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Isaiah 24:1-3
New Catholic Bible
Isaiah 24:1-3
New Catholic Bible
Apocalypse of Isaiah[a]
Chapter 24
Universal Judgment: A Grateful Remnant
1 Behold how the Lord is preparing
to lay waste the earth;
he will turn it into a desert
and scatter its inhabitants,
2 with the same fate afflicting both priest and people,
slave and master,
maid and mistress,
seller and buyer,
lender and borrower,
creditor and debtor.
3 The earth will be totally ravaged
and completely despoiled;
this has the Lord decreed.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 24:1 It was probably a political disaster that inspired this striking picture, which celebrates the coming of a new world as predicted by Isaiah and later by Ezekiel. The inspired prophet sees the final judgment of the universe coming. He announces the reign of God who is victorious over all hostile forces on earth and in heaven. The city of God, which is promised a glorious future, arises before our eyes on the ruins of the city of evil. This kind of transposition of events in prophecies of judgment, this kind of intermingling of cataclysm and renewal, is characteristic of the literary genre known as apocalypse, that is, revelation of the hidden destiny of the world, with images of terror and light providing a key to understanding it.
