Isaiah 34-36

1Come near, O nations, to listen; pay attention, O peoples. Let the earth hear, and all that fills it, the world and all that springs from it.

2The LORD is angry with all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will devote them to destruction; He will give them over to slaughter.

3Their slain will be left unburied, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood.

4All the stars of heaven will be dissolved. The skies will be rolled up like a scroll, and all their stars will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like foliage from the fig tree.

5When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, then it will come down upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction.

6The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood. It drips with fat— with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

7And the wild oxen will fall with them, the young bulls with the strong ones. Their land will be drenched with blood, and their soil will be soaked with fat.

8For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

9Edom’s streams will be turned to tar, and her soil to sulfur; her land will become a blazing pitch.

10It will not be quenched—day or night. Its smoke will ascend forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will ever again pass through it.

11The desert owl and screech owl will possess it, and the great owl and raven will dwell in it. The LORD will stretch out over Edom a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of destruction.

12No nobles will be left to proclaim a king, and all her princes will come to nothing.

13Her towers will be overgrown with thorns, her fortresses with thistles and briers. She will become a haunt for jackals, an abode for ostriches.

14The desert creatures will meet with hyenas, and one wild goat will call to another. There the night creature will settle and find her place of repose.

15There the owl will make her nest; she will lay and hatch her eggs and gather her brood under her shadow. Even there the birds of prey will gather, each with its mate.

16Search and read the scroll of the LORD: Not one of these will go missing, not one will lack her mate, because He has ordered it by His mouth, and He will gather them by His Spirit.

17He has allotted their portion; His hand has distributed it by measure. They will possess it forever; they will dwell in it from generation to generation.

1The wilderness and the dry land will be glad; the desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.

2It will bloom profusely and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God.

3Strengthen the limp hands and steady the feeble knees!

4Say to those with anxious hearts: “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With divine retribution He will come to save you.”

5Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

6Then the lame will leap like a deer and the mute tongue will shout for joy. For waters will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.

7The parched ground will become a pool, the thirsty land springs of water. In the haunt where jackals once lay, there will be grass and reeds and papyrus.

8And there will be a highway called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not travel it— only those who walk in the Way— and fools will not stray onto it.

9No lion will be there, and no vicious beast will go up on it. Such will not be found there, but the redeemed will walk upon it.

10So the redeemed of the LORD will return and enter Zion with singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee.

1In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and captured all the fortified cities of Judah.

2And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh, with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stopped by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

3Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph the recorder, went out to him.

4The Rabshakeh said to them, “Tell Hezekiah that this is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What is the basis of this confidence of yours?

5You claim to have a strategy and strength for war, but these are empty words. In whom are you now trusting, that you have rebelled against me?

6Look now, you are trusting in Egypt, that splintered reed of a staff that will pierce the hand of anyone who leans on it. Such is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him.

7But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the LORD our God,’ is He not the One whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, ‘You must worship before this altar’?

8Now, therefore, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them!

9For how can you repel a single officer among the least of my master’s servants when you depend on Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

10So now, was it apart from the LORD that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The LORD Himself said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”

11Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, since we understand it. Do not speak to us in Hebrew in the hearing of the people on the wall.”

12But the Rabshakeh replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to you and your master, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”

13Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out loudly in Hebrew: “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria!

14This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, for he cannot deliver you.

15Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’

16Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree, and drink water from his own cistern,

17until I come and take you away to a land like your own—a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

18Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

19Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?

20Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered his land from my hand? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?”

21But the people remained silent and did not answer a word, for Hezekiah had commanded, “Do not answer him.”

22Then Hilkiah’s son Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and Asaph’s son Joah the recorder came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and they relayed to him the words of the Rabshakeh.