Isaiah 14

1For Yahweh will show compassion to Jacob, choose Israel again, and settle them on their own land; then the sojourner will join them, and they will cleave to the house of Jacob.

2Nations will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will take them as an inheritance in Yahweh's land as servants and maidservants; they will be captors of their captors and will rule over their oppressors.

3It will be on the day Yahweh grants you rest from your grief, from your turmoil, and from the grievous labor in which you were enslaved.

4You will raise this parable against the king of Babylon and say, "How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!"

5Yahweh has broken the rod of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers.

6who battered the peoples in wrath with an unrelenting stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, a persecution none restrained.

7The whole earth rests and lies quiet; they burst into song.

8Even the fir trees rejoice over you, cedars of Lebanon: since you lay down, no cutter comes up against us.

9Sheol from below quakes for you to greet your arrival; it rouses the shades for you, all the earth's champions, bringing up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

10All of them answer you, saying, "Have you also become weak like us? Have you become like unto us?"

11Your majesty is brought down to Sheol with the sound of your harps; the maggot lies spread beneath you, and worms cover you.

12How you have fallen from heaven, shining one, son of dawn! How you have been cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!

13You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit on the mountain of assembly in the recesses of the north."

14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.

15But you will be brought down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit.

16Those who see you will gaze at you and consider you, saying, "Is this the man who caused the earth to tremble, who made kingdoms quake?"

17who set the world like a desert and destroyed its cities, who did not open the house of his prisoners.

18All the kings of the nations—all of them—lie in glory, each in his own house.

19But you lie hurled from your grave like a loathed branch, like the garments of the slain—those pierced by the sword, descending to the stones of the pit—like a carcass trampled down.

20You will not unite with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land; you have killed your people—no seed of evildoers will be named forever.

21Prepare slaughter for his sons because of their fathers' iniquity, lest they rise up, possess the earth, and fill the face of the world with cities.

22I will arise against them, declares Yahweh of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, son and grandson, declares Yahweh.

23I will make it a possession for the hedgehog and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction, says Yahweh of hosts.

24Yahweh of hosts has sworn, saying, "Surely as I have planned, so it will be; and as I have counseled, so it will stand."

25I will shatter Assyria in my land and trample him on my mountains; then his yoke will depart from them, and his burden will depart from their shoulders.

26This is the counsel resolved upon all the earth, and this the hand extended upon all the nations.

27For Yahweh of hosts has devised, and who will frustrate it? His hand is extended, and who will bring it back?

28This oracle was in the year of King Ahaz's death.

29Do not rejoice, whole Philistia, because the rod that beat you has broken; for from the serpent's root a viper will come forth, and its fruit will be a fiery flying serpent.

30The firstborn of the poor will feed, and the needy will lie down securely; I will kill your root by famine, and he will slay your remnant.

31Howl, gate! Cry, city! All Philistia, you melt away, for smoke comes from the north, with none alone in his musters.

32What will they answer the ambassadors of the nation? Yahweh has established Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people will take refuge.