Isaiah 34
1 Come near, nations, to hear; peoples, pay attention! Let the earth hear, and all that fills it; the world, and all that it brings forth.
2 For the LORD is angry with all the nations, and furious with all their armies. He has devoted them to destruction; he has handed them over to slaughter.
3 Their slain will be thrown out, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will melt with their blood.
4 All the host of heaven will dissolve, and the heavens will roll up like a scroll. All their host will fall like a leaf falling from the vine, like a fig falling from the fig tree.
5 For my sword has drunk its fill in heaven; look, it comes down upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction, for judgment.
6 The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, coated with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, and the fat from the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7 Wild oxen will fall with them, and young bulls with mighty bulls; their land will be soaked with blood, and their dust covered with fat.
8 For it is the day of the LORD’s vengeance, the year of repayment for Zion’s cause.
9 Her streams will turn to pitch, her dust to sulfur, and her land will become burning pitch.
10 It will not be quenched night or day; its smoke will rise forever. From generation to generation it will lie in ruins; no one will ever pass through it.
11 The pelican and the hedgehog will take possession of it; the owl and the raven will live there. He will stretch over it the line of chaos and the plumb line of emptiness.
12 Her nobles will have no kingdom there to proclaim, and all her princes will come to nothing.
13 Thorns will grow in her palaces, nettles and thistles in her strongholds. She will become a home for jackals, a courtyard for ostriches.
14 The desert creatures will meet the hyenas, and the wild goat will call to its companion. There, too, the night creature will rest and find a place to settle.
15 There the snake will make its nest, lay eggs, hatch them, and gather its young in its shadow. There, too, the vultures will gather, each with its mate.
16 Seek in the book of the LORD and read: not one of these will be missing; none will lack its mate. For my mouth has commanded it, and his breath has gathered them.
17 He cast the lot for them, and his hand measured out their share with a measuring line. They will possess it forever; from generation to generation they will live there.
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