God Will Punish His Enemies

¹Come, people of all nations! Gather around and listen. Let the whole earth and everyone living on it come here and listen.

²The Lord is angry with all the nations and all their armies. He has condemned them to destruction.

³Their corpses will not be buried, but will lie there rotting and stinking; and the mountains will be red with blood.

⁴The sun, moon, and stars will crumble to dust. The sky will disappear like a scroll being rolled up, and the stars will fall like leaves dropping from a vine or a fig tree.

⁵The Lord has prepared his sword in heaven, and now it will strike Edom, those people whom he has condemned to destruction.

⁶His sword will be covered with their blood and fat, like the blood and fat of lambs and goats that are sacrificed. The Lord will offer this sacrifice in the city of Bozrah; he will make this a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

⁷The people will fall like wild oxen and young bulls, and the earth will be red with blood and covered with fat.

⁸This is the time when the Lord will rescue Zion and take vengeance on her enemies.

⁹The rivers of Edom will turn into tar, and the soil will turn into sulfur. The whole country will burn like tar.

¹⁰It will burn day and night, and smoke will rise from it forever. The land will lie waste age after age, and no one will ever travel through it again.

¹¹Owls and ravens will take over the land. The Lord will make it a barren waste again, as it was before the creation.

¹²There will be no king to rule the country, and the leaders will all be gone.

¹³Thorns and thistles will grow up in all the palaces and walled towns, and jackals and owls will live in them.

¹⁴Wild animals will roam there, and demons will call to each other. The night monster will come there looking for a place to rest.

¹⁵Owls will build their nests, lay eggs, hatch their young, and care for them there. Vultures will gather there, one after another.

¹⁶Search in the Lord's book of living creatures and read what it says. Not one of these creatures will be missing, and not one will be without its mate. The Lord has commanded it to be so; he himself will bring them together.

¹⁷It is the Lord who will divide the land among them and give each of them a share. They will live in the land age after age, and it will belong to them forever.

The Road of Holiness

¹The desert will rejoice, and flowers will bloom in the wastelands.

²The desert will sing and shout for joy; it will be as beautiful as the Lebanon Mountains and as fertile as the fields of Carmel and Sharon. Everyone will see the Lord's splendor, see his greatness and power.

³Give strength to hands that are tired and to knees that tremble with weakness.

⁴Tell everyone who is discouraged, “Be strong and don't be afraid! God is coming to your rescue, coming to punish your enemies.”

⁵The blind will be able to see, and the deaf will hear.

⁶The lame will leap and dance, and those who cannot speak will shout for joy. Streams of water will flow through the desert;

⁷the burning sand will become a lake, and dry land will be filled with springs. Where jackals used to live, marsh grass and reeds will grow.

⁸There will be a highway there, called “The Road of Holiness.” No sinner will ever travel that road; no fools will mislead those who follow it.

⁹No lions will be there; no fierce animals will pass that way. Those whom the Lord has rescued will travel home by that road.

¹⁰They will reach Jerusalem with gladness, singing and shouting for joy. They will be happy forever, forever free from sorrow and grief.

The Assyrians Threaten Jerusalem

¹In the fourteenth year that Hezekiah was king of Judah, Sennacherib, the emperor of Assyria, attacked the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

²Then he ordered his chief official to go from Lachish to Jerusalem with a large military force to demand that King Hezekiah surrender. The official occupied the road where the cloth makers work, by the ditch that brings water from the upper pool.

³Three Judeans came out to meet him: the official in charge of the palace, Eliakim son of Hilkiah; the court secretary, Shebna; and the official in charge of the records, Joah son of Asaph.

⁴The Assyrian official told them that the emperor wanted to know what made King Hezekiah so confident.

⁵He demanded, “Do you think that words can take the place of military skill and might? Who do you think will help you rebel against Assyria?

⁶You are expecting Egypt to help you, but that would be like using a reed as a walking stick—it would break and would jab your hand. That is what the king of Egypt is like when anyone relies on him.”

⁷The Assyrian official went on, “Or will you tell me that you are relying on the Lord your God? It was the Lord's shrines and altars that Hezekiah destroyed when he told the people of Judah and Jerusalem to worship at one altar only.

⁸I will make a bargain with you in the name of the emperor. I will give you two thousand horses if you can find that many riders.

⁹You are no match for even the lowest ranking Assyrian official, and yet you expect the Egyptians to send you chariots and horsemen.

¹⁰Do you think I have attacked your country and destroyed it without the Lord's help? The Lord himself told me to attack it and destroy it.”

¹¹Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah told the official, “Speak Aramaic to us. We understand it. Don't speak Hebrew; all the people on the wall are listening.”

¹²He replied, “Do you think you and the king are the only ones the emperor sent me to say all these things to? No, I am also talking to the people who are sitting on the wall, who will have to eat their excrement and drink their urine, just as you will.”

¹³Then the official stood up and shouted in Hebrew, “Listen to what the emperor of Assyria is telling you.

¹⁴He warns you not to let Hezekiah deceive you. Hezekiah can't save you.

¹⁵And don't let him persuade you to rely on the Lord. Don't think that the Lord will save you and that he will stop our Assyrian army from capturing your city.

¹⁶Don't listen to Hezekiah! The emperor of Assyria commands you to come out of the city and surrender. You will all be allowed to eat grapes from your own vines and figs from your own trees, and to drink water from your own wells—

¹⁷until the emperor resettles you in a country much like your own, where there are vineyards to give wine and there is grain for making bread.

¹⁸Don't let Hezekiah fool you into thinking that the Lord will rescue you. Did the gods of any other nations save their countries from the emperor of Assyria?

¹⁹Where are they now, the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Did anyone save Samaria?

²⁰When did any of the gods of all these countries ever save their country from our emperor? Then what makes you think the Lord can save Jerusalem?”

²¹The people kept quiet, just as King Hezekiah had told them to; they did not say a word.

²²Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah tore their clothes in grief and went and reported to the king what the Assyrian official had said.

¹O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, from the depth of our troubled, weary souls we cry out to you.

²Hear us, O Lord, and have mercy on us, because we have sinned against you.

³You reign as king forever, but we die and are gone forever.

⁴O Lord Almighty, God of Israel, hear our prayer. We are no better off than the dead. Our ancestors sinned against you, the Lord their God. They refused to obey you, and we are suffering the consequences of their sin.

⁵Forget the sinful things that our ancestors did in the past; at a time like this, think only of your power and reputation,

⁶for you are the Lord our God, and we will praise you.

⁷You have made us fear you, so that we might pray to you. Here in exile we will praise you because we have turned away from the sins of our ancestors.

⁸You have scattered us among the nations, and you have made them despise and curse us. You are punishing us for the sins of our ancestors when they rebelled against you, the Lord our God.

In Praise of Wisdom

⁹Listen, Israel, to the commands that promise life; pay attention, and you will become wise.

¹⁰Why is it, Israel, that you find yourself in an enemy land? Why have you grown old in a foreign country? You are ritually unclean, like the dead;

¹¹you are already counted among the dead. But why?

¹²It is because you have left the source of Wisdom!

¹³If you had walked in God's ways, you would have lived in peace forever.

¹⁴Learn where understanding, strength, and insight are to be found. Then you will know where to find a long and full life, light to guide you, and peace.

¹⁵No one has ever found where Wisdom lives or has entered her treasure house,

^16-17and those who have tried have vanished: the rulers of the nations, those who hunted wild animals and birds for sport, those who accumulated vast fortunes of silver and gold, which everyone trusts and will do anything to get,

¹⁸and those who worried and schemed to make money, but who left no trace of their work behind.

¹⁹They have all disappeared and gone down to the world of the dead. Others have come along to take their place.

²⁰A later generation was born and lived in the land, but they too did not discover the way to knowledge. They did not find the path to Wisdom or ever reach her.

²¹Their children also failed.

²²Wisdom was not found by the Canaanites. It has not been discovered by the Edomites

²³although they search after knowledge. The way to Wisdom has not been found by the merchants of Merran and Tema or by those who relate fables or by any others who seek understanding.

²⁴O Israel, how great is the universe in which God dwells! How vast is all that he possesses!

²⁵There is no end to it; there is no way to measure how wide or how high it is.

²⁶Here in early times the famous giants were born, a mighty race skilled in war.

²⁷But God did not choose them to be his people or show them the way of knowledge.

²⁸They died out because they had neither understanding nor insight.

²⁹No one has ever gone up into heaven to get Wisdom and bring her down out of the clouds.

³⁰No one has sailed across the seas to find Wisdom or bought her with precious gold.

³¹No one knows how to get to her or how to discover the path that leads to her.

³²The only one who knows Wisdom is God, and he knows all things. With his understanding he found her. He established the earth for all time and filled it with all kinds of animals.

³³The light trembled and obeyed when he called. He sent it forth, and it appeared.

³⁴He called the stars, and they promptly answered; they took their places and gladly shone to please the one who made them.

³⁵He is our God, and there is none like him.

³⁶He discovered the entire path leading to understanding and gave Wisdom to his servant Israel, whom he loved.

³⁷From that time on, Wisdom appeared on earth and lived among us.

¹Wisdom is the book of God's commandments, the Law that will last forever. All who hold onto her will live, but those who abandon her will die.

²Turn to Wisdom, people of Israel, and take hold of her. Make your way toward the splendor of her light.

³Do not surrender our glorious privileges to any other people.

⁴How happy we are, people of Israel; we have the advantage of knowing what is pleasing to God!

Comfort for Jerusalem

⁵Take courage, my people, you are the ones who keep Israel's name alive.

⁶You were sold to Gentile nations, but not to be destroyed. Because you made God angry, he handed you over to your enemies.

⁷When you offered sacrifices to demons instead of to God, you angered the one who made you.

⁸You forgot the Eternal God, who had nourished you as a child, and so you brought grief to Jerusalem, who had been like a mother to you.

⁹Jerusalem saw that God was punishing you because he was angry, and she said to all the neighboring cities, Look at the great misery that God has brought on me.

¹⁰I saw my sons and daughters taken into captivity, a captivity brought on them by the Eternal God.

¹¹I brought up my children with great delight, but I cried and mourned when they were taken from me.

¹²Let no one take pleasure in my suffering now that I am a widow and so many of my children have been taken from me. They turned away from God's Law, and their sins have made me a deserted city.

¹³They had no respect for his commandments and would not live by them; they refused to let him guide them in the way of righteousness.

¹⁴All you neighboring cities, come and consider how the Eternal God has sent my children into exile.

¹⁵He brought against them a nation from far away, a shameless nation that speaks a foreign language and has no respect for the elderly and no pity for children.

¹⁶These people carried off my beloved sons and took away my daughters, and I was left a widow, completely alone.

¹⁷My children in exile, I can do nothing to help you.

¹⁸Only the one who brought this punishment upon you can rescue you from your enemies.

¹⁹Go your own way, my children; live your own life! I am all alone.

²⁰I have taken off the robes I wore during days of peace, and I have dressed myself like a person in mourning. I will cry out to the Eternal God for help as long as I live.

²¹Take courage, my children, and cry out to God for help. He will rescue you from oppression, from the power of your enemies.

²²I am confident that the Eternal God will soon set you free. The Holy One, your eternal savior, will make me happy when he shows you mercy.

²³I cried and wailed when you were taken away, but God will bring you back and will make me happy forever.

²⁴Just as the neighboring cities watched as you were taken captive, so they will soon see the Eternal God coming in glorious splendor to rescue you.

²⁵My children, endure God's punishment with patience. Your enemies have persecuted you, but you will soon see them destroyed and at your mercy.

²⁶My children, I spoiled you with love, but you have had to follow rugged paths; you were carried off like sheep caught in an enemy raid.

²⁷Take courage, my children, and cry out to God for help. He punished you, but he will not forget you.

²⁸Just as you were once determined to turn away from God, now turn back and serve him with ten times more determination.

²⁹The one who brought these calamities upon you will rescue you and bring you everlasting joy.

Jerusalem Is Assured of Help

³⁰Take courage, Jerusalem. God, who gave you your name, will now bring comfort to you.

³¹Misery will come to those who mistreated you and then rejoiced when you fell.

³²Misery will come to those cities that made your children slaves. Misery will be the fate of Babylon, that city which swallowed up your children.

³³Just as that city rejoiced when you fell and took delight in your ruin, so now she will mourn when she herself is deserted.

³⁴I will turn her proud boastings into mourning and take away her large population in which she took pride.

³⁵I, the Eternal God, will send down fire on her, and it will burn for many days. Her ruins will be haunted by demons for a long time to come.

³⁶Look to the east, Jerusalem, and see the joy that God is bringing to you.

³⁷Look, your children are coming home, the children that were taken from you. They have been gathered together from the east and from the west by the command of God, the Holy One. And now they are coming home, rejoicing in the glory of God.

²¹You can be sure that evil people will be punished, but the righteous will escape.

²²Beauty in a woman without good judgment is like a gold ring in a pig's snout.

²³What good people want always results in good; when the wicked get what they want, everyone is angry.

²⁴Some people spend their money freely and still grow richer. Others are cautious, and yet grow poorer.