Judgment on the Nations

¹ Come near, O nations, to listen;

pay attention, O peoples.

Let the earth hear, and all that fills it,

the world and all that springs from it.

² 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.

³ Their slain will be left unburied,

and the stench of their corpses will rise;

the mountains will flow with their blood.

⁴ 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.

Judgment on Edom

⁵ 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.

⁶ 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.

⁷ 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.

⁸ For the LORD has a day of vengeance,

a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

⁹ Edom’s streams will be turned to tar,

and her soil to sulfur;

her land will become a blazing pitch.

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ 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.

¹² No nobles will be left to proclaim a king,

and all her princes will come to nothing.

¹³ Her towers will be overgrown with thorns,

her fortresses with thistles and briers.

She will become a haunt for jackals,

an abode for ostriches.

¹⁴ 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.

¹⁵ 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.

¹⁶ 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.

¹⁷ 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.