1. An oracle against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw:
2. Lift up a banner on a barren mountain. Call out to them.Wave your hand, and they will gothrough the gates of the nobles.
3. I have commanded My chosen ones;I have also called My warriors,who exult in My triumph,to execute My wrath.
4. Listen, a tumult on the mountains,like that of a mighty people!Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms,like nations being gathered together!The Lord of Hosts is mobilizing an army for war.
5. They are coming from a far land,from the distant horizon —the Lord and the weapons of His wrath —to destroy the whole country.
6. Wail! For the day of the Lord is near. It will come like destruction from the Almighty.
7. Therefore everyone’s hands will become weak,and every man’s heart will melt.
8. They will be horrified;pain and agony will seize them;they will be in anguish like a woman in labor. They will look at each other,their faces flushed with fear.
9. Look, the day of the Lord is coming —cruel, with rage and burning anger —to make the earth a desolationand to destroy the sinners on it.
10. Indeed, the stars of the sky and its constellations will not give their light.The sun will be dark when it rises,and the moon will not shine.
11. I will bring disaster on the world,and their own iniquity, on the wicked.I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant and humiliate the insolence of tyrants.
12. I will make man scarcer than gold,and mankind more rare than the gold of Ophir.
13. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,and the earth will shake from its foundations at the wrath of the Lord of Hosts,on the day of His burning anger.