Isaiah 34

Contemporary English Version

The Nations Will Be Judged

34 Everyone of every nation,
    the entire earth,
and all its creatures,
    come here and listen!
²The Lord is terribly angry
    with the nations;
he has condemned them
    to be slaughtered.
³Their dead bodies will be left
    to rot and stink;
their blood will flow
    down the mountains.
⁴^(A) Each star^[a] will disappear—
the sky will roll up
    like a scroll.^[b]
Everything in the sky
    will dry up and wilt
like leaves on a vine
    or fruit on a tree.

Trouble for Edom

⁵^(B) After the sword of the Lord
has done what it wants
to the skies above,^[c]
it will come down on Edom,
the nation that the Lord
has doomed for destruction.

⁶The sword of the Lord
is covered with blood
    from lambs and goats,
together with fat
    from kidneys of rams.
This is because the Lord
    will slaughter many people
and make a sacrifice of them
    in the city of Bozrah
and everywhere else
    in Edom.
⁷Edom's leaders are wild oxen.
They are powerful bulls,
    but they will die
    with the others.
Their country will be soaked
    with their own blood,
and its soil made fertile
    with their own fat.

⁸The Lord has chosen
    the year and the day,
when he will take revenge
    and come to Zion's defense.
⁹Edom's streams will turn into tar
    and its soil into sulfur—
then the whole country
    will go up in flames.
¹⁰^(C) It will burn night and day
    and never stop smoking.
Edom will be a desert,
    generation after generation;
no one will ever travel
    through that land.
¹¹Owls, hawks, and wild animals^[d]
    will make it their home.
God will leave it in ruins,
    merely a pile of rocks.

The End of Edom

¹²Edom will be called
    “Kingdom of Nothing.”
Its rulers will also be nothing.
¹³Its palaces and fortresses
    will be covered with thorns;
only wolves and ostriches
    will make their home there.
¹⁴Wildcats and hyenas
    will hunt together,
demons will scream to demons,
and creatures of the night
    will live among the ruins.
¹⁵Owls will nest there
to raise their young
    among its shadows,^[e]
while families of vultures
    circle around.

¹⁶In The Book of the Lord^[f]
you can search and find
    where it is written,
“The Lord brought together
    all of his creatures
by the power of his Spirit.
    Not one is missing.”
¹⁷The Lord has decided
    where they each should live;
they will be there forever,
    generation after generation.

Footnotes

34.4 star: Stars were worshiped as gods.
34.4 scroll: A roll of paper or specially prepared leather used for writing on.
34.5 has done … above: The Standard Hebrew Text; the Dead Sea Scrolls “appears in the skies above.”
34.11 Owls … animals: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
34.15 Owls … shadows: One possible meaning for the difficult Hebrew text.
34.16 The Book of the Lord: The book that Isaiah refers to is unknown.