34 Come here and listen, O nations of the earth; let the world and everything in it hear my words. ² For the Lord is enraged against the nations; his fury is against their armies. He will utterly destroy them and deliver them to slaughter. ³ Their dead will be left unburied, and the stench of rotting bodies will fill the land; the mountains will flow with their blood. ⁴ At that time the heavens above will melt away and disappear just like a rolled-up scroll, and the stars will fall as leaves, as ripe fruit from the trees.

⁵ And when my sword has finished its work in the heavens, then watch, for it will fall upon Edom, the people I have doomed. ⁶ The sword of the Lord is sated with blood; it is gorged with flesh as though used for slaying lambs and goats for sacrifice. For the Lord will slay a great sacrifice in Edom and make a mighty slaughter there. ⁷ The strongest will perish, young boys and veterans too. The land will be soaked with blood, and the soil made rich with fat. ⁸ For it is the day of vengeance, the year of recompense for what Edom has done to Israel. ⁹ The streams of Edom will be filled with burning pitch, and the ground will be covered with fire.

¹⁰ This judgment on Edom will never end. Its smoke will rise up forever. The land will lie deserted from generation to generation; no one will live there anymore. ¹¹ There the hawks and porcupines will live, and owls and ravens. For God will observe that land and find it worthy of destruction. He will test its nobles and find them worthy of death. ¹² It will be called “The Land of Nothing,” and its princes soon will all be gone. ¹³ Thorns will overrun the palaces, nettles will grow in its forts, and it will become the haunt of jackals and a home for ostriches. ¹⁴ The wild animals of the desert will mingle there with wolves and hyenas. Their howls will fill the night. There the night-monsters will scream at each other, and the demons will come there to rest. ¹⁵ There the owl will make her nest and lay her eggs; she will hatch her young and nestle them beneath her wings, and the kites will come, each one with its mate.

¹⁶ Search the book of the Lord and see all that he will do; not one detail will he miss; not one kite will be there without a mate, for the Lord has said it, and his Spirit will make it all come true. ¹⁷ He has surveyed and subdivided the land and deeded it to those doleful creatures; they shall possess it forever, from generation to generation.