Isaiah 13:15-19

13:15 Everyone who is caught will be stabbed;

everyone who is seized ¹  will die ²  by the sword.

13:16 Their children will be smashed to pieces before their very eyes;

their houses will be looted

and their wives raped.

13:17 Look, I am stirring up the Medes to attack them; ³ 

they are not concerned about silver,

nor are they interested in gold. ⁴ 

13:18 Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; ⁵ 

they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, ⁶ 

they will not ⁷  look with pity on children.

13:19 Babylon, the most admired ⁸  of kingdoms,

the Chaldeans’ source of honor and pride, ⁹ 

will be destroyed by God

just as Sodom and Gomorrah were. ¹⁰ 

[13:15]  ¹ tn Heb “carried off,” i.e., grabbed from the fleeing crowd. See HALOT 764 s.v. ספה.

[13:15]  ² tn Heb “will fall” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NLT “will be run through with a sword.”

[13:17]  ³ tn Heb “against them”; NLT “against Babylon.”

[13:17]  ⁴ sn They cannot be bought off, for they have a lust for bloodshed.

[13:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “and bows cut to bits young men.” “Bows” stands by metonymy for arrows.

[13:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “the fruit of the womb.”

[13:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “their eye does not.” Here “eye” is a metonymy for the whole person.

[13:19]  ⁸ tn Or “most beautiful” (NCV, TEV).

[13:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “the beauty of the pride of the Chaldeans.”

[13:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and Babylon…will be like the overthrow by God of Sodom and Gomorrah.” On מַהְפֵּכַת (mahpekhat, “overthrow”) see the note on the word “destruction” in 1:7.