The Hebrew Prophets

The LORD is angry with all the nations and furious with all their armies. He will devote them to destruction; He will give them over to slaughter.

Their slain will be left unburied, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood.

All the stars of heaven will be dissolved. The skies will be rolled up like a scroll, and all their stars will fall like withered leaves from the vine, like foliage from the fig tree.

When My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens, then it will come down upon Edom, upon the people I have devoted to destruction.

The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood. It drips with fat— with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

And the wild oxen will fall with them, the young bulls with the strong ones. Their land will be drenched with blood, and their soil will be soaked with fat.

For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

Edom’s streams will be turned to tar, and her soil to sulfur; her land will become a blazing pitch.

It will not be quenched—day or night. Its smoke will ascend forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will ever again pass through it.

The desert owl and screech owl will possess it, and the great owl and raven will dwell in it. The LORD will stretch out over Edom a measuring line of chaos and a plumb line of destruction.

No nobles will be left to proclaim a king, and all her princes will come to nothing.

Her towers will be overgrown with thorns, her fortresses with thistles and briers. She will become a haunt for jackals, an abode for ostriches.

The desert creatures will meet with hyenas, and one wild goat will call to another. There the night creature will settle and find her place of repose.

There the owl will make her nest; she will lay and hatch her eggs and gather her brood under her shadow. Even there the birds of prey will gather, each with its mate.

Search and read the scroll of the LORD: Not one of these will go missing, not one will lack her mate, because He has ordered it by His mouth, and He will gather them by His Spirit.

He has allotted their portion; His hand has distributed it by measure. They will possess it forever; they will dwell in it from generation to generation.

The wilderness and the land will be glad; the desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.

It will bloom profusely and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon. They will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God.

Strengthen the limp hands and steady the feeble knees!

Say to those with anxious hearts: “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come with vengeance. With divine retribution He will come to save you.”

Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

Then the lame will leap like a deer and the mute tongue will shout for joy. For waters will gush forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.

The parched ground will become a pool, the thirsty land springs of water. In the haunt where jackals once lay, there will be grass and reeds and papyrus.

And there will be a highway called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not travel it— only those who walk in the Way— and fools will not stray onto it.

No lion will be there, and no vicious beast will go up on it. Such will not be found there, but the redeemed will walk upon it.