New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures — With References (Rbi8, en_US, 1984)
Isaiah
Isaiah, 34
1 Come up close, YOU nations, to hear; and YOU national groups, pay attention. Let the earth and that which fills it listen, the productive land*1 and all its produce.
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2 For Jehovah has indignation against all the nations, and rage against all their army. He must devote them to destruction; he must give them to the slaughter.
3 And their slain ones will be thrown out; and as for their carcasses, their stink will ascend; and the mountains must melt because of their blood.
4 And all those of the army of the heavens must rot away. And the heavens must be rolled up, just like a book scroll; and their army will all shrivel away, just as the leafage shrivels off the vine and like a shriveled [fig] off the fig tree.
5 “For in the heavens my sword will certainly be drenched. Look! Upon Eʹdom it will descend, and upon the people devoted by me to destruction in justice.
6 Jehovah has a sword; it must be filled with blood; it must be made greasy with the fat, with the blood of young rams and he-goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For Jehovah has a sacrifice in Bozʹrah, and a great slaughtering in the land of Eʹdom.
7 And the wild bulls must come down with them, and young bulls with the powerful ones; and their land must be drenched with blood, and their very dust will be made greasy with the fat.”
8 For Jehovah has a day of vengeance, a year of retributions for the legal case over Zion.
9 And her*1 torrents must be changed into pitch, and her dust into sulphur; and her land must become as burning pitch.
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10 By night or by day it will not be extinguished; to time indefinite its smoke will keep ascending. From generation to generation she will be parched; forever and ever no one will be passing across her.
11 And the pelican and the porcupine must take possession of her, and long-eared owls and ravens themselves will reside in her; and he must stretch out over her the measuring line of emptiness and the stones of wasteness.
12 Her nobles—there are none there whom they will call to the kingship itself, and her very princes will all become nothing.
13 On her dwelling towers thorns must come up, nettles and thorny weeds in her fortified places; and she must become an abiding place of jackals, the courtyard for the ostriches.*1
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14 And haunters of waterless regions must meet up with howling animals, and even the goat-shaped demon will call to its companion. Yes, there the nightjar*1 will certainly take its ease and find for itself a resting-place.
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15 There the arrow snake has made its nest and lays [eggs], and it must hatch [them] and gather [them] together under its shadow. Yes, there the gledes must collect themselves together, each one with her mate.
16 Search for yourselves in the book of Jehovah and read out loud: not one has been missing of them; they actually do not fail to have each one her mate, for it is the mouth of Jehovah*1 that has given the command, and it is his spirit that has collected them together.
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17 And it is He that has cast for them the lot, and his own hand has apportioned the place*1 to them by the measuring line. To time indefinite they will take possession of it; for generation after generation they will reside in it.
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