Behold: The subsection opens with a call to take notice. This attention-getting word is important here in view of the serious nature of the warning that follows. Good News Translation omits it, but translators are encouraged to include it with an expression such as “Look!” or an equivalent.

The day of the LORD comes: See the comments on Isa 13.6. This subsection makes it clear that Yahweh’s day will be a time of punishment. Comes renders a Hebrew participle. It is also possible to use a future tense here, but the immediate future “is about to come” conveys the sense of the participle best.

Cruel, with wrath and fierce anger: Three expressions describe Yahweh’s day here. As noted before, Isaiah likes to emphasize a point by placing three or four closely-related terms together. The first term is cruel. Bible en français courant has “without mercy” (similarly Contemporary English Version, New Jerusalem Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). The other terms are wrath and fierce anger. Wrath may also be rendered “fury” or “overflowing anger.” Fierce anger carries the sense of “burning anger” in Hebrew (see the comments on 7.4). The implications of the last two expressions are of something fierce, powerful and destructive. Thus the day of Yahweh is a moment of “fierce and furious anger.” These three expressions actually describe how Yahweh will act on that day, so Contemporary English Version begins the verse with “I, the LORD, will show no mercy or pity when that time comes. In my anger….”

To make the earth a desolation: This line and the next one give two purposes for God’s time of punishment. First, the earth will be deserted or uninhabited because of the invading army (verses 4-5). It is a hyperbole (poetic exaggeration) to say the earth will become desolate since only one specific nation, that is, Babylonia, is about to be attacked and overthrown. “The land” (New American Bible, Bible en français courant) or “the country” (New Jerusalem Bible) might be a better rendering, especially in those languages where the hyperbole the earth is likely to be taken literally. For desolation see the comments on “desolate” in 1.7.

And to destroy its sinners from it is the second purpose. The pronoun it refers to the earth (Babylonia) in the previous line. The people of Babylonia are described as sinners, that is, those who have offended Yahweh by their actions.

For the translation of this verse consider the following examples:

• Look, the day of Yahweh is about to come. That day will be one without pity, one of fierce and furious anger bringing desolation to the land and destroying sinners from it.

• See, the day of Yahweh is coming, a day of pitiless fury and burning anger. It will bring misery to the land and its sinners will be destroyed.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .