Isaiah 34 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

Judgment on the Nations

Isa 34:1Draw near, O nations, to hear,
and give attention, O peoples!
Let the earth hear, and all that fills it;
the world, and all that comes from it.

Isa 34:2

Isa 34:2For the LORD is enraged against all the nations,
and furious against all their host;
he has devoted them to destruction,[fn] has given them over for slaughter.

Isa 34:3

Isa 34:3Their slain shall be cast out,
and the stench of their corpses shall rise;
the mountains shall flow with their blood.

Isa 34:4

Isa 34:4All the host of heaven shall rot away,
and the skies roll up like a scroll.
All their host shall fall,
as leaves fall from the vine,
like leaves falling from the fig tree.

Isa 34:5

Isa 34:5For my sword has drunk its fill in the heavens;
behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom,
upon the people I have devoted to destruction.

Isa 34:6

Isa 34:6The LORD has a sword; it is sated with blood;
it is gorged 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.

Isa 34:7

Isa 34:7Wild oxen shall fall with them,
and young steers with the mighty bulls.
Their land shall drink its fill of blood,
and their soil shall be gorged with fat.

Isa 34:8

Isa 34:8For the LORD has a day of vengeance,
a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.

Isa 34:9

Isa 34:9And the streams of Edom[fn] shall be turned into pitch,
and her soil into sulfur;
her land shall become burning pitch.

Isa 34:10

Isa 34:10Night and day it shall not be quenched;
its smoke shall go up forever.
From generation to generation it shall lie waste;
none shall pass through it forever and ever.

Isa 34:11

Isa 34:11But the hawk and the porcupine[fn] shall possess it,
the owl and the raven shall dwell in it.
He shall stretch the line of confusion[fn] over it,
and the plumb line of emptiness.

Isa 34:12

Isa 34:12Its nobles—there is no one there to call it a kingdom,
and all its princes shall be nothing.

Isa 34:13

Isa 34:13Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,
nettles and thistles in its fortresses.
It shall be the haunt of jackals,
an abode for ostriches.[fn]

Isa 34:14

Isa 34:14And wild animals shall meet with hyenas;
the wild goat shall cry to his fellow;
indeed, there the night bird[fn] settles
and finds for herself a resting place.

Isa 34:15

Isa 34:15There the owl nests and lays
and hatches and gathers her young in her shadow;
indeed, there the hawks are gathered,
each one with her mate.

Isa 34:16

Isa 34:16Seek and read from the book of the LORD:
Not one of these shall be missing;
none shall be without her mate.
For the mouth of the LORD has commanded,
and his Spirit has gathered them.

Isa 34:17

Isa 34:17He has cast the lot for them;
his hand has portioned it out to them with the line;
they shall possess it forever;
from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.

See the ESV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

ESV Footnotes

(34:2)

That is, set apart (devoted) as an offering to the Lord (for destruction); also verse 5

(34:9)

Hebrew her streams

(34:11)

The identity of the animals rendered hawk and porcupine is uncertain

(34:11)

Hebrew formlessness

(34:13)

Or owls

(34:14)

Identity uncertain

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