Their slain will be left unburied, and the stench of their corpses will rise; the mountains will flow with their blood.
Parallel translations
- WEB Their slain will also be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies will come up; and the mountains will melt in their blood.
- KJV Their slain also shall be cast out, and their stink shall come up out of their carcases, and the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
- NKJV Also their slain shall be thrown out; Their stench shall rise from their corpses, And the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
- NASB So their slain will be thrown out, And their corpses will give off their stench, And the mountains will be drenched with their blood.
- NLT Their dead will be left unburied, and the stench of rotting bodies will fill the land. The mountains will flow with their blood.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The judgment is graphic and total, with the slain unburied and the land soaked in their blood.
Overview
The vivid imagery of corpses, stench, and blood-drenched mountains conveys the severity and certainty of God's judgment on the nations. Such language, common in prophetic oracles, is meant to shock hearers into recognizing the weight of divine wrath against sin. It warns of the real consequences of rebellion and magnifies the mercy offered in the gospel.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Joel 2:20The northern army I will drive away from you, banishing it to a barren and desolate land, its front ranks into the Eastern Sea, and its rear guard into the Western Sea. And its stench will rise; its foul odor will ascend. For He has done great things.
- Ezek 39:4On the mountains of Israel you will fall—you and all your troops and the nations with you. I will give you as food to every kind of ravenous bird and wild beast.
- Isa 34:7And the wild oxen will fall with them, the young bulls with the strong ones. Their land will be drenched with blood, and their soil will be soaked with fat.
- Ezek 14:19Or if I send a plague into that land and pour out My wrath upon it through bloodshed, cutting off from it both man and beast,
- Ezek 39:11And on that day I will give Gog a burial place in Israel, the Valley of the Travelers, east of the Sea. It will block those who travel through, because Gog and all his hordes will be buried there. So it will be called the Valley of Hamon-gog.
- Amos 4:10“I sent plagues among you like those of Egypt; I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you did not return to Me,” declares the LORD.
- 2 Kgs 9:35–37But when they went out to bury her, they found nothing but her skull, her feet, and the palms of her hands.
- Ezek 38:22I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed. I will pour out torrents of rain, hailstones, fire, and sulfur on him and on his troops and on the many nations with him.
- Isa 14:19–20But you are cast out of your grave like a rejected branch, covered by those slain with the sword, and dumped into a rocky pit like a carcass trampled underfoot.
- Jer 22:19He will be buried like a donkey, dragged away and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.
- Jer 8:1–2“At that time,” declares the LORD, “the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of the officials, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the people of Jerusalem will be removed from their graves.
- Rev 14:20And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and the blood that flowed from it rose as high as the bridles of the horses for a distance of 1,600 stadia.
- Rev 16:3–4And the second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it turned to blood like that of the dead, and every living thing in the sea died.
- Ezek 32:5–6I will put your flesh on the mountains and fill the valleys with your remains.
- Ezek 35:6therefore as surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I will give you over to bloodshed and it will pursue you. Since you did not hate bloodshed, it will pursue you.
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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 34:3 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.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.