Draw near, O nations, to hear;
And listen, O peoples!
Let the earth and all that fills it hear,
The world and all that springs forth from it.

For Jehovah's indignation is upon all the nations,
And His wrath is upon all their armies;
He has utterly destroyed them;
He has delivered them unto the slaughter.

Thus their slain are cast away,
And from their corpses their stench will come up;
And the mountains will be melted with their blood.

And all the armies of heaven will be dissolved,
And the heavens will be rolled up like a scroll,
And all their host will wither away,
As the leaf withers from the vine,
Or like a leaf withering from the fig tree.

For My sword has drunk its fill in heaven.
Now it will descend in judgment upon Edom
And upon the people whom I have devoted to judgment.

Jehovah's sword is full of blood;
It has fattened itself with fat,
With the blood of lambs and goats,
With the fat of the kidneys of rams;
For Jehovah has a  ¹sacrifice in Bozrah
And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

Wild oxen will also go down with them,
The young bulls with the bulls;
And their land will drink its fill of their blood,
And their dust will become fat with their fat.

For Jehovah has a day of vengeance,
A year of recompense for Zion's contention.

And  ¹its streams will be turned into pitch,
And its dust into brimstone;
And its land will become burning pitch.

It will not be quenched by night or by day;
It's smoke will go up forever;
It will be desolate from generation to generation;
No one will pass through it forever and ever.

But the pelican and the porcupine will inherit it,
And the owl and the raven will dwell in it;
And He will stretch over it
The line of nothingness and the plummet weights of emptiness.

As for its nobles, there is no one there whom they may call to assume the kingdom,
And all its princes will be nothing.

And thorns will come up in its citadels,
Nettles and thistles in its fortified cities;
And it will be a habitation for jackals,
And an abode for ostriches.

Desert animals will meet with hyenas;
And the  ¹demon will call to his kind,
Indeed there  ²Lilith will settle
And find a resting place for herself.

There the owl will make its nest and lay eggs,
And hatch them and gather them under its protection;
Indeed there the vultures will be gathered together,
Each with its kind.

Seek from the book of Jehovah and read.
Not one of these will be missing;
Not one will lack her mate;
For His mouth has commanded it,
And it is His Spirit who has gathered them.

And He has cast the lot for them,
And His hand has divided it by line unto them;
They will inherit it forever;
From generation to generation they will dwell in it.

The wilderness and the desert will be glad;
And the  ¹desert will exult and blossom
Like the rose.

It will blossom and blossom,
And even exult with exultation and a ringing shout.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
The splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
They will see the glory of Jehovah,
The splendor of our God.

Strengthen the weak hands,
And confirm the shaking knees.

Say to those who are of anxious heart,
Be strong; fear not;
Indeed your God
Will come with vengeance,
With the recompense of God;
He will come and save you.

Then the eyes of the blind will be  ¹opened,
And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped;

Then the lame will leap like a hart,
And the tongue of the dumb will give a ringing shout;
For water will break forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert.

And the desert mirage will become a pool,
And the thirsty ground, springs of water;
In the habitation of jackals, their resting place,
There will be grass with reeds and rushes.

And a highway will be there, and a way,
And it will be called, The Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not pass on it,
But it will be for him who walks on the way;
No fools will err in it.

There will be no lion there,
Nor will any ravenous animal go up on it;
They will not be found there;
But the redeemed will walk on it.

And the ransomed of Jehovah will return
And will come to Zion with a ringing shout,
And eternal joy will be upon their heads.
They will lay hold on gladness and joy,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away.

In the fourteenth year of King  ¹Hezekiah, Sennacherib the king of Assyria went up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

And the king of Assyria sent the Rab-shakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a great force. And he stood at the conduit of the upper pool, on the road to the Fuller's Field.

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him.

And the Rab-shakeh said to them, Say now to Hezekiah, Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, What is this confidence in which you trust?

I say, It is but a vain word that you say, There is counsel and strength for war. Now in whom do you trust, that you rebel against me?

You now have put your trust in the staff of this broken reed, in Egypt, which, if a man should lean on it, will go into his hand and pierce it, for so is Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to all who trust in him.

And if you say to me, We trust in Jehovah our God; is it not He whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and Jerusalem, You shall worship only before this altar?

Now therefore give pledges to my master, the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if indeed you are able to set riders on them.

How then can you refuse one official of the least of my master's servants and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen?

And have I now come up apart from Jehovah against this land to destroy it? Jehovah said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.

And Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to the Rab-shakeh, Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, because we understand it; and do not speak to us in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people upon the wall.

But the Rab-shakeh said, Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, that they may eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?

Then the Rab-shakeh stood and cried out with a loud voice in the Jews' language, and said, Listen to the words of the great king, the king of Assyria:

Thus says the king, Do not let Hezekiah deceive you, because he is not able to deliver you;

Neither let Hezekiah cause you to trust in Jehovah, saying, Jehovah will surely deliver us, and this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Do not listen to Hezekiah; for thus says the king of Assyria, Make your peace with me, and come out to me, and let each eat from his own vine and each from his own fig tree, and let each drink the waters of his own cistern;

Until I come and take you away to a land like your land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

Be careful lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, Jehovah will deliver us. Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?

Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?

Who among all the gods of these lands have delivered their land out of my hand, that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

But they were silent and did not answer him a word, because of the commandment of the king that said, You shall not answer him.

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of the Rab-shakeh.