Isaiah 14

¹ Yahweh wil have pity on Jacob, he wil choose Israel once more and resettle them on their native soil.Foreigners will join them, attaching themselves to the House of Jacob.

² Peoples wil take them and escort them home, and the House of Israel wil take them as slaves, menand women on Yahweh's soil. They wil enslave those who enslaved them and wil master their oppressors.

³ When that day comes, and Yahweh gives you rest from your suffering and torment and the grimservitude to which you have been subjected,

⁴ you wil recite this satire on the king of Babylon and say: 'How did the tyrant end? How did hisarrogance end?

⁵ Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked, the sceptre of rulers,

⁶ furiously lashing peoples with continual blows, angrily hammering nations, pursuing without respite.

⁷ The whole world is at rest and calm, shouts of joy resounding,

⁸ the cypresses, the cedars of Lebanon, rejoice aloud at your fate, "Now that you have been laid low, noone comes up to fell us."

⁹ 'On your account, Sheol below is astir to greet your arrival. He has roused the ghosts to greet you, althe rulers of the world. He has made al the kings of the nations get up from their thrones.

¹⁰ They will all greet you with the words, "So, you too are now as weak as we are! You, too, havebecome like us.

¹¹ Your pride has been flung down to Sheol with the music of your lyres; under you a mattress ofmaggots, over you a blanket of worms.

¹² How did you come to fal from the heavens, Daystar, son of Dawn? How did you come to be thrown tothe ground, conqueror of nations?

¹³ You who used to think to yourself: I shal scale the heavens; higher than the stars of God I shall setmy throne. I shal sit on the Mount of Assembly far away to the north.

¹⁴ I shal climb high above the clouds, I shal rival the Most High."

¹⁵ Now you have been flung down to Sheol, into the depths of the abyss!

¹⁶ 'When they see you, they will scrutinise you and consider what you have become, "Is this the manwho made the world tremble, who overthrew kingdoms?

¹⁷ He made the world a desert, he level ed cities and never freed his prisoners to go home."

¹⁸ Al other kings of nations, al of them, lie honourably, each in his own tomb;

¹⁹ but you have been thrown away, unburied, like a loathsome branch, covered with heaps of the slainpierced by the sword who fal on the rocks of the abyss like trampled carrion.

²⁰ 'You wil not rejoin them in the grave, for you have brought your country to ruin and destroyed yourpeople. The offspring of the wicked leave no name behind them.

²¹ Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their father! Never again must they rise to conquer theworld and cover the face of the earth with their cities.

²² 'I wil rise against them, declares Yahweh Sabaoth, and deprive Babylon of name, remnant, offspringand posterity, declares Yahweh.

²³ I shal turn it into the haunt of hedgehogs, a swamp. I shal sweep it with the broom of destruction,declares Yahweh Sabaoth.'

²⁴ Yahweh Sabaoth has sworn it, 'Yes, what I have planned wil take place, what I have decided will beso:

²⁵ 'I shal break Assyria in my country, I shal trample on him on my mountains. Then his yoke wil slip offthem, his burden wil slip from their shoulders.'

²⁶ This is the decision taken in defiance of the whole world; this, the hand outstretched in defiance of alnations.

²⁷ Once Yahweh Sabaoth has decided, who wil stop him? Once he stretches out his hand, who canwithdraw it?

²⁸ In the year Ahaz died came this proclamation:

²⁹ Al Philistia, do not rejoice because the rod which used to beat you is now broken, for the serpentstock wil produce a viper, its offspring wil be a flying dragon.

³⁰ While the first-born of the poor are grazing and the destitute are resting in safety, I shall make yourstock die of hunger and then slaughter what remains of you.

³¹ Howl, gate! Shriek, city! Totter, all Philistia! For a smoke is coming from the north, and there are nodeserters in those battalions.

³² What reply wil be given then to the messengers of that nation? - That Yahweh founded Zion andthere the poor of his people will find refuge.