² “Lift up a banner on the high mountain,
Raise your voice to them;
Wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles.
³ I have commanded My ^[b]sanctified ones;
I have also called My mighty ones for My anger—
Those who rejoice in My exaltation.”

⁴ The noise of a multitude in the mountains,
Like that of many people!
A tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together!
The Lord of hosts musters
The army for battle.
⁵ They come from a far country,
From the end of heaven—
The Lord and His ^[c]weapons of indignation,
To destroy the whole land.

⁶ Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand!
It will come as destruction from the Almighty.
⁷ Therefore all hands will be limp,
Every man’s heart will melt,
⁸ And they will be afraid.
Pangs^[d] and sorrows will take hold of them;
They will be in pain as a woman in childbirth;
They will be amazed at one another;
Their faces will be like flames.

⁹ Behold, the day of the Lord comes,
Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger,
To lay the land desolate;
And He will destroy its sinners from it.
¹⁰ For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not give their light;
The sun will be darkened in its going forth,
And the moon will not cause its light to shine.

¹¹ “I will punish the world for its evil,
And the wicked for their iniquity;
I will halt the arrogance of the proud,
And will lay low the haughtiness of the ^[e]terrible.
¹² I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold,
A man more than the golden wedge of Ophir.
¹³ Therefore I will shake the heavens,
And the earth will move out of her place,
In the wrath of the Lord of hosts
And in the day of His fierce anger.
¹⁴ It shall be as the hunted gazelle,
And as a sheep that no man ^[f]takes up;
Every man will turn to his own people,
And everyone will flee to his own land.
¹⁵ Everyone who is found will be thrust through,
And everyone who is captured will fall by the sword.
¹⁶ Their children also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
Their houses will be plundered
And their wives ravished.

¹⁷ “Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them,
Who will not ^[g]regard silver;
And as for gold, they will not delight in it.
¹⁸ Also their bows will dash the young men to pieces,
And they will have no pity on the fruit of the womb;
Their eye will not spare children.
¹⁹ And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,
The beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride,
Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
²⁰ It will never be inhabited,
Nor will it be settled from generation to generation;
Nor will the Arabian pitch tents there,
Nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there.
²¹ But wild beasts of the desert will lie there,
And their houses will be full of ^[h]owls;
Ostriches will dwell there,
And wild goats will caper there.
²² The hyenas will howl in their citadels,
And jackals in their pleasant palaces.
Her time is near to come,
And her days will not be prolonged.”