Isaiah 13

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¹The burden against Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. ✦ ²“Liftup a banner on the high mountain, Raise your voice to them; Wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles. ✦ ³I have commanded My sanctified ones; I have also called My mighty ones for My anger— Those who rejoice in My exaltation.” ✦ ⁴The noise of a multitude in the mountains, Like that of many people! A tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together! The Lord of hosts musters The army for battle. ✦ ⁵They come from a far country, From the end of heaven— The Lord and His weapons of indignation, To destroy the whole land. ✦ ⁶Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. ✦ ⁷Therefore all hands will be limp, Every man’s heart will melt, ✦ ⁸And they will be afraid. Pangs and sorrows will take hold of them; They will be in pain as a woman in childbirth; They will be amazed at one another; Their faces will be like flames. ✦ ⁹Behold, the day of the Lord comes, Cruel, with both wrath and fierce anger, To lay the land desolate; And He will destroy its sinners from it. ✦ ¹⁰For the stars of heaven and their constellations Will not give their light; The sun will be darkened in its going forth, And the moon will not cause its light to shine. ✦ ¹¹“I will punish the world for its evil, And the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud, And will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. ✦ ¹²I will make a mortal more rare than fine gold, A man more than the golden wedge of Ophir. ✦ ¹³Therefore I will shake the heavens, And the earth will move out of her place, In the wrath of the Lord of hosts And in the day of His fierce anger. ✦ ¹⁴It shall be as the hunted gazelle, And as a sheep that no man takes up; Every man will turn to his own people, And everyone will flee to his own land. ✦ ¹⁵Everyone who is found will be thrust through, And everyone who is captured will fall by the sword. ✦ ¹⁶Their children also will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished. ✦ ¹⁷“Behold,I will stir up the Medes against them, Who will not regard silver; And as for gold, they will not delight in it. ✦ ¹⁸Also their bows will dash the young men to pieces, And they will have no pity on the fruit of the womb; Their eye will not spare children. ✦ ¹⁹And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, The beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ✦ ²⁰It will never be inhabited, Nor will it be settled from generation to generation; Nor will the Arabian pitch tents there, Nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there. ✦ ²¹But wild beasts of the desert will lie there, And their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches will dwell there, And wild goats will caper there. ✦ ²²The hyenas will howl in their citadels, And jackals in their pleasant palaces. Her time is near to 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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