Isaiah 34:1-17

34  Come near, ye nations, to hear, And, ye races, attend,—Let the earth hear and the fulness thereof, The world and all things produced therefrom:  That Yahweh hath wrath against all the nations, and indignation against all their host,—He hath devoted them to destruction, He hath delivered them to slaughter;  And their slain shall be cast out, And their carcases the stench of them shall ascend,—And the mountains shall melt away with their blood.  Then shall be dissolved all the host of the heavens, And the heavens shall roll up as a scroll,—Yea all their host shall fade—Like the fading and falling of a leaf from a vine, and Like what fadeth and falleth from a fig-tree.  For my sword hath been sated in the heavens,—Lo! upon Edom shall it descend, Even on the people whom I have devoted to justice.  A sword hath Yahweh—Glutted with blood, Sated with fat,—With the blood of well-fed lambs and he-goats, With the fat of the kidneys of rams,—For a sacrifice hath Yahweh in Bozrah, Yea a great slaughter in the land of Edom;  Then shall buffaloes come down with them, And bullocks with bulls,—So shall their land be soaked with blood, And their dust with fat shall be enriched.  For a day of avenging hath Yahweh,—A year of requitals for the quarrel of Zion.  Then shall the torrents thereof be turned into pitch, And the dust thereof into brimstone,—So shall her land become burning pitch: 10  Neither night nor day shall it be quenched, To times age-abiding shall ascend the smoke thereof,—From generation to generation shall it lie waste, Never, never shall any pass through it: 11  That the vomiting pelican and the bittern may possess it: And the great owl and the raven dwell therein; Then will he stretch out over it The line of desolation, and The plummet of emptiness. 12  Her nobles (but none are there!) unto royalty will call,—All all her princes shall become nought. 13  Then shall come up in her palaces thorns, Nettles and thistles in her fortresses,—And she shall become A home for wild dogs, An enclosure for ostriches; 14  Then shall criers meet with howlers, And the shaggy creature unto his fellow shall call,—Only there shall the night-spectre Make her settlement, And find for herself a place of rest: 15  There shall the arrow-snake Make her nest and lay, And hatch and gather under her shadow,—Only there shall be gathered the falcons, every one with her mate. 16  Seek ye out of the scroll of Yahweh and read, Not one from among them is lacking, None hath missed her mate,—For a mouth hath itself commanded, And his spirit hath itself gathered them: 17  Yea he himself hath cast for them a lot, And his own hand hath given to them a portion by line,—Unto times age-abiding shall they possess it, To generation after generation shall they dwell therein.

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