1 ¶ Come near, you nations, and listen; pay attention, you people: let the earth and all who are in it hear; the world, and all who are of it.

2 For the LORD is angry with all the nations, and his fury is on all their armies: he will doom them to destruction, he will deliver them to the slaughter.

3 Those who are killed will be thrown out, and the stink will rise from their carcasses, and the hills will flow with their blood.

4 And all the heavenly bodies will vanish, and the heavens will be rolled together like a scroll: all its stars will fall, like leaves falling from a vine, or figs falling from a fig tree.

5 For my sword will drink its fill from the heavens: behold, it will come down upon Edom, and upon all the people I have set apart, for destruction.

6 The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, and with fat from the kidneys of rams: for the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

7 And the wild bulls will go down with them, young bulls and strong bulls; and their land will be soaked with blood, and their soil will be saturated with fat.

8 For it is the day of the LORD’S vengeance, and a year to pay back for the controversy with Zion.

9 ¶ And its streams will be turned into pitch, and its soil to sulfur, and their land will become burning pitch.

10 It will not go out day or night; and its smoke will go up for ever: it will lie waste from age to age; no one will ever travel through it.

11 But the cormorant and the bittern will possess it; and the owl and the raven will dwell in it: and he will stretch out a measuring line and a plumb line over her, for her confusion and destruction.

12 They will call its nobles to proclaim a kingdom, but none will be there, for all her princes will be gone.

13 Thorns will come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in her fortresses: and it will be a haunt for lizards, and a feeding place for owls.

14 The wild beasts of the desert will meet with wolves and hyenas, and the wild goats will call to one another; the screech owl will also alight there, and find for herself a place of rest.

15 There the sand partridge will make her nest, lay eggs, hatch them, and gather her young under her shadow: there the vultures will also be gathered, every one with her mate.

16 Search the LORD’S book, and read: not one of these will be missing, and not one will be without its mate: for the Lord has ordered it, and his Spirit will gather them.

17 He has cast the lot for them, and his hand has portioned it out to them by a line: they will possess it forever, and live there throughout the ages.