Chronological Plan

¹The pronouncement concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw:

²Lift up a flag on the bare hill, Raise your voice to them, Wave the hand that they may enter the doors of the nobles.

³I have commanded My consecrated ones, I have also called for My warriors Who boast in My eminence, To execute My anger.

⁴A sound of a roar on the mountains, Like that of many people! A sound of an uproar of kingdoms, Of nations gathered together! The LORD of armies is mustering the army for battle.

⁵They are coming from a distant country, From the farthest horizons, The LORD and the weapons of His indignation, To destroy the whole land.

⁶Wail, for the day of the LORD is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty.

⁷Therefore all hands will fall limp, And every human heart will melt.

⁸They will be terrified, Pains and anguish will take hold of them; They will writhe like a woman in labor, They will look at one another in astonishment, Their faces aflame.

⁹Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning anger, To make the land a desolation; And He will exterminate its sinners from it.

¹⁰For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not flash their light; The sun will be dark when it rises And the moon will not shed its light.

¹¹So I will punish the world for its evil And the wicked for their wrongdoing; I will also put an end to the audacity of the proud And humiliate the arrogance of the tyrants.

¹²I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold And mankind than the gold of Ophir.

¹³Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of armies In the day of His burning anger.

¹⁴And it will be that, like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with no one to gather them, Each of them will turn to his own people, And each of them will flee to his own land.

¹⁵Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.

¹⁶Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives raped.

¹⁷Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.

¹⁸And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children.

¹⁹And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

²⁰It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there, Nor will shepherds allow their flocks to lie down there.

²¹But desert creatures will lie down there, And their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches also will live there, and shaggy goats will frolic there.

²²Hyenas will howl in their fortified towers And jackals in their luxurious palaces. Her fateful time also will soon come, And her days will not be prolonged.

¹When the LORD has compassion on Jacob and again chooses Israel, and settles them on their own land, then strangers will join them and attach themselves to the house of Jacob.

²The peoples will take them along and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will make them their own possession in the land of the LORD as male and female servants; and they will take their captors captive and will rule over their oppressors.

³And it will be on the day when the LORD gives you rest from your hardship, your turmoil, and from the harsh service in which you have been enslaved,

⁴that you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased, And how the onslaught has ceased!

⁵The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked, The scepter of rulers,

⁶Which used to strike the peoples in fury with unceasing strokes, Which subdued the nations in anger with unrestrained persecution.

⁷The whole earth is at rest and is quiet; They break forth into shouts of joy.

⁸Even the juniper trees rejoice over you, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, ‘Since you have been laid low, no tree cutter comes up against us.’

⁹Sheol below is excited about you, to meet you when you come; It stirs the spirits of the dead for you, all the leaders of the earth; It raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones.

¹⁰They will all respond and say to you, ‘Even you have become weak as we, You have become like us.

¹¹Your pride and the music of your harps Have been brought down to Sheol; Maggots are spread out as your bed beneath you And worms are your covering.’

¹²How you have fallen from heaven, You star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who defeated the nations!

¹³But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount 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.’

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

¹⁶Those who see you will stare at you, They will closely examine you, saying, ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, Who shook kingdoms,

¹⁷Who made the world like a wilderness And overthrew its cities, Who did not allow his prisoners to go home?’

¹⁸All the kings of the nations lie in glory, Each in his own tomb.

¹⁹But you have been hurled out of your tomb Like a rejected branch, Clothed with those killed who have been pierced with a sword, Who go down to the stones of the pit Like a trampled corpse.

²⁰You will not be united with them in burial, Because you have ruined your country, You have killed your people. May the descendants of evildoers never be mentioned.

²¹Prepare a place of slaughter for his sons Because of the wrongdoing of their fathers. They must not arise and take possession of the earth, And fill the surface of the world with cities.”

²²“I will rise up against them,” declares the LORD of armies, “and eliminate from Babylon name and survivors, offspring and descendants,” declares the LORD.

²³“I will also make it the property of the hedgehog and swamps of water, and I will sweep it away with the broom of destruction,” declares the LORD of armies.

²⁴The LORD of armies has sworn, saying, “Certainly, just as I have intended, so it has happened, and just as I have planned, so it will stand,

²⁵to break Assyria in My land, and I will trample him on My mountains. Then his yoke will be removed from them, and his burden removed from their shoulders.

²⁶This is the plan devised against the entire earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out against all the nations.

²⁷For the LORD of armies has planned, and who can frustrate it? And as for His stretched-out hand, who can turn it back?”

²⁸In the year that King Ahaz died, this pronouncement came:

²⁹“Do not rejoice, Philistia, all of you, Because the rod that struck you is broken; For from the serpent’s root a viper will come out, And its fruit will be a winged serpent.

³⁰Those who are most helpless will eat, And the poor will lie down in security; I will kill your root with famine, And it will kill your survivors.

³¹Wail, you gate; cry, you city; Melt away, Philistia, all of you! For smoke comes from the north, And there is no straggler in his ranks.

³²What answer will one give the messengers of the nation? That the LORD has founded Zion, And the poor of His people will take refuge in it.”

¹The pronouncement concerning Moab: Certainly in a night Ar of Moab is devastated and ruined; Certainly in a night Kir of Moab is devastated and ruined.

²The people have gone up to the temple and to Dibon, to the high places to weep. Moab wails over Nebo and Medeba; Everyone’s head is bald and every beard is cut off.

³In their streets they have put on sackcloth; On their housetops and in their public squares Everyone is wailing, overcome with weeping.

⁴Heshbon and Elealeh also cry out, Their voice is heard all the way to Jahaz; Therefore the armed men of Moab cry aloud; His soul trembles within him.

⁵My heart cries out for Moab; His fugitives are as far as Zoar and Eglath-shelishiyah, For they go up the ascent of Luhith weeping; Indeed, on the road to Horonaim they raise a cry of distress over their collapse.

⁶For the waters of Nimrim are desolate. Indeed, the grass is withered, the new growth has died, There is no greenery.

⁷Therefore the abundance which they have acquired and stored up, They carry it off over the brook of Arabim.

⁸For the cry of distress has gone around the territory of Moab, Its wailing goes as far as Eglaim and its howling to Beer-elim.

⁹For the waters of Dimon are full of blood; I will certainly bring added woes upon Dimon, A lion upon the fugitives of Moab and the remnant of the land.

¹Send the tribute lamb to the ruler of the land, From Sela by way of the wilderness to the mountain of the daughter of Zion.

²Then, like fluttering birds or scattered nestlings, The daughters of Moab will be at the crossing places of the Arnon.

³“Give us advice, make a decision; Cast your shadow like night at high noon; Hide the outcasts, do not betray the fugitive.

⁴Let the outcasts of Moab stay with you; Be a hiding place to them from the destroyer.” For the oppressor has come to an end, destruction has ceased, Oppressors have been removed from the land.

⁵A throne will be established in faithfulness, And a judge will sit on it in trustworthiness in the tent of David; Moreover, he will seek justice, And be prompt in righteousness.

⁶We have heard of the pride of Moab, an excessive pride; Even of his arrogance, pride, and fury; His idle boasts are false.

⁷Therefore Moab will wail; everyone of Moab will wail. You will moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth As those who are utterly stricken.

⁸For the fields of Heshbon have withered, the vines of Sibmah as well; The lords of the nations have trampled down its choice clusters Which reached as far as Jazer and wandered to the deserts; Its tendrils spread themselves out and passed over the sea.

⁹Therefore I will weep bitterly for Jazer, for the vine of Sibmah; I will drench you with my tears, Heshbon and Elealeh; For the shouting over your summer fruits and your harvest has fallen away.

¹⁰Gladness and joy are taken away from the fruitful field; In the vineyards also there will be no cries of joy or jubilant shouting, No treader treads out wine in the presses, For I have made the shouting to cease.

¹¹Therefore my inner being sounds like a harp for Moab. And my heart for Kir-hareseth.

¹²So it will come about when Moab presents himself, When he tires himself upon his high place And comes to his sanctuary to pray, That he will not prevail.

¹³This is the word which the LORD spoke earlier concerning Moab.

¹⁴But now the LORD has spoken, saying, “Within three years, as a hired worker would count them, the glory of Moab will become contemptible along with all his great population, and his remnant will be very small and impotent.”

¹The pronouncement concerning Damascus: “Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city And will become a fallen ruin.

²The cities of Aroer are abandoned; They will be for herds to lie down in, And there will be no one to frighten them.

³The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim, And sovereignty from Damascus And the remnant of Aram; They will be like the glory of the sons of Israel,” Declares the LORD of armies.

⁴Now on that day the glory of Jacob will fade, And the fatness of his flesh will become lean.

⁵It will be like the reaper gathering the standing grain, As his arm harvests the ears, Or it will be like one gleaning ears of grain In the Valley of Rephaim.

⁶Yet gleanings will be left in it like the shaking of an olive tree, Two or three olives on the topmost branch, Four or five on the branches of a fruitful tree, Declares the LORD, the God of Israel.

⁷On that day man will look to his Maker And his eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel.

⁸And he will not look to the altars, the work of his hands, Nor will he look to that which his fingers have made, Even the Asherim and incense altars.

⁹On that day their strong cities will be like abandoned places in the forest, Or like branches which they abandoned before the sons of Israel; And the land will be a desolation.

¹⁰For you have forgotten the God of your salvation And have not remembered the rock of your refuge. Therefore you plant delightful plants And set them with vine shoots of a strange god.

¹¹On the day that you plant it you carefully fence it in, And in the morning you bring your seed to blossom; But the harvest will flee On a day of illness and incurable pain.

¹²Oh, the uproar of many peoples Who roar like the roaring of the seas, And the rumbling of nations Who rush on like the rumbling of mighty waters!

¹³The nations rumble on like the rumbling of many waters, But He will rebuke them, and they will flee far away, And be chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind, Or like whirling dust before a gale.

¹⁴At evening time, behold, there is terror! Before morning they are gone. This will be the fate of those who plunder us And the lot of those who pillage us.