1. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob,and will yet choose Israel,and set them in their own land.Then the strangers shall be joined with them,and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.
2. The people shall take themand bring them to their place,and the house of Israel shall possess themin the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids;and they shall take them captive, whose captives they were,and they shall rule over their oppressors.
3. In the day the Lord gives you rest from your sorrow, and from your fear, and from the hard bondage in which you were made to serve,
4. you shall take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say: How has the oppressor ceased!The golden city ceased!
5. The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked,and the scepter of the rulers;
6. he who struck the people in wrath with unceasing strokes,he who ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and no one hinders.
7. The whole earth is at rest and is quiet;they break forth into singing.
8. Indeed, the fir trees rejoice at you,and the cedars of Lebanon, saying,“Since you are laid down,no tree cutter has come up against us.”
9. Hell from beneath is moved for youto meet you at your coming;it stirs up the dead for you,even all the chief ones of the earth;it has raised up from their thronesall the kings of the nations.
10. They all shall speakand say to you:“Have you also become as weak as we have?Have you become like us?”
11. Your pomp is brought down to Hell,and the noise of your harps;maggots are spread under you,and the worms cover you.
12. How are you fallen from heaven,O Lucifer, son of the morning!How you are cut down to the ground,you who weaken the nations!
13. For you have said in your heart,“I will ascend into heaven,I will exalt my throneabove the stars of God;I will sit also on the mount of the congregation,in the recesses of the north;
14. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,I will be like the Most High.”
15. Yet you shall be brought down to Hell,to the sides of the pit.
16. Those who see you shall stare at youand ponder over you:“Is this the man who made the earthto tremble and shook kingdoms,
17. who made the world as a wildernessand destroyed its cities,who did not open the house of his prisoners?”
18. All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory,each one in his own tomb;