Isaiah
Chapter 14
1 God will show mercy to Jacob and will still choose Israel, and will place them in their own land; and outsiders will join them and stick with Jacob’s family.
2 The people will take them and bring them to their place; the Israelites will own them in God’s land as servants and maids. They will capture those who had captured them, and they will govern over those who had oppressed them.
3 In the future, when God gives you rest from your sadness, your fear, and the tough slavery you were forced to work in,
4 You will say this saying against the king of Babylon: How has the bully stopped! The rich city is no more!
5 God has broken the stick of the bad people and the rod of the leaders.
6 The one who struck the people in anger with unending blows, who ruled the nations with fury, is being chased, with no one to stop it.
7 The whole world is calm and peaceful: they burst into song.
8 Yes, the fir trees are happy about you, and the cedars of Lebanon say, “Since you’ve been gone, no woodcutter has come to cut us down.”
9 Hell below is stirred up to welcome you when you arrive; it wakes up the dead for you, all the important leaders on earth; it has made all the kings of the nations rise from their thrones.
10 Everyone will speak and say to you, “Have you also become weak like us? Are you now the same as we are?”
11 Your grandeur has been brought down to the grave, along with the sound of your stringed instruments; worms are spread beneath you, and they cover you.
12 You have fallen from heaven, O bright star, son of the morning! You have been cut down to the earth, you who weakened the nations!
13 For you have thought to yourself, I will go up to heaven, I will raise my throne higher than God’s stars; I will sit on the mountain where the gods meet, in the far north.
14 I will go up higher than the clouds; I will be like God.
15 You will be brought down to hell, to the edge of the deep pit.
16 People who see you will stare and think, “Is this the man who made the earth tremble and shook kingdoms?”
17 God made the world empty and ruined its cities; He did not let the prisoners go free from their prison.
18 Every king of the nations lies in honor, each one in his own tomb.
19 But you are thrown out of your tomb like a hated branch, dressed like those killed with a sword, going down to the rocks of the pit, like a body stepped on.
20 You will not be buried with them because you ruined your land and killed your people. The children of those who do evil will never be honored.
21 Get ready to punish his children for their fathers’ wrongs; so they won’t thrive, take over the land, or cover the earth with their towns.
22 I will fight against them, says God, and I will remove from Babylon its name and survivors, children, and relatives, says God.
23 I will make it a place for owls and fill it with water holes; I will clean it out with a broom of ruin, says God of all.
24 God has promised, saying, just as I have planned, it will happen; and just as I have decided, it will remain.
25 I will defeat the Assyrian in my land, and crush him on my mountains. Then their slavery will end, and their burden will be lifted from their shoulders.
26 This is the plan made for the whole earth, and this is the hand reaching out to all nations.
27 God has a plan, and who can change it? His power is at work, and who can stop it?
28 The year King Ahaz died, this heavy message came.
29 Do not be happy, all of Palestine, because the stick of the one who hit you is broken: a venomous snake will come from the serpent’s family, and it will produce a burning flying serpent.
30 The poorest firstborn will have food, and those in need will rest safely. But I will destroy your roots with hunger, and what’s left of you will be killed.
31 Cry out, O gate; weep, O city; all of you in Palestine are breaking down: because smoke will come from the north, and no one will be by themselves at the set times.
32 What should we tell the nation’s messengers? That God has established Zion, and his needy people will find safety in it.