Fluent Translation · Read & Reflect
Isaiah 47
The Fall of Daughter Babylon
Come down and sit in the dust, virgin Daughter Babylon!
Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans.
You will no longer be called tender and pampered.
Take millstones and grind flour.
Remove your veil, lift your skirt,
bare your legs and cross rivers.
Your nakedness will be exposed, your disgrace seen.
“I will take vengeance and spare no one.”
Our Redeemer—the LORD of hosts is his name—
is Israel’s Holy One.
Sit silent; enter darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans.
You will no longer be called mistress of kingdoms.
“I was angry with my people; I profaned my inheritance
and handed them over to you.
You showed them no compassion;
on the aged you laid an exceedingly heavy yoke.
You said, ‘I will be mistress forever.’
You did not take these things to heart
or remember their outcome.
Now hear this, pleasure-loving one, sitting secure,
saying in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no other.
I will never sit as a widow
nor know the loss of children.’
Both will come upon you in an instant, on one day:
loss of children and widowhood.
They will come upon you in full measure,
despite your many sorceries and the great power of your spells.
You trusted in your evil and said, ‘No one sees me.’
Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray;
you said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no other.’
Evil will come upon you, and you will not know how to charm it away.
Disaster will fall upon you, and you cannot avert it.
Ruin you did not foresee will come suddenly.
Stand fast, then, in your spells and many sorceries,
with which you have labored from youth.
Perhaps you can gain some benefit;
perhaps you can strike terror!
You are worn out with all your advisers.
Let them stand up and save you—
those who divide the heavens, gaze at stars,
and tell you month by month what will happen to you.
Look, they are stubble; fire burns them.
They cannot rescue themselves from the flame’s power.
This is no coal for warmth,
no fire to sit beside.
Such are those with whom you labored,
your traders from youth.
Each wanders his own way;
there is no one to save you.”