14
📚✭And her time is coming near, and her days will not be prolonged.
For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob,
and once again will choose Israel,
and set them in their own land;
and strangers will be joined with them,
and they will cling
to the house of Jacob.
2 📚And peoples will take them and
bring them to their place.
And the house of Israel will
possess them as servants
and maids in the land
of the LORD,
and they will take as captives
those whose captives they were,
and will rule over their oppressors.
3 📚✭And it will come about in the day
that the LORD gives you rest
from your sorrow,
and from your fear,
and from the hard bondage
in which you were made to serve,
4 📚That you will take up this proverb
against the king of Babylon,
and say,
“How the oppressor has come
to an end,
the golden city ceased!
5 📚The LORD has broken the staff✭
of the wicked,
and the sceptre of the rulers.
6 📚The one who struck the people
in wrath with a continual stroke,
the one who ruled the nations in anger,
is persecuted,
and no one hinders.
7 📚The whole earth✭ is at rest
and is calm;
they break forth into singing.
8 📚Yes, the fir trees rejoice at you,
and the cedars of Lebanon,
saying, ‘Since you were laid low,
no woodsman comes up against us.’
9 📚“Hell✭ below is stirred up about you
to meet you at your coming.
It rouses the dead for you,
all the chief ones of the earth.
It makes all who were kings
of the nations rise from their thrones.
10 📚✭All of them will speak and say
to you,
‘Have you also become as weak
as we?
Have you become like us?’
11 📚“Your pomp is brought down
to the grave,
and the sound of your harps.
The maggot is spread out under you,
and the worms cover you.
Fall of Lucifer from heaven
12 📚✭✭“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer✭, son of the dawn!
How you,
who weakened the nations,
are cut down to the ground!
13 📚✭For you said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven.
I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God,
and I will sit on the Mount
of the Congregation✭,
in the far recesses of the north.
14 📚I will ascend above the heights
of the clouds.
I will be like the Most High✭.’
15 📚✭Yet you shall be brought down
to hell,
to the lowest depths of the pit.
16 📚✭Those who see you will stare
at you,
and consider you,
saying, ‘Is this the man
who caused the earth to tremble,
who shook kingdoms,
17 📚Who made the world like a
wilderness and destroyed its cities,
who did not allow his prisoners
to go home?’
18 📚“All the kings of the nations,
all of them, lie in honour,
each one in his own place.
19 📚✭But you are cast out of
your grave like a rejected branch,
and like the clothing
of those who have been killed,
pierced with a sword,
who go down to the stones
of the pit like a corpse trampled
underfoot.
20 📚You will not be joined
with them in burial,
because you have destroyed
your land,
and killed your people.
The offspring of evildoers will never be
mentioned again.
21 📚✭Prepare slaughter for his children
because of the wickedness
of their fathers,
so that they do not rise up
and possess the land,
or fill the surface of the earth
with cities”.
22 📚“For I will rise up against them”,
says the LORD of hosts,
“and cut off from Babylon
its name and survivors,
and offspring and posterity”,
says the LORD.
23 📚“Also I will make it a possession
of hedgehogs,
and watery swamps,
and I will sweep it with the broom
of destruction”, says
the LORD of hosts.
Against Assyria
24 📚✭The LORD of hosts has sworn,
saying,
“Surely as I have planned,
so it will happen;
and as I have purposed,
so it will stand.
25 📚I will break the Assyrian
in my land,
and trample him underfoot
on my mountains✭.
Then his yoke✭ will depart from them,
and his burden depart from
their shoulders”.
26 📚✭“This is the plan
that is purposed for the whole earth,
and this is the hand
that is stretched out on
all the nations.
27 📚✭For the LORD of hosts has formed
a purpose,
and who can cancel it?
And his hand is stretched out,
and who can turn it back?”
Against the Philistines
28 📚✭In the year that King Ahaz died✭
this was the burden:
29 📚“Do not rejoice✭,
all you of Philistia,
because the rod of the one
who struck you is broken✭;
for out of the serpent’s root
will come a viper,
and its offspring will be
a fiery flying serpent.
30 📚And the firstborn of
the poor will feed,
and the needy will lie down
in safety,
but I will kill your root
with famine,
and it will kill your remnant”.
31 📚Wail, O gate!
Cry out, O city!
All you of Philistia, melt away!
For a smoke will come from the north,
and there will be no deserter
from its ranks.
32 📚✭What, then,
will one answer the messengers
of the nation?
That the LORD has founded Zion,
and the poor of his people will find
refuge in it.