Isaiah 34

1Draw near, nations, to hear; give heed, peoples. Let the earth and everything in it hear, the world and all that comes from it.

2For Yahweh's indignation is against all nations, and anger against all their armies; he has devoted them to destruction, he has given them to the slaughter.

3Their slain will be hurled away, their corpses' stench rising up, while the mountains dissolve in their blood.

4All the host of the heavens will melt away, the heavens will roll up like a scroll, and all their host will wither like a leaf from the vine and like a drooping fig from the fig tree.

5For my sword has sated itself in the heavens. See, it descends upon Edom, and upon the people of my ban, for judgment.

6Yahweh's sword is filled with blood, fattened with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of rams' kidneys; for Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

7Wild oxen will come down with them, bulls with the strong bulls; their land will soak up blood, their dust be fattened with fat.

8For Yahweh has a day of vengeance, a year of recompenses for Zion's cause.

9Its streams turn into pitch, its dust into brimstone, and its land becomes burning pitch.

10Night and day it will not be quenched forever; its smoke will rise forever—from generation to generation it will lie desolate, with none passing through it forever and ever.

11The cormorant and bittern will possess it, the owl and raven will dwell there, and he will stretch over it the line of confusion and the stones of emptiness.

12They will call her nobles to the kingdom, but none will be there; and all her princes will be nothing.

13Thorns will arise in her palaces, nettles and thistles in her strongholds; it will become a lair for jackals, a courtyard for ostriches.

14Wildcats will meet hyenas, and the wild goat will call to his fellow; yes, there the night creature will settle and find a resting place for herself.

15There the great owl makes her nest, lays, hatches, and gathers under her shade; yes, vultures gather there, every one with her mate.

16Seek in the book of Yahweh and read: none of them will go missing; no female lacks her companion. For my mouth—it commanded, and his Spirit—it gathered them.

17He cast the lot for them, and his hand divided it among them by measuring line forever; they will possess it, generation after generation dwelling in it.