The general judgment of the wicked.
34:1. Come near, ye Gentiles, and hear, and hearken, ye people: let the
earth hear, and all that is therein, the world, and every thing that
cometh forth of it.
34:2. For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury
upon all their armies: he hath killed them, and delivered them to
slaughter.
34:3. Their slain shall be cast forth, and out of their carcasses shall
rise a stink: the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
34:4. And all the host of the heavens shall pine away, and the heavens
shall be folded together as a book: and all their host shall fall down
as the leaf falleth from the vine, and from the fig tree.
And all the host of the heavens. . .That is, the sun, moon, and stars.
34:5. For my sword is inebriated in heaven: behold it shall come down
upon Idumea, and upon the people of my slaughter unto judgment.
Idumea. . .Under the name of Idumea, or Edom a people that were enemies
of the Jews, are here understood the wicked in general, the enemies of
God and his church.
34:6. The sword of the Lord is filled with blood, it is made thick with
the blood of lambs and buck goats, with the blood of rams full of
marrow: for there is a victim of the Lord in Bosra and a great
slaughter in the land of Edom.
34:7. And the unicorns shall go down with them, and the bulls with the
mighty: their land shall be soaked with blood, and their ground with
the fat of fat ones.
The unicorns. . .That is, the great and mighty.
34:8. For it is the day of the vengeance of the Lord, the year of
recompenses of the judgment of Sion.
The year of recompenses, etc. . .When the persecutors of Sion, that is,
of the church, shall receive their reward.
34:9. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the
ground thereof into brimstone: and the land thereof shall become
burning pitch.
34:10. Night and day it shall not be quenched, the smoke thereof shall
go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste, none
shall pass through it for ever and ever.
34:11. The bittern and ericius shall possess it: and the ibis and the
raven shall dwell in it: and a line shall be stretched out upon it, to
bring it to nothing, and a plummet, unto desolation.
34:12. The nobles thereof shall not be there: they shall call rather
upon the king, and all the princes thereof shall be nothing.
34:13. And thorns and nettles shall grow up in its houses, and the
thistle in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be the habitation of
dragons, and the pasture of ostriches.
34:14. And demons and monsters shall meet, and the hairy ones shall cry
out one to another, there hath the lamia lain down, and found rest for
herself.
34:15. There hath the ericius had its hole, and brought up its young
ones, and hath dug round about, and cherished them in the shadow
thereof: thither are the kites gathered together one to another.
34:16. Search ye diligently in the book of the Lord, and read: not one
of them was wanting, one hath not sought for the other: for that which
proceedeth out of my mouth, he hath commanded, and his spirit it hath
gathered them.
34:17. And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it
to them by line: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to
generation they shall dwell therein.