34:1
Come near and listen, you nations, pay attention, you peoples. Let the earth and its contents listen, the world and its entire population.
34:2
For Yahweh is angry with all the nations, enraged with all their hordes. He has vowed them to destruction, handed them over to slaughter.
34:3
Their dead will be thrown away, the stench will rise from their corpses, the mountains will run with their blood,
34:4
the entire array of heaven will fall apart. The heavens will be rolled up like a scroll and all their array will fade away, as fade the leaves falling from the vine, as fade those falling from the fig tree.
34:5
For my sword has drunk deep in the heavens: see how it now falls on Edom, on the people vowed to destruction, to punish them.
34:6
Yahweh's sword is gorged with blood, it is greasy with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For Yahweh has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
34:7
The wild oxen will fall with them, the bullocks with the bulls; their land will be drenched with blood and their dust will be greasy with fat.
34:8
For this will be Yahweh's day of vengeance, the year of retribution in Zion's lawsuit.
34:9
Its streams will turn into pitch, its dust into brimstone, its country will turn into blazing pitch.
34:10
Never quenched night or day, its smoke rising for ever, it will lie waste age after age, no one will travel through it for ever and ever.
34:11
It will be the haunt of pelican and hedgehog, the owl and the raven will live there; over it Yahweh will stretch the measuring line of chaos and the plumb-line of emptiness.
34:12
There will be no more nobles to proclaim the royal authority; there will be an end of all its princes.
34:13
Brambles will grow in its bastions, nettles and thorn-bushes in its fortresses, it will be the lair of jackals, an enclosure for ostriches.
34:14
Wild cats will meet hyenas there, satyr will call to satyr, there Lilith too will lurk and find somewhere to rest.
34:15
The snake will nest and lay eggs there, will hatch and gather its young into the shade; and there the vultures will assemble, each one with its mate.
34:16
Search in Yahweh's book, and read, not one of these will be missing, not one of them lacking a mate; for thus his mouth has ordained it, and his spirit has brought them together.
34:17
He has thrown the lot for each, his hand has measured out their share; they will possess it for ever, and live there age after age.
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