Dual Panel1The LORD will show compassion for Jacob and will once again make Israel his choice. He will resettle them on their native soil, where aliens will join them and attach themselves to Jacob's people.
2Nations will escort Israel to her homeland, and she will take them over, both male and female, as slaves in the LORD's land; she will take her captors captive and lord it over her oppressors.
3On the day when the LORD gives you relief from your pain and trouble and from the cruel servitude imposed upon you,
4you will take up this taunt-song over the king of Babylon: See how still the oppressor has become, how still his raging arrogance!
5The LORD has broken the rod of the wicked, the sceptre of rulers
6who in anger struck down peoples with unerring blows, who in fury trod nations underfoot with relentless persecution.
7The whole world rests undisturbed; it breaks into cries of joy.
8The very pines and the cedars of Lebanon exult: “Since you have been laid low,” they say, “no woodman comes to cut us down.”
9Sheol below was all astir to greet you at your coming; she roused for you the ancient dead, all that were leaders on earth; she had all who had been kings of the nations get up from their thrones.
10All greet you with these words: “So you too are impotent as we are, and have become like one of us!”
11Your pride has been brought down to Sheol, to the throng of your victims; maggots are the mattress beneath you, and worms your coverlet.
12Bright morning star, how you have fallen from heaven, thrown to earth, prostrate among the nations!
13You thought to yourself: “I shall scale the heavens to set my throne high above the mighty stars; I shall take my seat on the mountain where the gods assemble in the far recesses of the north.
14I shall ascend beyond the towering clouds and make myself like the Most High!”
15Instead you are brought down to Sheol, into the depths of the abyss.
16Those who see you stare at you, reflecting as they gaze: “Is this the man who shook the earth, who made kingdoms quake,
17who turned the world into a desert and laid its cities in ruins, who never set his prisoners free?”
18All the kings of every nation lie in honour, each in his last resting-place.
19But you have been flung out without burial like some loathsome carrion, a carcass trampled underfoot, a companion to the slain pierced by the sword who have gone down to the stony abyss.
20You will not be joined in burial with those kings, for you have ruined your land, brought death to your people. That wicked dynasty will never again be mentioned!
21Prepare the shambles for his children butchered for their fathers' sins; they will not rise and possess the earth or cover the world with their cities.
22I shall rise against them, declares the LORD of Hosts; I shall destroy what remains of Babylon, her name, her offspring, and her posterity, declares the LORD;
23I shall make her a haunt of the bustard, a waste of marshland, and sweep her with the besom of destruction. This is the word of the LORD of Hosts.
24The LORD of Hosts has sworn this oath: “As I purposed, so most surely it will be; as I planned, so it will take place:
25I shall break the Assyrian in my own land and trample him down on my mountains; his yoke will be lifted from my people, his burden taken from their shoulders.”
26This is the plan prepared for the whole world, this the hand stretched out over all the nations.
27For the LORD of Hosts has prepared his plan: who can frustrate it? His is the hand that is stretched out, and who can turn it back?
28In the year King Ahaz died this oracle came from God:
29Let none of you Philistines rejoice because the rod that chastised you is broken; for a viper will be born of a snake, and its offspring will be a flying serpent.
30The poor will graze their flocks in my meadows, and the destitute will lie down in safety, but your offspring I shall do to death by famine, and your remnant I shall slay.
31Wail in the gate, cry for help in the city, let all Philistia be stricken with panic; for a formidable foe is coming from the north, with not one straggler in his ranks.
32What answer is there for a nation's envoys? It is that the LORD has established Zion, and in her the afflicted among his people will find refuge.