Isaiah 34:8-10

34:8 For the Lord has planned a day of revenge, ¹ 

a time when he will repay Edom for her hostility toward Zion. ² 

34:9 Edom’s ³  streams will be turned into pitch

and her soil into brimstone;

her land will become burning pitch.

34:10 Night and day it will burn; ⁴ 

its smoke will ascend continually.

Generation after generation it will be a wasteland

and no one will ever pass through it again.

[34:8]  ¹ tn Heb “for a day of vengeance [is] for the Lord.”

[34:8]  ² tn Heb “a year of repayment for the strife of Zion.” The translation assumes that רִיב (riv) refers to Edom’s hostility toward Zion. Another option is to understand רִיב (riv) as referring to the Lord’s taking up Zion’s cause. In this case one might translate, “a time when he will repay Edom and vindicate Zion.”

[34:9]  ³ tn Heb “her”; the referent (Edom) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “it will not be extinguished.”