Isaiah 14:1-12

1The Lord will once again be kind to Jacob's descendants. He will choose to help the Israelite people again, as his own people. He will put them back in their land. Foreign people will join them and they will become a part of Jacob's family.

2People of other nations will help Israel's people to return to their own country. When they are living again in the land that the Lord gave to them, foreign people will become their servants, both men and women. In that way, the people who made the Israelites prisoners will be prisoners themselves! The Israelites will rule over the people who had been cruel to them.

3At that time, the Lord will let you live safely, without trouble and without pain. You will no longer have to work for cruel people, as their slaves.

4Then you will laugh at the king of Babylon. You will say to him, ‘Now you cannot be cruel to us any more! Your power to cause trouble has finished!

5The Lord has destroyed the authority of wicked rulers like you.

6You used your power to attack people all the time. In your anger, you ruled over other nations, and you never stopped being cruel to them.

7But now there is peace in the whole world. People can live safely. Everyone is so happy that they are singing!

8Even the pine trees and the cedar trees in Lebanon are happy because your power has finished. They say to you, “Now God has knocked you down. So nobody will come again to cut us down!”

9The deep hole of death below the earth is ready to receive you! People there want to meet you. The spirits of those who ruled on the earth have heard that you are coming. They are standing up from their thrones.

10All of them will say to you, “Now you have become as weak as we are! You are weak like us!”

11Your great power has now come down low, into the deep hole of death. People no longer praise you with their harps. Now you will lie on a bed of maggots. A blanket of worms will cover you.

12Look at you! You have fallen from heaven! You shine like the bright morning star! You have won against many nations, but now you have come down very low!