Isaiah 47 :: New International Version (NIV)

The Fall of Babylon

Isa 47:1“Go down, sit in the dust, Virgin Daughter Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, queen city of the Babylonians.[fn] No more will you be called tender or delicate.

Isa 47:2

Isa 47:2Take millstones and grind flour; take off your veil. Lift up your skirts, bare your legs, and wade through the streams.

Isa 47:3

Isa 47:3Your nakedness will be exposed and your shame uncovered. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.”

Isa 47:4

Isa 47:4Our Redeemer—the LORD Almighty is his name— is the Holy One of Israel.

Isa 47:5

Isa 47:5“Sit in silence, go into darkness, queen city of the Babylonians; no more will you be called queen of kingdoms.

Isa 47:6

Isa 47:6I was angry with my people and desecrated my inheritance; I gave them into your hand, and you showed them no mercy. Even on the aged you laid a very heavy yoke.

Isa 47:7

Isa 47:7You said, ‘I am forever— the eternal queen!’ But you did not consider these things or reflect on what might happen.

Isa 47:8

Isa 47:8“Now then, listen, you lover of pleasure, lounging in your security and saying to yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me. I will never be a widow or suffer the loss of children.’

Isa 47:9

Isa 47:9Both of these will overtake you in a moment, on a single day: loss of children and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and all your potent spells.

Isa 47:10

Isa 47:10You have trusted in your wickedness and have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you when you say to yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’

Isa 47:11

Isa 47:11Disaster will come upon you, and you will not know how to conjure it away. A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom; a catastrophe you cannot foresee will suddenly come upon you.

Isa 47:12

Isa 47:12“Keep on, then, with your magic spells and with your many sorceries, which you have labored at since childhood. Perhaps you will succeed, perhaps you will cause terror.

Isa 47:13

Isa 47:13All the counsel you have received has only worn you out! Let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who make predictions month by month, let them save you from what is coming upon you.

Isa 47:14

Isa 47:14Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot even save themselves from the power of the flame. These are not coals for warmth; this is not a fire to sit by.

Isa 47:15

Isa 47:15That is all they are to you— these you have dealt with and labored with since childhood. All of them go on in their error; there is not one that can save you.

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

NIV Footnotes

(47:1)

Or Chaldeans; also in verse 5

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