Isaiah

¹ you people. Pay attention! Earth, you too, and everything in you. World, and all that comes from you.

² good and angry with all the nations, So blazingly angry at their arms and armies that he's going to rid earth of them, wipe them out.

³ will stink like the town dump in midsummer, Their blood flowing off the mountains like creeks in spring runoff.

⁴ like overripe, rotting fruit in the orchard, And the sky itself will be folded up like a blanket and put away in a closet. All that army of stars, shriveled to nothing, like leaves and fruit in autumn, dropping and rotting!

⁵ I'll start in on Edom. I'll come down hard on Edom, a people I've slated for total termination."

⁶ a sword hungry for well-fed flesh, Lamb and goat blood, the suet-rich kidneys of rams. Yes, God has scheduled a sacrifice in Bozrah, the capital, the whole country of Edom a slaughterhouse.

⁷ and farm animals alike slaughtered. The whole country soaked with blood, all the ground greasy with fat.

⁸ the year all Zion's accounts are settled.

⁹ the soil sterile, poisoned with waste, The whole country a smoking, stinking garbage dump—

¹⁰ the skies black with endless smoke. Generation after generation of wasteland— no more travelers through this country!

¹¹ owls and crows will feel at home there. God will reverse creation. Chaos! He will cancel fertility. Emptiness!

¹² They'll name it No Kingdom There, A country where all kings and princes are unemployed.

¹³ fortresses conquered by weeds and thornbushes. Wild dogs will prowl the ruins, ostriches have the run of the place.

¹⁴ demons and devils dance through the night. The night-demon Lilith, evil and rapacious, will establish permanent quarters.

¹⁵ infestations of ominous evil.

¹⁶ None of this is going away, this breeding, brooding evil. God has personally commanded it all. His Spirit set it in motion.

¹⁷ decreed their fate in detail. This is permanent— generation after generation, the same old thing.