Isaiah 13
13
God’s Message to Babylon
1God showed Isaiah son of Amoz this message about Babylon:
2Raise a flag on the bare mountain.
Call out to the men.
Raise your hand to signal them
to enter through the gates for important people.
3I myself have commanded those people
whom I have separated as mine.
I have called those warriors to carry out my anger.
They rejoice and are glad to do my will.
4Listen to the loud noise in the mountains,
the sound of many people.
Listen to the noise among the kingdoms,
the sound of nations gathering together.
The Lord All-Powerful is calling
his army together for battle.
5This army is coming from a faraway land,
from the edge of the horizon.
In anger the Lord is using this army like a weapon
to destroy the whole country.
6Cry, because the Lord’s day of judging is near;
the Almighty is sending destruction.
7People will be weak with fear,
and their courage will melt away.
8Everyone will be afraid.
Pain and hurt will grab them;
they will hurt like a woman giving birth to a baby.
They will look at each other in fear,
with their faces red like fire.
God’s Judgment Against Babylon
9Look, the Lord’s day of judging is coming—
a terrible day, a day of God’s anger.
He will destroy the land
and the sinners who live in it.
10The stars will not show their light;
the skies will be dark.
The sun will grow dark as it rises,
and the moon will not give its light.
11The Lord says, “I will punish the world for its evil
and wicked people for their sins.
I will cause proud people to lose their pride,
and I will destroy the pride of those who are cruel to others.
12People will be harder to find than pure gold;
there will be fewer people than there is fine gold in Ophir.
13I will make the sky shake,
and the earth will be moved from its place
by the anger of the Lord All-Powerful
at the time of his burning anger.
14“Then the people from Babylon will run away like hunted deer
or like sheep who have no shepherd.
Everyone will turn back to his own people;
each will run back to his own land.
15Everyone who is captured will be killed;
everyone who is caught will be killed with a sword.
16Their little children will be beaten to death in front of them.
Their houses will be robbed
and their wives raped.
17“Look, I will cause the armies of Media to attack Babylon.
They do not care about silver
or delight in gold.
18Their soldiers will shoot the young men with arrows;
they will show no mercy on children,
nor will they feel sorry for little ones.
19Babylon is the most beautiful of all kingdoms,
and the Babylonians are very proud of it.
But God will destroy it
like Sodom and Gomorrah.
20No one will ever live there
or settle there again.
No Arab will put a tent there;
no shepherd will bring sheep there.
21Only desert animals will live there,
and their houses will be full of wild dogs.
Owls will live there,
and wild goats will leap about in the houses.
22Wolves will howl within the strong walls,
and wild dogs will bark in the beautiful buildings.
The end of Babylon is near;
its time is almost over.”
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Isaiah 13: NCV
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The Holy Bible, New Century Version, Copyright © 2005 Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved.
Isaiah 13
13
Prophecies about Babylon
1The [mournful, inspired] oracle (#I.e. an urgent message the prophet is under compulsion to proclaim.a burden to be carried) concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw [in a prophetic vision]:
2Lift up a signal banner on the bare mountain,
Summon them [the Medes and Persians] with a loud voice,
Wave the [beckoning] hand so that they may enter the doorways of the [Babylonian] nobles.
3I [the Lord] have commanded My consecrated ones,
I have even called My great warriors,
My proudly exulting ones [the Medes and the Persians who triumph for My honor]—
To execute My anger.
4A sound of tumult on the mountains,
Like that of many people!
A sound of the uproar of the kingdoms,
Of nations gathered together!
The Lord of hosts is mustering an army for battle.
5They are coming from a distant country,
From the end of heaven [the farthest horizon]—
The Lord and the weapons of His indignation—
To destroy the whole land.
Judgment on the Day of the Lord
6Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand!
It will come as #Shod in Hebrew, forming a word play with Shaddai.destruction from the #Heb Shaddai.Almighty (All Sufficient One—Invincible God)!
7Therefore #Babylon was taken by surprise on the night of Belshazzar’s sacrilegious feast when Belshazzar was killed, and Darius the Mede was made king over Babylonia, the realm of the Chaldeans (Dan 5:30). The Chaldeans became the dominant people in Babylonia when Merodach-baladan declared himself king of Babylon. The words “Chaldean” and “Babylonian” are used interchangeably.all hands will fall limp,
And every man’s heart will melt.
8They [of Babylon] will be shocked and terrified,
Pains and anguish will grip them;
They will be in pain like a woman in childbirth.
They will stare aghast and horrified at one another,
Their faces aflame [from the effects of the unprecedented warfare].
9Listen carefully, the day of the Lord is coming,
Cruel, with wrath and raging anger,
To make the land a horror [of devastation];
And He shall exterminate its sinners from it.
10For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not flash with their light;
The sun will be dark when it rises,
And the moon will not shed its light.
11In this way I will punish the world for its evil
And the wicked for their wickedness [their sin, their injustice, their wrongdoing];
I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud
And will abase the arrogance of the tyrant.
12I will make mortal man more rare than fine gold,
And mankind [scarcer] than the pure gold of Ophir.
13Therefore I will make the heavens tremble;
And the earth will be shaken from its place
At the wrath of the Lord of hosts
In the day of His burning anger.
14And like the hunted gazelle,
Or like sheep that no man gathers,
Each [foreign resident] will turn [and go back] to his own people,
And each one flee to his own land.
15Anyone who is found will be pierced through,
And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
16Their children also will be smashed to pieces
Before their eyes;
Their houses will be looted
And their wives ravished.
Babylon Will Fall to the Medes
17Listen carefully, I will put the Medes [in motion] against them,
Who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold [and therefore cannot be bribed].
18Their bows will cut down the young men [of Babylon];
They will take no pity on the fruit of the womb,
Their eyes will not look with compassion on the children.
19And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the #The Chaldeans dominated and ruled Babylonia from 625 b.c., until their empire fell in 539 b.c., but they were known as early as 1000 b.c. as an aggressive, tribal people in the southern region of Babylonia. They were highly skilled in both the science of astronomy and the pseudo-science of astrology. They kept meticulous records of celestial motion and correctly calculated the length of a year to within just a few minutes. Babylon, their capital city, was the center of trade and learning in the western part of Asia. The classical literature of the Chaldeans was written in cuneiform, but the common language, both written and spoken in Babylon, was Akkadian that was increasingly influenced by Aramaic.Chaldeans’ pride,
Will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them.
20Babylon will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation;
Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there,
Nor will the shepherds let their sheep lie down there.
21But desert creatures will lie down there,
And their houses will be full of owls;
Ostriches also will live there, and #Another possibility is goat demons.wild goats will dance there.
22 # This prophecy was written well over a century before Babylon’s downfall in 539 b.c. Hyenas will howl in their castles,
And jackals in their luxurious palaces.
Babylon’s time has nearly come,
And her days will not be prolonged.
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