1. The Message on Babylon. Isaiah son of Amoz saw it:
2-3. “Run up a flag on an open hill.Yell loud. Get their attention.Wave them into formation.Direct them to the nerve center of power.I’ve taken charge of my special forces,called up my crack troops.They’re bursting with pride and passionto carry out my angry judgment.”
4-5. Thunder rolls off the mountainslike a mob huge and noisy—Thunder of kingdoms in an uproar,nations assembling for war.God-of-the-Angel-Armies is callinghis army into battle formation.They come from far-off countries,they pour in across the horizon.It’s God on the move with the weapons of his wrath,ready to destroy the whole country.
6-8. Wail! God’s Day of Judgment is near—an avalanche crashing down from the Strong God!Everyone paralyzed in the panic,hysterical and unstrung,Doubled up in painlike a woman giving birth to a baby.Horrified—everyone they seeis like a face out of a nightmare.
17-22. “And now watch this:Against Babylon, I’m inciting the Medes,A ruthless bunch indifferent to bribes,the kind of brutality that no one can blunt.They massacre the young,wantonly kick and kill even babies.And Babylon, most glorious of all kingdoms,the pride and joy of Chaldeans,Will end up smoking and stinking like Sodom,and, yes, like Gomorrah, when God had finished with them.No one will live there anymore,generation after generation a ghost town.Not even Bedouins will pitch tents there.Shepherds will give it a wide berth.But strange and wild animals will like it just fine,filling the vacant houses with eerie night sounds.Skunks will make it their home,and unspeakable night hags will haunt it.Hyenas will curdle your blood with their laughing,and the howling of coyotes will give you the shivers.“Babylon is doomed.It won’t be long now.”