Isaiah 24

¹ See how Yahweh lays the earth waste, makes it a desert, buckles its surface, scatters its inhabitants,

² priest and people alike, master and slave, mistress and maid, seller and buyer, lender and borrower,creditor and debtor.

³ Ravaged, ravaged the earth wil be, despoiled, despoiled, for Yahweh has uttered this word.

⁴ The earth is mourning, pining away, the pick of earth's people are withering away.

⁵ The earth is defiled by the feet of its inhabitants, for they have transgressed the laws, violated thedecree, broken the everlasting covenant.

⁶ That is why the curse has consumed the earth and its inhabitants pay the penalty, that is why theinhabitants of the earth have been burnt up and few people are left.

⁷ The new wine is mourning, the vine is withering away, the once merry-hearted are sighing.

⁸ The cheerful sound of tambourines is silent, the sound of revel ing is over, the cheerful sound of theharp is silent.

⁹ No more wil they sing over their wine, liquor wil taste bitter to the drinker.

¹⁰ The city of nothingness is in ruins, every house is shut, no one can enter.

¹¹ People shout in the streets to try to get wine; al joy has vanished, happiness has been banished fromthe country.

¹² Nothing but rubble in the city, the gate has col apsed in ruins.

¹³ For at the heart of earth's life, among the peoples, it is as at the beating of the olive trees, as at thegleaning of the grapes when the grape harvest is over.

¹⁴ They raise their voices, shouting for joy, in Yahweh's honour they shout from the west.

¹⁵ 'Yes, in the east, give glory to Yahweh, in the islands of the sea, to the name of Yahweh, God ofIsrael!'

¹⁶ We have heard psalms from the remotest parts of earth, 'Glory to the Upright One!' But I thought,'What an ordeal, what an ordeal! What misery for me!' The traitors have betrayed, the traitors have acted mosttreacherously.

¹⁷ Fear, the pit and the snare for you, inhabitants of the city!

¹⁸ And whoever flees from the cry of fear wil fal into the pit, and whoever climbs out of the pit will becaught in the snare. Yes, the sluice-gates above are open, the foundations of the earth are quaking.

¹⁹ A cracking, the earth cracks open, a jolting, the earth gives a jolt, a lurching, the earth lurchesbackwards and forwards.

²⁰ The earth wil reel to and fro like a drunkard, it will be shaken like a shanty; so heavy wil be its sin onit, it wil fal , never to rise again.

²¹ When that day comes, Yahweh wil punish the armies of the sky above and on earth the kings of theearth;

²² they wil be herded together, herded together like prisoners in a dungeon and shut up in gaol, and,after long years, punished.

²³ The moon will be confused and the sun ashamed, for Yahweh Sabaoth is king on Mount Zion and inJerusalem, and the Glory will radiate on their elders.