Isaiah 13:9-22 - God's Judgment Against Babylon

⁹ Watch out! The Day of the LORD is coming cruel, with wrath and fierce anger to turn the entire inhabited earth into a desolation and to annihilate sinners from it. ¹⁰ For the stars of the heavens and their constellations won't shine their light; the sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon won't shine its light. ¹¹ I'll punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I'll put an end to the pomposity of the arrogant, and overthrow the insolence of tyrants. ¹² I'll make people scarcer than pure gold, and mankind rarer than gold from Ophir. ¹³ Therefore I'll make the heavens tremble. The earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the LORD of the Heavenly Armies, at the time of his burning anger. ¹⁴ They will be like a hunted gazelle, or like sheep with no one to gather them, each will turn to his own people, and each will flee to his own land. ¹⁵ Whoever is captured will be thrust through, and whoever is caught will fall dead, killed by the sword. ¹⁶ Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes, and their houses will be looted, and their wives slept with. ¹⁷ Watch out! I'm stirring up the Medes against them, who care nothing for silver and take no delight in gold. ¹⁸ Their bows will dash the young men to pieces; they'll show no pity on those not yet born, and their eyes will not spare children.

¹⁹ Babylon, that jewel of kingdoms, the splendor and pride of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah, when God overthrew them ²⁰ It will never be inhabited or lived in through all generations; no Bedouin will pitch his tent there; no shepherds will make their flocks lie down there. ²¹ But desert beasts will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures; there owls will dwell, and goat-demons will dance there. ²² Hyenas will howl in its strongholds, and jackals will make their dens in its citadels. Its time is close at hand, and its days will not be extended any further.