors, and they will rule over their oppressors.

3And it shall be, in the day when Yahweh gives you rest from your pain and your turmoil, and from the hard service with which you were made to serve,

4you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon, and say: “How the oppressor has ceased, the insolence has ceased!”

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

6striking peoples in fury with an unceasing blow, ruling nations in anger, with unrelenting persecution.

7All the earth is at rest and quiet; they break out in singing.

8Even the cypresses rejoice over you, the cedars of Lebanon: ‘Since you have lain down, no woodcutter comes up against us.’

9Sheol beneath is stirred up for you, to meet your coming; it rouses the shades for you, all the leaders of the earth; it raises from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

10All of them will answer and say to you, ‘You too have become weak like us; you have become like us.’

11Your pomp has been brought down to Sheol, the sound of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you, and worms are your covering.

12How you have fallen from heaven, shining one, son of dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who subdued the nations.

13But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north.’

14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.

15But you will be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit.

16Those who see you will stare at you; they will look closely at you: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms,’

17who made the world like a wilderness and tore down its cities, who did not open the house for his prisoners?

18All the kings of the nations, all of them, lie in glory, each in his own house.

19But you are cast out from your grave like a despised branch, clothed with the slain, those pierced by the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit, like a trampled corpse.

20You will not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land; you have slain your people. The offspring of evildoers will never be named.

21Prepare slaughter for his sons because of the guilt of their fathers, lest they rise up and possess the land, and fill the face of the world with cities.

22And I will rise up against them, declares Yahweh of Armies, and I will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, offspring and posterity, declares Yahweh.

23I will make her a possession of the hedgehog and pools of water, and I will sweep her with the broom of destruction, declares Yahweh of Armies.

24Yahweh of Armies has sworn, saying: Surely, just as I have planned, so it has come to pass; and just as I have purposed, so it will stand.

25to break Assyria in my land, and on my mountains I will trample him; then his yoke will depart from upon them, and his burden from upon his shoulder will depart.

26This is the plan that is planned against all the earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out against all the nations.

27For Yahweh of hosts has purposed, and who can annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?

28In the year of the death of King Ahaz, this oracle came:

29Do not rejoice, all of you Philistia, because the rod that struck you is broken; for from the root of the serpent will come out a viper, and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent.

30The firstborn of the poor will graze, and the needy will lie down in safety; and I will kill your root with famine, and it will slay your remnant.

31Wail, O gate! Cry out, O city! Melt away, all of you, Philistia! For smoke comes from the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.

32And what will one answer the messengers of the nation? That Yahweh has founded Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people will find refuge.