1 The LORD will show compassion to Jacob; he will choose Israel once more and settle them in their own land. Foreigners will join them and attach themselves to the house of Jacob.
2 Peoples will take them and escort them to their own place, and the house of Israel will possess those peoples as male and female servants in the LORD's land. They will take captive their captors and rule over their oppressors.
3 When the LORD gives you rest from your suffering and turmoil and from the cruel slavery forced on you,
4 you will raise this taunt over the king of Babylon: "See how the oppressor has come to an end, how the fury has stopped!
5 The LORD has snapped the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers,
6 which kept beating the peoples in fury with blow after blow, and trampled the nations in anger with relentless persecution.
7 All the earth is at rest and quiet; people burst into shouts of joy.
8 Even the junipers and the cedars of Lebanon gloat over you: 'Ever since you were laid low, no one has come up to cut us down.'
9 Sheol below is all astir over you, ready to greet you when you come; for your sake it wakes the shades, all the chiefs of the earth, and makes all the kings of the nations get up from their thrones.
10 They all respond and say to you, 'So you too have become weak like us! You have become one of us!'
11 Your pride has been brought down to Sheol, together with the noise of your harps; maggots are your bed beneath you, and worms your blanket.
12 How you have fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of the dawn! How you have been felled to the ground, you who brought the nations down!
13 You said to yourself, 'I will climb up to the heavens; I will raise my throne higher than the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the farthest heights of the north.
14 I will go up above the tops of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.'
15 But no, you are brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit.
16 Those who see you will gaze at you and study you closely: 'Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble,
17 who turned the world into a desert, tore down its cities and never let his prisoners go home?'
18 All the kings of the nations, every one of them, lie in honor, each in his own resting place.
19 But you have been thrown out of your tomb like a rejected branch, covered with the slain, with those pierced by the sword who go down to the stones of the pit, like a body trampled underfoot.
20 You will not share their burial, for you ruined your own land and killed your own people. Let the descendants of evildoers never be mentioned again!
21 Get a place ready to slaughter his sons for the iniquity of their fathers, so that they do not rise up and take over the earth and cover the face of the world with cities."
22 "I will rise up against them," declares the LORD of hosts, "and I will wipe out from Babylon its name and its survivors, its children and its descendants," declares the LORD.
23 "I will turn it into a home for hedgehogs and into swamps, and I will sweep it clean with the broom of destruction," declares the LORD of hosts.
24 The LORD of hosts has taken an oath: "Just as I have intended, so it will happen; just as I have planned, so it will stand.
25 I will crush Assyria in my land and stamp on him on my mountains. His yoke will be taken off them, and his load lifted from their shoulders."
26 This is the plan decided for the whole earth, and this is the hand stretched out over all the nations.
27 The LORD of hosts has made his plan; who can thwart it? His hand is stretched out; who can turn it back?
28 This oracle came in the year King Ahaz died:
29 Do not rejoice, Philistia, all of you, because the rod that struck you is broken; for out of the snake's root a viper will spring, and its offspring will be a flying fiery serpent.
30 The firstborn of the poor will find pasture, and the needy will lie down secure; but I will kill your root with hunger, and it will slay what is left of you.
31 Howl, you gate! Cry out, you city! Melt in terror, Philistia, all of you! For smoke is coming from the north, and not one straggles from its ranks.
32 How will anyone answer the envoys of that nation? "The LORD has founded Zion, and the afflicted among his people will find shelter in her."