Isaiah

¹ and leave it in ruins, Rip everything out by the roots and send everyone scurrying:

² owners and workers alike, celebrities and nobodies alike, buyers and sellers alike, bankers and beggars alike, the haves and have-nots alike.

³ totally wasted. And why? Because God says so. He's issued the orders.

⁴ the world silent and sad, sky and land lifeless, colorless.

⁵ who have broken its laws, Disrupted its order, violated the sacred and eternal covenant.

⁶ ravages the earth. Its people pay the price of their sacrilege. They dwindle away, dying out one by one.

⁷ no more songs or singers.

⁸ the shouts of celebrants, gone, the laughter of fiddles, gone.

⁹ Serious drinkers gag on their drinks.

¹⁰ Every house is boarded up, condemned.

¹¹ but the good times are gone forever— no more joy for this old world.

¹² bulldozed into piles of rubble.

¹³ This is the fate of all nations: An olive tree shaken clean of its olives, a grapevine picked clean of its grapes.

¹⁴ Out of the west they'll shout of God's majesty.

¹⁵ Every island of the sea Will broadcast God's fame, the fame of the God of Israel.

¹⁶ "All praise to the Righteous One!" But I said, "That's all well and good for somebody, but all I can see is doom, doom, and more doom." All of them at one another's throats, yes, all of them at one another's throats.

¹⁷ are everywhere, whoever you are.

¹⁸ you'll fall into the pit. If you climb out of the pit, you'll get caught in the trap. Chaos pours out of the skies. The foundations of earth are crumbling.

¹⁹ earth is ripped to shreds, earth is wobbling out of control,

²⁰ sways like a shack in a high wind. Its piled-up sins are too much for it. It collapses and won't get up again.

²¹ rebel powers in the skies and Rebel kings on earth.

²² Corralled and locked up in a jail, and then sentenced and put to hard labor.

²³ red-faced sun will skulk, disgraced, Because God-of-the-Angel-Armies will take over, ruling from Mount Zion and Jerusalem, Splendid and glorious before all his leaders.