A reading from the book of Isaiah.

Draw near, O nations to hear, and give attention, O peoples, that the earth here and all that fills

it, the world and all that comes from it. For the Lord is enraged against all the nations,

and furious against all their hosts. He has devoted them to destruction, has given them over

for slaughter. Their slain shall be cast out, and the stench of their corpses shall rise.

The mountain shall flow with their blood. All the hosts of heaven shall rot away, and the skies

roll up like a scroll. All their hosts shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves

falling from the fig tree.

For my sword has drunk its fill in heavens. Behold, it descends for judgment upon Edom.

Upon the people I have devoted to destruction. The Lord has a sword. It is sated with blood.

It is gorged with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the Lord has a

sacrifice in Basra, a great slaughter in the land of Edom, wild oxen shall fall with them, and young

steers with the mighty bulls, their land shall drink its fill of blood, and their soil shall be gorged

with fat, for the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the

cause of Zion, and the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur,

her land shall become burning pitch.

Night and day it shall not be quenched, its smoke shall go up forever, from generation to generation

it shall lie waste, None shall pass through it forever

and ever. But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it. The owl and the raven shall dwell

in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plum line of emptiness, its nobles.

There is no one there to call it a kingdom, and all its princes shall be nothing.

Thorns shall grow over its strongholds,

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