Isaiah 34

1Come near, nations, to hear; and listen, peoples. Let the earth hear, and all that fills it, the world and all its offspring.

2For Yahweh has indignation against all the nations, and wrath against all their host; he has devoted them to destruction; he has given them over to the slaughter.

3Their slain will be thrown out, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will melt from their blood.

4All the host of heaven will rot away, and the skies will be rolled up like a scroll; all their host will wither like a leaf withers from the vine, and like a withered fig from the fig tree.

5For my sword is drenched in the heavens; behold, it will descend on Edom, on the people of my ban, for judgment.

6The sword of Yahweh is filled with blood; it is made fat with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

7Wild oxen will fall with them, and young bulls with the mighty ones; their land will be drenched with blood, and their dust made rich with fat.

8For Yahweh has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for Zion’s cause.

9Her wadis will be turned into pitch, and her dust into sulfur; her land will become burning pitch.

10Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; forever and ever no one shall pass through it.

11The desert owl and the hedgehog will possess her, and the owl and the raven will dwell in her; he will stretch over her the measuring line of desolation and the plumb stones of emptiness.

12They will call its nobles, but there will be no kingdom there, and all its princes will be nothing.

13Thorns will grow over her palaces, nettles and brambles in her fortresses; and she will become a haunt of jackals, a pasture for ostriches.

14And desert creatures will meet with hyenas, and the goat-demon will call to its fellow; indeed, there Lilith will settle down and find a resting place for herself.

15There the arrow snake will nest and lay eggs, and hatch them, and gather them in her shadow; indeed, there the kites will gather, each with her mate.

16Search in the book of Yahweh and read: not one of these will be missing; none will lack her mate. For his mouth has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.

17And he himself has cast the lot for them, and his hand has apportioned it to them by line; they will possess it forever; from generation to generation they will dwell in it.