Isaiah 24

1 Look, the Lord is about to devastate the world, make it desolate, uncover its surface, and scatter its inhabitants.

2 People will be like priests, servants like masters, female servants like mistresses, buyers like sellers, lenders like borrowers, and debtors like creditors.

3 The earth will be completely devastated and plundered, because the Lord’s mouth has spoken these things.

4 The earth mourns and the world is ruined; the exalted people of the earth mourn.

5 The earth acted lawlessly because of its inhabitants. They violated the law and changed the decrees, the everlasting covenant.

6 Therefore a curse will consume the earth because its inhabitants sinned. The people living on the earth will become poor, and few will remain.

7 The wine and vine will mourn, and everyone who was cheerful will sigh.

8 The celebration of tambourines has stopped, the arrogance and wealth of the ungodly have ceased, and the sound of harps has stopped.

9 They are ashamed and have not drunk wine; strong drink has become bitter to those who drink it.

10 The whole city became desolate. Each person will shut his house so no one can enter.

11 People wail everywhere for wine. All the land’s celebration has stopped and departed.

12 Cities will be left desolate, and abandoned houses will collapse.

13 This is what will happen in the land among the nations: as when someone strips the fruit from an olive tree, so they will be stripped, even when the harvest has ended.

14 These people will cry aloud, while those left on the land will rejoice together in the Lord’s glory. The sea’s water will be troubled.

15 Therefore the Lord’s glory will be on the islands of the sea, and the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, will be glorious.

16 We heard wonderful things from the ends of the earth: ‘There is hope for the devout.’ But they will say, ‘Woe to the people who reject the law.’

17 Fear, a pit, and a snare are waiting for you who live on the earth.

18 Whoever flees from fear will fall into the pit, and whoever climbs from the pit will be caught in the snare. Heaven’s windows have opened, and the earth’s foundations will shake.

19 The earth will become completely confused and perplexed.

20 It reels like a drunk person overcome by wine, and it shakes like a fruit watchman’s shelter. Lawlessness has prevailed over it; it will fall and be unable to rise.

21 God will bring his hand against heaven’s army and the kings of the earth.

22 They will gather its multitude into prisons and shut them in a fortress. After many generations, God will call them to account.

23 Brick will decay and wall will fall, because the Lord will reign from Zion and Jerusalem and receive glory before his elders.