Isaiah 14
1 The LORD will have compassion on Jacob and choose Israel once again. He will settle them in their own land, and resident foreigners will join them and unite with the house of Jacob.
2 The peoples will take them and bring them to their own place. The house of Israel will take possession of those peoples in the LORD’s land as male and female servants. They will take captive those who took them captive and rule over their oppressors.
3 On that day the LORD will give you rest from your pain, your turmoil, and the hard labor you were made to endure.
4 Then you will recite this taunt against the king of Babylon: “How the oppressor has come to an end! How the arrogance has come to an end!
5 The LORD has broken the rod of the wicked, the staff of the rulers.
6 He struck the peoples in fury with blows that never ceased; in anger he ruled the nations, relentless in his pursuit.
7 The whole earth rests and is at peace; everyone breaks into song.
8 Even the cypress trees rejoice over you, and so do the cedars of Lebanon: ‘Since you fell, no one has come up to cut us down.’
9 Sheol below is stirred to meet you when you arrive. It rouses the shades for you, all the leaders of the earth, and raises from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
10 All of them answer you and say: ‘You too have become weak like us; you have become like us.’
11 Your pride has been brought down to Sheol, along with the sound of your harps. Worms are spread beneath you, and maggots are your covering.”
12 “How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been brought down to the ground, you who laid nations low!
13 You thought to yourself: ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the far reaches of the north.
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’
15 But you have been brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit.
16 Those who see you stare at you and ponder: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble and kingdoms shake?
17 He turned the world into a wilderness, destroyed its cities, and would not let his prisoners return home.’
18 All the kings of the nations, every one of them, lie in honor, each in his own tomb.
19 But you have been thrown out of your tomb like a rejected branch, covered with those slain by the sword, those who go down to the stones of the pit, like a corpse trampled underfoot.
20 You will not join them in burial, because you destroyed your land and killed your people. May the offspring of evildoers never be spoken of again!
21 Prepare a place of slaughter for his sons, because of their fathers’ guilt, so they may not rise up, take possession of the land, or fill the world with cities.”
22 “I will rise against them,” declares the LORD of Armies, “and I will wipe out from Babylon its name and its remnant, its descendants and its offspring,” declares the LORD.
23 “I will make it a possession for hedgehogs and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares the LORD of Armies.
24 The LORD of Armies has sworn: “As I have thought, so it will be; as I have planned, so it will happen.
25 I will break Assyria in my land and trample it on my mountains. Its yoke will be removed from them, and its burden from their shoulders.”
26 This is the plan decided against the whole earth; this is the hand stretched out against all the nations.
27 The LORD of Armies has decided, and who can overturn it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?
28 In the year King Ahaz died, this oracle came:
29 Do not rejoice, all Philistia, because the rod that struck you has been broken. From the snake’s root a viper will come out, and its fruit will be a flying serpent.
30 The firstborn of the poor will find pasture, and the needy will lie down in safety. But I will kill your root with famine, and your survivors will be slain.
31 Wail, gate! Cry out, city! All Philistia, you melt with fear, for smoke comes from the north, and no one falls behind in its ranks.
32 What answer will be given to the messengers of the nation? That the LORD has founded Zion, and there the poor of his people find refuge.
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