This is what the Lord GOD said: “Son of man, speak to all the birds and wild animals for me. Tell them, ‘Come here! Come here! Gather around. Come eat this sacrifice I am preparing for you. There will be a very big sacrifice on the mountains of Israel. Come, eat the meat and drink the blood.
So I will show them my anger—I will completely destroy them. I will punish them for the evil things they have done. It is all their fault.” This is what the Lord GOD said.
The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces and all her fortresses. He has made much sadness and crying for the dead in Daughter Judah.
They said to Isaiah, “King Hezekiah has commanded that today will be a special day for sorrow and sadness. It will be a very sad day—as sad as when a baby should be born, but there is not enough strength for the birth.
Then the palace manager (Eliakim son of Hilkiah), the royal secretary (Shebna), and the record keeper (Joah son of Asaph) went to Hezekiah. Their clothes were torn to show they were upset. They told Hezekiah everything the Assyrian commander had said.
The Lord decided there should be a time for killing in Bozrah and in Edom. So the sword of the Lord is covered with blood and fat. The blood is from the “goats.” The fat is from the kidneys of the “rams.”
That night, the people will be frightened. By morning, nothing will be left. So our enemies will get nothing. They will come to our land, but nothing will be there.
There will be crying and sadness in the meeting places by the city gates. Jerusalem will sit there empty, like a woman who has lost everything to thieves and robbers and now just sits on the ground and cries.