1The message concerning Baḇel which Yeshayahu son of Amots saw.

2“Lift up a banner on the high mountain, raise your voice to them; wave your hand, let them enter the gates of the nobles.

3“I have commanded My set-apart ones; I have also called My mighty men for My displeasure, My proudly exulting ones.”

4The noise of an uproar in the mountains, like that of many people! A noise of uproar of the reigns of gentiles gathered together! יהוה of hosts is gathering an army for battle.

5They are coming from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, even יהוה and His weapons of displeasure, to destroy all the earth.

6Howl, for the day of יהוה is near! It comes as a destruction from the Almighty.

7Therefore all hands go limp, every man’s heart melts,

8and they shall be afraid. Pangs and sorrows take hold of them, they are in pain as a woman in labour; they are amazed at one another, their faces aflame!

9See, the day of יהוה is coming, fierce, with wrath and heat of displeasure, to lay the earth waste, and destroy its sinners from it.

10For the stars of the heavens and their constellations do not give off their light. The sun shall be dark at its rising, and the moon not send out its light.

11“And I shall punish the world for its evil, and the wrong for their crookedness, and shall put an end to the arrogance of the proud, and lay low the pride of the ruthless.

12“I shall make mortal man scarcer than fine gold, and mankind scarcer than the gold of Ophir.

13“So I shall make the heavens tremble, and the earth shall shake from her place, in the wrath of יהוה of hosts and in the day of the heat of His displeasure.

14“And it shall be as the hunted gazelle, and as a sheep that no man takes up – every man turns to his own people, and everyone flees to his own land.

15“Whoever is found is thrust through, and everyone taken falls by the sword.

16“And their children are dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses plundered and their wives ravished.

17“See, I am stirring up the Medes against them, who do not regard silver, and as for gold, they do not delight in it.

18“And bows dash the young to pieces, and they have no compassion on the fruit of the womb, their eye spare no children.

19“And Baḇel, the splendour of reigns, the comeliness of the Chaldeans’ pride, shall be as when Elohim overthrew Seḏom and Amorah.

20“She shall never be inhabited, nor be settled from generation to generation; nor shall the Araḇian pitch tents there, nor shepherds rest their flocks there.

21“But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be filled with owls. And ostriches shall dwell there, and wild goats frolic there.

22“And hyenas shall cry in their citadels, and jackals in their pleasant palaces. And her time is near to come, and her days are not drawn out.”