The De-Created—Briars, Reptiles, Feral Animals

“Your palms are defiled with blood, your fingers with iniquity; your lips speak guile, your tongue utters duplicity. None calls for righteousness; no one sues for an honest cause. They rely on empty words, deceitfully spoken; they conceive misdeeds, they beget wickedness. They hatch vipers’ eggs and spin spiders’ webs; whoever eats of their eggs dies, and if any is smashed, there emerges a serpent. Their cobwebs are useless as clothing; their fabrications are worthless for covering themselves. Their works consist of wrongdoing; they manipulate injurious dealings.” (Isaiah 59:3–6)

“Wickedness shall be set ablaze like a fire, and briars and thorns shall it consume; it shall ignite the jungle forests, and they shall billow upward in mushrooming clouds of smoke. At the wrath of Jehovah of Hosts the earth is scorched, and people are but fuel for the fire.” (Isaiah 9:18–19)

“In that day Jehovah will signal for the flies from the far rivers of Egypt and for the bees in the land of Assyria. And they will come and settle with one accord in the river beds of the prairie and in rocky ravines, and by all ditches and water holes. In that day my Lord will use a razor hired at the River—the king of Assyria—to shave your head and the hair of your legs, and to cut off even your beard.” (Isaiah 7:18–20)

“Their arrows are sharp; all their bows are strung. The tread of their warhorses resembles flint; their chariot wheels revolve like a whirlwind. They have the roar of a lion; they are aroused like young lions: growling, they seize the prey, and escape, and none comes to the rescue.” (Isaiah 5:28–29)

“All you wild beasts, you animals of the forest, come and devour! Their watchmen are altogether blind and unaware; all of them are but dumb watchdogs unable to bark, lolling seers fond of slumber. Gluttonous dogs, and insatiable, such indeed are insensible shepherds.” (Isaiah 56:9–11)

“Jehovah has a sword that shall engorge with blood and glut itself with fat—the blood of lambs and he-goats, the kidney fat of rams. For Jehovah will hold a slaughter in Bozrah, an immense massacre in the land of Edom; among them shall fall buffalo, bulls, and steers. Their land shall be saturated with blood, their soil enriched with fat. For it is Jehovah’s day of vengeance, the year of retribution on behalf of Zion.” (Isaiah 34:6–8)

“Hawks and falcons shall possess it, and owls and ravens inhabit it. It shall be surveyed with muddled measure and chaotic weight. Shall they summon its nobles when it is no kingdom, when all its lords no longer exist? For thorns shall overgrow its palaces, thistles and briars its strongholds; it shall become the haunt of howling creatures, a reserve for birds of prey. Prairie wolves shall greet jackals, and wild goats call to one another.” (Isaiah 34:11–14)

“Wild animals will infest it, and its buildings overflow with weasels; birds of prey will find lodging there and demonic creatures prance about in it. Jackals will cry out from its palaces, howling creatures from its amusement halls. Her time draws near; [Babylon’s] days shall not be prolonged.” (Isaiah 13:21–22)

“You were destined to demolish fortified cities, [turning them] into heaps of rubble, while their timorous inhabitants shrank away in confusion, becoming as wild grass, transiently green, or like weeds on a roof that scorch before they grow up. But I know where you dwell, and your comings and goings, and how stirred up you are against me. And because of your snortings and bellowings against me, which have mounted up to my ears, I will put my ring in your nose and my bit in your mouth and turn you back by the way you came.” (Isaiah 37:26–29)