It shall not be inhabited till into the end, and it shall not be founded till to generation and generation; a man of Arabia shall not set tents there, and shepherds shall not rest there.
But wild beasts shall rest there, and the houses of them shall be filled with dragons; and ostriches shall dwell there, and hairy beasts shall skip there.
And bitterns shall answer there in the houses thereof, and flying serpents in the temples of lust. It is nigh that the time thereof come, and the days thereof shall not be made far;
And I shall set [or put] that Babylon into possession of an urchin, and into marishes of waters; and I shall sweep it with a besom, and I shall stamp, saith the Lord of hosts.
And help shall cease from Ephraim, and a realm from Damascus; and the remnants of Syria shall be as the glory of the sons of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts.
Lo! this cometh, a man-rider of a cart of horsemen. And Isaiah cried, and said, Babylon fell down, fell down; and all the graven images of gods thereof be all-broken into [the] earth.
Lo! the land of Chaldees, such a people was not; Assur founded that Tyre; they led over into captivity the strong men thereof; they [under] mined the houses thereof; they setted [or put] it into falling.
For he shall bow down them that dwell on high, and he shall make low an high city; he shall make it low till to the earth; he shall draw it down till to the dust.
Forsooth the strong city shall be desolate, the fair city shall be left, and shall be forsaken as a desert; there a calf shall be pastured, and shall lie there, and shall waste the highness thereof.
For why the house is left, the multitude of the city is forsaken; darknesses and groping be made on [the] dens, till into without end. The joy of wild asses is the pasture of flocks;
And thorns and nettles shall grow in the houses thereof, and a teasel in the strongholds thereof; and it shall be the couch of dragons, and the pasture of ostriches.
Whether thou, Sennacherib, heardest not what things I did some-time? From eld days I formed that thing, and now I have brought; and it is made into the drawing up by the root of little hills fighting together, and of strong cities.
And I shall give Jerusalem into heaps of gravel, and into dens of dragons; and I shall give the cities of Judah into desolation, for there is no dweller.
Also whatever thing of appurtenance of household is found there, thou shalt gather it together in [the] midst of the streets thereof, and thou shalt burn it with that city, so that thou waste all things before thy Lord God, and it be a burial everlasting; it shall no more be builded.
And they cast powder on their heads, and cried, weeping, and mourning, and saying, Woe! woe! that great city, in which all that have ships in the sea be made rich of the prices of it; for in one hour it is desolate.