1 COME near, O you peoples, to hear; and hearken, O you nations; let the earth hear, and all that is therein; the world, and all that dwell in it.

2 For the indignation of the LORD is against all the nations, and his fury against all their armies, that he may destroy them and deliver them to the slaughter.

3 Their slain also shall be cast out, and the stink of their corpses shall come up, and the mountains shall be drenched with their blood.

4 And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falls from off the vine and as a falling of premature figs from the fig tree.

5 For my sword shall be sharpened in heaven; behold, it shall come down upon the Edomites and upon a people that is condemned in judgment.

6 The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, it is made fat with the blood, and with the fatness of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams; for the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah and a great slaughter in the land of Edom.

7 And unicorns shall fall with them, and bullocks with the bulls; and the land shall be soaked with their blood, and the soil enriched with their fatness.

8 For it is the day of the LORD'S vengeance and the year of recompense for the cause of Zion,

9 And its streams shall be turned into pitch and its soil into brimstone, and its land shall become burning pitch.

10 It shall not be quenched night nor day; its smoke shall go up for ever; and it shall lie waste from generation to generation; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.

11 But pelicans and owls shall possess it; ravens and ostriches shall dwell in it; and he shall stretch out upon it the measuring line of the sword, and there shall be no joy in it.

12 They shall no more call it a kingdom there, and all her princes shall perish.

13 And thorns shall sprout up in her palaces, nettles and thistles in the fortresses thereof; and it shall be a habitation of dragons and a pasture for ostriches.

14 And insane men shall meet in it, and demoniacs shall cry out one to another; there has the screech owl perched and found for herself a place of rest.

15 There shall the great owl make her nest, and lay and hatch and gather under her shadow; there shall vultures also be gathered, every one with her mate.

16 Seek out the book of the LORD, and read; no one of these shall fail, none sought for her mate; but he with his own mouth has commanded, and his spirit it has gathered them.

17 And he has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it to them by the measuring line; they shall possess it for ever; from generation to generation they shall dwell in it.