The Pillars of Three Faiths: Tanakh, Bible & Qu'ran. Various Authors

His fierce anger.¹⁴And it shall come to pass, that as the chased gazelle,And as sheep that no man gathereth,They shall turn every man to his own people,And shall flee every man to his own land.¹⁵Every one that is found shall be thrust through;And every one that is caught shall fall by the sword.¹⁶Their babes also shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes;Their houses shall be spoiled,And their wives ravished. ¹⁷Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them,Who shall not regard silver,And as for gold, they shall not delight in it.¹⁸And their bows shall dash the young men in pieces;And they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb;Their eye shall not spare children.¹⁹And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,The beauty of the Chaldeans' pride,Shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ²⁰It shall never be inhabited,Neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation;Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there;Neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.²¹But wild-cats shall lie there;And their houses shall be full of ferrets;And ostriches shall dwell there,And satyrs shall dance there.²²And jackals shall howl in their castles,And wild-dogs in the pleasant palaces;And her time is near to come,And her days shall not be prolonged.

       14For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land; and the stranger shall join himself with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. ²And the peoples shall take them, and bring them to their place; and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and for handmaids; and they shall take them captive, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.

      ³And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy travail, and from thy trouble, and from the hard service wherein thou wast made to serve, ⁴that thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say:

      How hath the oppressor ceased!The exactress of gold ceased!⁵The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked,The sceptre of the rulers,⁶That smote the peoples in wrathWith an incessant stroke,That ruled the nations in anger,With a persecution that none restrained.⁷The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet;They break forth into singing.⁸Yea, the cypresses rejoice at thee,And the cedars of Lebanon:'Since thou art laid down,No feller is come up against us.' ⁹The nether-world from beneath is moved for theeTo meet thee at thy coming;The shades are stirred up for thee,Even all the chief ones of the earth;All the kings of the nationsAre raised up from their thrones.¹⁰All they do answerAnd say unto thee:'Art thou also become weak as we?Art thou become like unto us?¹¹Thy pomp is brought down to the nether-world,And the noise of thy psalteries;The maggot is spread under thee,And the worms cover thee.' ¹²How art thou fallen from heaven,O day-star, son of the morning!How art thou cut down to the ground,That didst cast lots over the nations!¹³And thou saidst in thy heart:'I will ascend into heaven,Above the stars of God Will I exalt my throne,And I will sit upon the mount of meeting,In the uttermost parts of the north;¹⁴I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;I will be like the Most High.'¹⁵Yet thou shalt be brought down to the nether-world,To the uttermost parts of the pit. ¹⁶They that saw thee do narrowly look upon thee,They gaze earnestly at thee:'Is this the man that made the earth to tremble,That did shake kingdoms;¹⁷That made the world as a wilderness,And destroyed the cities thereof;That opened not the house of his prisoners?'¹⁸All the kings of the nations,All of them, sleep in glory,Every one in his own house.¹⁹But thou art cast forth away from thy graveLike an abhorred offshoot,In the raiment of the slain, that are thrust through with the sword,That go down to the pavement of the pit,As a carcass trodden under foot.²⁰Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial,Because thou hast destroyed thy land,Thou hast slain thy people;The seed of evil-doers shall notBe named for ever.²¹Prepare ye slaughter for his childrenFor the iniquity of their fathers;That they rise not up, and possess the earth,And fill the face of the world with cities.

      ²²And I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and offshoot and offspring, saith the Lord. ²³I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts.

      ²⁴The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying:Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass;And as I have purposed, so shall it stand,²⁵That I will break Asshur in My land,And upon My mountains tread him under foot;Then shall his yoke depart from off them,And his burden depart from off their shoulder.²⁶This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth;And this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.²⁷For the Lord of hosts hath purposed,And who shall disannul it?And His hand is stretched out,And who shall turn it back?

       ²⁸In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden.

      ²⁹Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of thee,Because the rod that smote thee is broken:For out of the serpent's root shall come forth a basilisk,And his fruit shall be a flying serpent.³⁰And the first-born of the poor shall feed,And the needy shall lie down in safety;And I will kill thy root with famine,And thy remnant shall be slain³¹Howl, O gate; cry, O city;Melt away, O Philistia, all of thee;For there cometh a smoke out of the north,And there is no straggler in his ranks.³²What then shall one answer the messengers of the nation?That the Lord hath founded Zion,And in her shall the afflicted of His people take refuge.

       15The burden of Moab.

      For in the night that Ar of Moab is laid waste,He is brought to ruin;For in the night that Kir of Moab is laid waste,He is brought to ruin.²He is gone up to Baith, and to Dibon,To the high places, to weep;Upon Nebo, and upon Medeba, Moab howleth;On all their heads is baldness,Every beard is shaven.³In their streets they gird themselves with sackcloth;On their housetops, and in their broad places,Every one howleth, weeping profusely.⁴And Heshbon crieth out, and Elealeh;Their voice is heard even unto Jahaz;Therefore the armed men of Moab cry aloud;His soul is faint within him.⁵My heart crieth out for Moab;Her fugitives reach unto Zoar,A heifer of three years old;For by the ascent of LuhithWith weeping they go up;For in the way of HoronaimThey raise up a cry of destruction.⁶For the Waters of Nimrim shall be desolate;For the grass is withered away, the herbage faileth,There is no green thing.⁷Therefore the abundance they have gotten,And that which they have laid up,Shall they carry away to the brook of the willows.⁸For the cry is gone round aboutThe borders of Moab;The howling thereof unto Eglaim,And the howling thereof unto Beerelim.⁹For the waters of Dimon are full of blood;For I will bring yet more upon Dimon,A lion upon him that escapeth of Moab,And upon the remnant of the land. 16Send ye the lambs for the ruler of the landFrom the crags that are toward the wilderness,Unto the mount of the daughter of Zion.²For it shall be that, as wandering birds,As a scattered nest,So shall the daughters of Moab beAt the fords of Arnon.³'Give counsel, execute justice;Make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday;Hide the outcasts; betray not the fugitive.⁴Let mine outcasts dwell with thee;As for Moab, be thou a covert to him from the face of the spoiler.'For the extortion is at an end, spoiling ceaseth,They that trampled down are consumed out of the land;⁵And a throne is established through mercy,And there sitteth thereon in truth, in the tent of David,One that judgeth, and seeketh justice, and is ready in righteousness. ⁶We have heard of the pride of Moab;He is very proud;Even of his haughtiness, and his pride, and his arrogancy,His ill-founded boastings.⁷Therefore shall Moab wail for Moab,Every one shall wail; for the sweet cakes of Kir-hareseth shall ye mourn,Sorely stricken.⁸For the fields of Heshbon languish,And the vine of Sibmah,Whose choice plants did overcomeThe lords of nations;They reached even unto Jazer,They wandered into the wilderness;Her branches were spread abroad,They passed over the sea.⁹Therefore I will weep with the weeping of JazerFor the vine of Sibmah;I will water thee with my tears,O Heshbon, and Elealeh;For upon thy summer fruits and upon thy harvestThe battle shout is fallen.¹⁰And gladness and joy are taken awayOut of the fruitful field;And in the vineyards there shall be no singing,Neither shall there be shouting;No treader shall tread out wine in the presses;I have made the vintage shout to cease.¹¹Wherefore my heart moaneth like a harp for Moab,And mine inward parts for Kir-heres.

      ¹²And it shall