Isaiah 13

¹This is the burden against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz received:

²Raise a banner on a barren hilltop; call aloud to them. Wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles.

³I have commanded My sanctified ones; I have even summoned My warriors to execute My wrath and exult in My triumph.

⁴Listen, a tumult on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations gathered together! The LORD of Hosts is mobilizing an army for war.

⁵They are coming from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens—the LORD and the weapons of His wrath—to destroy the whole country.

⁶Wail, for the Day of the LORD is near; it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

⁷Therefore all hands will fall limp, and every man’s heart will melt.

⁸Terror, pain, and anguish will seize them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look at one another, their faces flushed with fear.

⁹Behold, the Day of the LORD is coming—cruel, with fury and burning anger—to make the earth a desolation and to destroy the sinners within it.

¹⁰For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light. The rising sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.

¹¹I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will end the haughtiness of the arrogant and lay low the pride of the ruthless.

¹²I will make man scarcer than pure gold, and mankind rarer than the gold of Ophir.