Isaiah 24:1

The Message

Danger ahead! God’s about to ravish the earth and leave it in ruins, Rip everything out by the roots and send everyone scurrying: priests and laypeople alike, owners and workers alike, celebrities and nobodies alike, buyers and sellers alike, bankers and beggars alike, the haves and have-nots alike. The landscape will be a moonscape, totally wasted. And why? Because God says so. He’s issued the orders.

Cross References

Isaiah 2:19

Clamber into caves in the cliffs, duck into any hole you can find. Hide from the terror of God, from his dazzling presence, When he assumes his full stature on earth, towering and terrifying.

Ezekiel 35:14

“‘This is the verdict of God, the Master: With the whole earth applauding, I’ll demolish you. Since you danced in the streets, thinking it was so wonderful when Israel’s inheritance was demolished, I’ll give you the same treatment: demolition. Mount Seir demolished—yes, every square inch of Edom. Then they’ll realize that I am God!’”

Ezekiel 5:14

“When I get done with you, you’ll be a pile of rubble. Nations who walk by will make coarse jokes. When I finish my angry punishment and searing rebukes, you’ll be reduced to an object of ridicule and mockery, turned into a horror story circulating among the surrounding nations. I, God, have spoken.

Jeremiah 9:16

“Then I’ll scatter them far and wide among godless peoples that neither they nor their parents have ever heard of, and I’ll send Death in pursuit until there’s nothing left of them.”

2 Kings 21:13

“I’ll visit the fate of Samaria on Jerusalem, a rerun of Ahab’s doom. I’ll wipe out Jerusalem as you would wipe out a dish, wiping it out and turning it over to dry. I’ll get rid of what’s left of my inheritance, dumping them on their enemies. If their enemies can salvage anything from them, they’re welcome to it. They’ve been nothing but trouble to me from the day their ancestors left Egypt until now. They pushed me to my limit; I won’t put up with their evil any longer.”

Deuteronomy 32:26

I could have said, “I’ll hack them to pieces, wipe out all trace of them from the Earth,” Except that I feared the enemy would grab the chance to take credit for all of it, Crowing, “Look what we did! God had nothing to do with this.”

Jeremiah 40:15

Then Johanan son of Kareah took Gedaliah aside privately in Mizpah: “Let me go and kill Ishmael son of Nethaniah. No one needs to know about it. Why should we let him kill you and plunge the land into anarchy? Why let everyone you’ve taken care of be scattered and what’s left of Judah destroyed?”

James 1:1

I, James, am a slave of God and the Master Jesus, writing to the twelve tribes scattered to Kingdom Come: Hello!

Jeremiah 50:17

“Israel is a scattered flock, hunted down by lions. The king of Assyria started the carnage. The king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, Has completed the job, gnawing the bones clean.”

Isaiah 34:2

And here’s why: God is angry, good and angry with all the nations, So blazingly angry at their arms and armies that he’s going to rid earth of them, wipe them out. The corpses, thrown in a heap, will stink like the town dump in midsummer, Their blood flowing off the mountains like creeks in spring runoff. Stars will fall out of the sky like overripe, rotting fruit in the orchard, And the sky itself will be folded up like a blanket and put away in a closet. All that army of stars, shriveled to nothing, like leaves and fruit in autumn, dropping and rotting!

Jeremiah 51:34

“Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon chewed up my people and spit out the bones. He wiped his dish clean, pushed back his chair, and belched—a huge gluttonous belch. Lady Zion says, ‘The brutality done to me be done to Babylon!’ And Jerusalem says, ‘The blood spilled from me be charged to the Chaldeans!’ Then I, God, step in and say, ‘I’m on your side, taking up your cause. I’m your Avenger. You’ll get your revenge. I’ll dry up her rivers, plug up her springs. Babylon will be a pile of rubble, scavenged by stray dogs and cats, A dumping ground for garbage, a godforsaken ghost town.’ * * *

Ezekiel 7:14

“‘The trumpet signals the call to battle: “Present arms!” But no one marches into battle. My wrath has them paralyzed! On the open roads you’re killed, or else you go home and die of hunger and disease. Either get murdered out in the country or die of sickness or hunger in town. Survivors run for the hills. They moan like doves in the valleys, Each one moaning for his own sins.