The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Isaiah 34
1 Come near, you nations, to hear!
Listen, you peoples. Let the earth and all it contains hear,
the world, and everything that comes
from it.
2 For Yahweh is enraged against all the
nations, and angry with all their armies.
He has utterly destroyed them.
He has given them over for slaughter.
3 Their slain will also be cast out,
and the stench of their dead bodies
will come up. The mountains will melt in their
blood.
4 All of the army of the sky will be dissolved.
The sky will be rolled up like a scroll,
and all its armies will fade away,
as a leaf fades from off a vine or a fig
tree.
5 For my sword has drunk its fill in the sky.
Behold, it will come down on Edom,
and on the people of my curse, for
judgment.
6 Yahweh’s sword is filled with blood.
It is covered 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.
7 The wild oxen will come down with them,
and the young bulls with the mighty
bulls; and their land will be drunken with
blood, and their dust made greasy with fat.
8 For Yahweh has a day of vengeance,
a year of recompense for the cause of
Zion.
9 Its streams will be turned into pitch,
its dust into sulfur, and its land will become burning
pitch.
10 It won’t be quenched night or day.
Its smoke will go up forever.
From generation to generation, it will
lie waste. No one will pass through it forever
and ever.
11 But the pelican and the porcupine will
possess it. The owl and the raven will dwell in it.
He will stretch the line of confusion over it,
and the plumb line of emptiness.
12 They shall call its nobles to the kingdom,
but none shall be there;
and all its princes shall be nothing.
13 Thorns will come up in its palaces,
nettles and thistles in its fortresses;
and it will be a habitation of jackals,
a court for ostriches.
14 The wild animals of the desert will meet
with the wolves, and the wild goat will cry to his fellow.
Yes, the night creature† shall settle there,
and shall find herself a place of rest.
15 The arrow snake will make her nest
there, and lay, hatch, and gather under her
shade. Yes, the kites will be gathered there,
every one with her mate.
16 Search in the book of Yahweh, and read:
not one of these will be missing.
None will lack her mate.
For my mouth has commanded,
and his Spirit has gathered them.
17 He has cast the lot for them,
and his hand has divided it to them
with a measuring line.
They shall possess it forever.
From generation to generation they
will dwell in it.