Yeshayahu - Chapter 14

1. For the Lord shall have mercy on Jacob and again choose Israel, and He shall place them on their soil, and the strangers shall accompany them and join the House of Jacob.

2. And peoples shall take them and bring them to their place, and the House of Israel shall inherit them on the soil of the Lord, for slaves and maidservants, and they shall be captors to their captors and rule over those who dominate over them.

3. And it shall come to pass on the day the Lord allows you to rest from your sorrow and from your shuddering, and from the hard work that you were made to serve.

4. And you shall bear this parable against the king of Babylon, and you shall say, "How has the dominator ceased, has ceased the haughty one!

5. The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the rod of the rulers.

6. Who would smite peoples with wrath, incessant blows, ruling nations with anger, pursued without relenting.

7. 'All the land rested, became tranquil,' they opened [their mouth] in song.

8. Box trees, too, rejoiced at you, the cedars of the Lebanon; 'Since you were laid low, the cutter will not come upon us.'

9. Gehinnom from beneath quaked for you, toward your arrival; it aroused for you the giants, all the chiefs of the earth; it caused all the kings of the nations to rise from their thrones.

10. All of them shall speak up and say to you, 'Have you too become weak like us? Have you become like us?'

11. Your pride has been lowered into Gehinnom, the stirring of your psalteries. Maggots are spread under you, and worms cover you.

12. How have you fallen from heaven, the morning star? You have been cut down to earth, You who cast lots on nations.

13. And you said to yourself, 'To the heavens will I ascend, above God's stars will I raise my throne, and I will sit on the mount of the assembly, in the farthest end of the north.

14. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will liken myself to the Most High.'

15. But into the nether world shall you be brought down, to the bottom of the pit.

16. Those who see you shall look at you; shall gaze earnestly at you, 'Is this the man who caused the earth to quake, who wrought havoc among the kingdoms?

17. Who made the land like a desert, and his cities he demolished; for his prisoners he did not open the house.

18. All kings of nations, all of them, lay in honor, each in his house.

19. But you were cast from your grave like a discarded sapling, [in] the garb of the slain, of those pierced by the sword, who descend to the stones of the pit, like a trampled corpse.

20. You shall not join them in burial, for you have destroyed your land, you have slain your people; the seed of evil-doers shall not be named forever.

21. Prepare a slaughter for his sons because of the iniquity of their forefathers, lest they rise and inherit the land, and fill the surface of the earth with enemies."

22. "And I will rise against them," says the Lord of Hosts, "and I will cut off from Babylon a name and a remnant, a son and a grandson," says the Lord.

23. "And I will make it for a heritage of hedgehogs and pools of water, and I shall sweep it away with a broom of destruction," says the Lord of Hosts.

24. The Lord of Hosts swore saying, if not as I thought, so it was, and as I planned, so it shall remain.

25. To break Assyria in My land, and on My mountains will I trample him, and his yoke shall be removed from upon them, and his burden shall be removed from upon his shoulder.

26. This is the plan that is planned over the entire land, and this is the outstretched hand over all the nations.

27. For the Lord of Hosts planned, and who will frustrate [it]? And it is His hand that is outstretched, and who will return it?

28. In the year of King Ahaz' death, was this harsh prophecy.

29. Rejoice not, Philistia, all of you, that the rod that smote you has been broken, for, from the root of a snake shall emanate a venomous serpent, and his offspring is a fiery flying serpent.

30. And the firstborn of the poor shall graze, and the paupers shall lie in safety, and I will put your root to death through hunger, and he shall slay your remnant.

31. Howl [for the] gate, cry out [for the city]; Philistia has melted, all of you, for from the North smoke has come, and there is no straggler in his ranks.

32. Now what shall the messenger of a nation announce? That the Lord has founded Zion, and therein shall the poor of His people shelter themselves.