10:5 Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, is as good as dead,
a cudgel with which I angrily punish.
10:6 I sent him
I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry,
to take plunder and to carry away loot,
to trample them down
45:1 This is what the Lord says to his chosen
to Cyrus, whose right hand I hold
in order to subdue nations before him,
and disarm kings,
to open doors before him,
so gates remain unclosed:
45:2 “I will go before you
and level mountains.
Bronze doors I will shatter
and iron bars
50:14 “Take up your battle positions all around Babylon,
all you soldiers who are armed with bows.
Shoot
For she has sinned against the Lord.
50:15 Shout the battle cry from all around the city.
She will throw up her hands in surrender.
Her towers
Her walls will be torn down.
Because I, the Lord, am wreaking revenge,
take out your vengeance on her!
Do to her as she has done!
51:6 Get out of Babylonia quickly, you foreign people.
Flee to save your lives.
Do not let yourselves be killed because of her sins.
For it is time for the Lord to wreak his revenge.
He will pay Babylonia
51:7 Babylonia had been a gold cup in the Lord’s hand.
She had made the whole world drunk.
The nations had drunk from the wine of her wrath.
So they have all gone mad.
51:8 But suddenly Babylonia will fall and be destroyed.
Cry out in mourning over it!
Get medicine for her wounds!
Perhaps she can be healed!
51:9 Foreigners living there will say,
‘We tried to heal her, but she could not be healed.
Let’s leave Babylonia
For judgment on her will be vast in its proportions.
It will be like it is piled up to heaven, stacked up into the clouds.’
51:10 The exiles from Judah will say,
‘The Lord has brought about a great deliverance for us!
Come on, let’s go and proclaim in Zion
what the Lord our God has done!’
51:11 “Sharpen
Fill your quivers!
The Lord will arouse a spirit of hostility in
For he intends to destroy Babylonia.
For that is how the Lord will get his revenge –
how he will get his revenge for the Babylonians’ destruction of his temple.
51:12 Give the signal to attack Babylon’s wall!
Bring more guards!
Post them all around the city!
Put men in ambush!
For the Lord will do what he has planned.
He will do what he said he would do to the people of Babylon.
51:13 “You who live along the rivers of Babylon,
the time of your end has come.
You who are rich in plundered treasure,
it is time for your lives to be cut off.
51:14 The Lord who rules over all
‘I will fill your land with enemy soldiers.
They will swarm over it like locusts.
They will raise up shouts of victory over it.’
51:15 He is the one who
He is the one who by his wisdom fixed the world in place,
by his understanding he spread out the heavens.
51:16 When his voice thunders, the waters in the heavens roar.
He makes the clouds rise from the far-off horizons.
He makes the lightning flash out in the midst of the rain.
He unleashes the wind from the places where he stores it.
51:17 All idolaters will prove to be stupid and ignorant.
Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made.
For the image he forges is merely a sham.
There is no breath in any of those idols.
51:18 They are worthless, objects to be ridiculed.
When the time comes to punish them, they will be destroyed.
51:19 The Lord, who is the portion of the descendants of Jacob, is not like them.
For he is the one who created everything,
including the people of Israel whom he claims as his own.
He is known as the Lord who rules over all.
51:20 “Babylon,
my weapon for battle.
I used you to smash nations.
I used you to destroy kingdoms.
51:21 I used you to smash horses and their riders.
I used you to smash chariots and their drivers.
51:22 I used you to smash men and women.
I used you to smash old men and young men.
I used you to smash young men and young women.
51:23 I used you to smash shepherds and their flocks.
I used you to smash farmers and their teams of oxen.
I used you to smash governors and leaders.”
51:24 “But I will repay Babylon
and all who live in Babylonia
for all the wicked things they did in Zion
right before the eyes of you Judeans,”
says the Lord.
51:25 The Lord says,
You are like a destructive mountain that destroys all the earth.
I will unleash my power against you;
I will roll you off the cliffs and make you like a burned-out mountain.
2:1 Blow the trumpet
sound the alarm signal on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land shake with fear,
for the day of the Lord is about to come.
Indeed,
2:2 It will be
a day of foreboding storm clouds,
like blackness
It is a huge and powerful army
there has never been anything like it ever before,
and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come!
2:3 Like fire they devour everything in their path;
a flame blazes behind them.
The land looks like the Garden of Eden
but behind them there is only a desolate wilderness –
for nothing escapes them!
2:4 They look like horses;
they charge ahead like war horses.
2:5 They sound like
like the crackling
like the noise of
2:6 People
All of their faces turn pale with fright.
2:7 They
they scale walls like soldiers.
Each one proceeds on his course;
they do not alter
2:8 They do not jostle one another;
each of them marches straight ahead.
They burst through
and do not break ranks.
2:9 They rush into
they scale
They climb up into the houses;
they go in through the windows like a thief.
2:10 The earth quakes
the sky reverberates.
The sun and the moon grow dark;
the stars refuse to shine.
2:11 The voice of the Lord thunders
Indeed, his warriors
Surely his command is carried out!
Yes, the day of the Lord is awesome
and very terrifying – who can survive
2:25 I will make up for the years
that the ‘arbeh-locust
the yeleq-locust, the hasil-locust, and the gazam-locust –
my great army