Isaiah 13

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¹The pronouncement concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw: ✦ ²Lift up a flag on the bare hill, Raise your voice to them, Wave the hand that they may enter the doors of the nobles. ✦ ³I have commanded My consecrated ones, I have also called for My warriors Who boast in My eminence, To execute My anger. ✦ ⁴A sound of a roar on the mountains, Like that of many people! A sound of an uproar of kingdoms, Of nations gathered together! The Lord of armies is mustering the army for battle. ✦ ⁵They are coming from a distant country, From the farthest horizons, The Lord and the weapons of His indignation, To destroy the whole land. ✦ ⁶Wail, for the day of the Lord is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. ✦ ⁷Therefore all hands will fall limp, And every human heart will melt. ✦ ⁸They will be terrified, Pains and anguish will take hold of them; They will writhe like a woman in labor, They will look at one another in astonishment, Their faces aflame. ✦ ⁹Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning anger, To make the land a desolation; And He will exterminate its sinners from it. ✦ ¹⁰For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not flash their light; The sun will be dark when it rises And the moon will not shed its light. ✦ ¹¹So I will punish the world for its evil And the wicked for their wrongdoing; I will also put an end to the audacity of the proud And humiliate the arrogance of the tyrants. ✦ ¹²I will make mortal man scarcer than pure gold And mankind than the gold of Ophir. ✦ ¹³Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the Lord of armies In the day of His burning anger. ✦ ¹⁴And it will be that, like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with no one to gather them, Each of them will turn to his own people, And each of them will flee to his own land. ✦ ¹⁵Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword. ✦ ¹⁶Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives raped. ✦ ¹⁷¶Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold. ✦ ¹⁸And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children. ✦ ¹⁹And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ✦ ²⁰It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there, Nor will shepherds allow their flocks to lie down there. ✦ ²¹But desert creatures will lie down there, And their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches also will live there, and shaggy goats will frolic there. ✦ ²²Hyenas will howl in their fortified towers And jackals in their luxurious palaces. Her fateful time also will soon come, And her days will not be prolonged. ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

Where this chapter connects

Jer 50 ·23 Jer 51 ·22 Isa 13 ·9 Rev 18 ·9 Isa 14 ·9 Joel 2 ·7 Isa 24 ·5 Dan 5 ·5

Christ at the center

Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).

How Isaiah 13 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereVideoBibleProject — video overviews & word studiesBibleProject · 5–10 min · Free · evangelical
Free animated overviews of every book of the Bible, plus themes and Hebrew/Greek word studies — the best visual on-ramp to any book. (Biblical-theology, broadly evangelical, not distinctly Reformed.)
★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Seminary

★ Start hereCommentaryThe Book of Isaiah (NICOT)John N. Oswalt · Paid · evangelical
The standard evangelical commentary on Isaiah — thorough and devotionally warm.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Isaiah videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Isaiah 13YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Isaiah 13David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on IsaiahMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Isaiah 13Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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