Isaiah 34

God’s Judgment on All Nations

1 Come close, you nations, and listen up. Pay attention, you people of the earth. The Lord is about to speak, the world and everything in it needs to hear this.

2 The Lord is angry with all nations and furious with all their armies. He is set them apart for destruction and marked them for slaughter.

3 Their dead bodies will be thrown out, and the smell of decay will rise up. The mountains will flow with their blood.

4 The sky will melt away like smoke. The stars will fall like leaves from a tree, like figs dropping from a fig tree in the fall.

5 The Lord says, “My sword has drunk its fill in heaven, now it is coming down on Edom, the people I set apart for judgment.”

The Slaughter in Edom

6 The Lord’s sword is soaked with blood and covered with fat, the blood of lambs and goats, the fat of rams’ kidneys. The Lord’s bringing a sacrifice in Bozrah, a slaughter in Edom.

7 Wild oxen will fall with them, along with young bulls and mighty ones. The land will be drenched in blood, and the dust soaked with fat.

8 This is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, the year when He pays back for what has been done to Zion.

9 Edom’s streams will turn into tar, and its dust into burning sulfur. The whole land will become like blazing asphalt.

10 It will not be put out day or night. The smoke will rise forever. From generation to generation it will stay empty, no one will ever pass through it again.

The Desolation of Edom

11 Desert birds and wild animals will take over. Owls and ravens will live there. God will stretch out the measuring line of chaos and the plumb line of destruction.

12 Edom’s nobles will be gone, no kingdom left to rule, no one left to call it home.

13 Thorns will cover its fortresses, and weeds will grow in its strongholds. It will become a home for jackals and a place where wild owls live.

14 Desert creatures will meet hyenas there, and wild goats will call to each other. Night creatures will settle there and find rest.

15 Owls will make their nests, lay eggs, hatch them, and care for their young under the shadows. Hawks will gather there, each with its mate.

16 Search the book of the Lord and read it, not one of these creatures will be missing, not one will lack its partner. The Lord commanded it, and His Spirit will make it happen.

17 He is the one who divided the land for them and gave it to them forever. They will own it from generation to generation, living there without end.