1 The pronouncement Isaiah the son of Amoz saw in vision.

2 »Lift up a standard high on the mountain. Raise your voice to them. Shake the hand so they may enter the doors of the nobles.

3 »I have commanded my consecrated ones. I have called my mighty warriors. My proud ones are to express my anger, those who rejoice in my majesty excellency.

4 »Listen! A sound of tumult on the mountains is like that of many people! A sound of the uproar of kingdoms and nations gathered together! Jehovah of Hosts assembles inspects the army for battle.

5 »They come from a far country, from the extremities of the heavens horizons. Jehovah and his instruments of indignation come to destroy the whole land.

6 »Shout wailhowl for the Day of Jehovah is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty.

7 »All hands will fall impaired weakened. Every man's heart will melt courage will fail.

8 »They will be terrified! Pains and anguish will possess them. They will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look at one another in amazement with their faces reddened with excitement aflame.

9 »Behold! The Day of Jehovah is coming! It will be cruel, with fury and burning anger. It will make the land desolation and exterminate the sinners from it.

10 »The stars of heaven and their constellations will not shine forth their light. The sun will be dark when it rises and the moon will not shine its light.

11 »I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will also end the arrogance of the proud. I will demean disgrace the arrogance of tyranny.

12 »I will make mortal man harder to find than pure gold and mankind than the gold of Ophir.

13 »Therefore I will make the heavens tremble. The earth will shake from its place at the fury of Jehovah of Hosts in the day of his burning anger.

14 »They will each turn to his own people, and each one escape to his own land just like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep without a shepherd.

15 »All who are found will be pierced through. All who are captured will fall by the sword.

16 »Their infant children will be dashed to pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be plundered and their wives raped.

17 »I will stir up the Medes against them. They will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.

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

19 Babylon, the beauty honorglory of kingdoms, the majesty of Chaldean pride, will be overthrew by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.

20 »It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation! Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there. Nor will shepherds take their flocks there.

21 »But desert animals will lie down there. Their houses will be full of owls! Shaggy goats demons will play there and ostriches will dance there.

22 »Wild beasts will howl in her fortified towers and jackals in her luxurious temples. Her time also will soon come and her days will not be prolonged.«