So listen to what I, the Lord, have planned against Babylon, what I intend to do to the people who inhabit the land of Babylonia. Their little ones will be dragged off. I will completely destroy their land because of what they have done.

Don’t let the archer string his bow;
don’t let him put on his armor.
Don’t spare her young men;
completely destroy her entire army!

And they shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets.

Leave Babylon;
save your lives, each of you!
Don’t perish because of her guilt.
For this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance—
He will pay her what she deserves.

Suddenly, Babylon fell down and was shattered. Wail for her! Bring balm for her wound, perhaps she will be healed.

The exiles from Judah will say, 'The Lord has brought about a great deliverance for us! Come on, let's go and proclaim in Zion what the Lord our God has done!'

Set up the standard upon the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set up the watchmen, prepare the ambushes: for the LORD hath both devised and done that which he spake against the inhabitants of Babylon.

A war-club, art thou for me, Weapons of war; Therefore will I Beat down with thee - nations, and Destroy with thee - kingdoms;

and Beat down with thee - the horse and his rider, - and Beat down with thee - the chariot and its rider;

and Beat down with thee - man and woman, and Beat down with thee - elder and youth, and Beat down with thee - young man and virgin;

and Beat down with thee - the shepherd and his flock, and Beat down with thee - the plowman and his yoke; - and Beat down with thee - governors and deputies:

And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the LORD.

Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the LORD, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.

And the land shall tremble and writhe. For every purpose of Jehovah shall be done against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desert without inhabitant.

The soldiers of Babylonia will stop fighting. They will remain in their fortified cities. They will lose their strength to do battle. They will be as frightened as women. The houses in her cities will be set on fire. The gates of her cities will be broken down.

One man, running, will give word to another, and one who goes with news will be handing it on to another, to give word to the king of Babylon that his town has been taken from every quarter:

For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, "The daughter of Babylon [is] like a threshing floor [at the] time it [is] trodden down, {just a little while} and the time of the harvest will come for her."

Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon - Hath devoured me Hath vexed me, Hath set me down as an empty vessel, He hath swallowed me like a sea-monster, He hath filled his belly with my dainties, - He hath driven me away!

The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say.

Therefore the Lord says, "I will stand up for your cause. I will pay the Babylonians back for what they have done to you. I will dry up their sea. I will make their springs run dry.

Babylon will become a heap of rubble,
a jackals’ den,
a desolation and an object of scorn,
without inhabitant.

I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he goats.

And I will send punishment on Bel in Babylon, and take out of his mouth what went into it; no longer will the nations be flowing together to him: truly, the wall of Babylon will come down.

Don't let your heart faint, neither fear for the news that shall be heard in the land; for news shall come one year, and after that in another year [shall come] news, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler.

For this cause, truly, the days are coming when I will send punishment on the images of Babylon, and all her land will be shamed, and her dead will be falling down in her.

Like as Babylon hath beaten down and slain many out of Israel, so shall there fall many, and be slain, in all her kingdom.

You who have escaped the sword, go, don't stand still; remember Yahweh from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

I'll make their leaders, their wise men, their governors, their deputies, and their warriors drunk so that they sleep forever and don't wake up," declares the King whose name is the LORD of the Heavenly Armies.

And you are to say, So Babylon will go down, never to be lifted up again, because of the evil which I will send on her: and weariness will overcome them. So far, these are the words of Jeremiah.

And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.

So the town was shut in by their forces till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

In the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the store of food in the town was almost gone, so that there was no food for the people of the land.

Then an opening was made in the wall of the town, and all the men of war went in flight out of the town by night through the doorway between the two walls which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldaeans were stationed round the town:) and they went by the way of the Arabah.

He burned down the Lord's temple, the royal palace, and all the houses in Jerusalem, including every large house.

And all the army of the Chaldeans, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down all the walls of Jerusalem round about.

Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took away as prisoners the rest of the people who were still in the town, and those who had given themselves up to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the workmen.

Now the Chaldeans broke into pieces the pillars of bronze which belonged to the house of the Lord, and the bronze pedestals [which supported the ten basins] and the [enormous] bronze Sea, which were in the house of the Lord, and carried all the bronze to Babylon.

The two pillars, the great water-vessel, and the twelve brass oxen which were under it, and the ten wheeled bases, which King Solomon had made for the house of the Lord: the brass of all these vessels was without weight.

And from the town he took the unsexed servant who was over the men of war, and seven of the king's near friends who were in the town, and the scribe of the captain of the army, who was responsible for getting the people of the land together in military order, and sixty men of the people of the land who were in the town.

And the king of Babylon struck them down and killed them at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah left from its land.

See her seated by herself, the town which was full of people! She who was great among the nations has become like a widow! She who was a princess among the countries has come under the yoke of forced work!

Bitterly she cries in the night, as tears stream down her cheeks. No one consoles her of all her friends. All her neighbors have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

{Zayin} Now doth Jerusalem remember the time of her misery and disobedience, yea the joy and pleasure that she hath had in times past: seeing her people is brought down through the power of their enemy, and there is no man for to help her. Her enemies stand looking at her, and laughing her Sabbath days to scorn.

Great is the sin of Jerusalem; for this cause she has become an unclean thing: all those who gave her honour are looking down on her, because they have seen her shame: now truly, breathing out grief, she is turned back.

Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

(Mem) He sent down fire into my bones, and it overcame them. He spread out a trapper's net for my feet; he made me turn back. He has made me desolate; I am faint all day long.

The Lord hath cast down all my mighty men in the midst of me; he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men; the Lord hath trodden as a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.

For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.

I sent for my lovers, but they were false to me: my priests and my responsible men were breathing their last breath in the town, while they were looking for food to give them new life.

They have heard that I sigh: there is none to comfort me: all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast called, and they shall be like unto me.

Let all their wickedness come before thee; and do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: for my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

The Lord hath swallowed up all the habitations of Jacob, and hath not pitied: he hath thrown down in his wrath the strong holds of the daughter of Judah; he hath brought them down to the ground: he hath polluted the kingdom and the princes thereof.

He has cut down {in fierce anger} all the might of Israel; he has withdrawn his right hand from the faces of [the] enemy, and he has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire, it has consumed all around.

{Daleth} He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath fastened his righthand as an adversary: and everything that was pleasant to see, he hath smitten it down. He hath poured out his wrath like a fire, into the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion.

{He} The LORD is become like as it were an enemy: he hath cast down Israel and all his places. Yea, all his strongholds hath he destroyed, and filled the daughter of Judah with much sorrow and heaviness.

And he hath violently cast down his enclosure as a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly: Jehovah hath caused set feast and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger king and priest.

(Khet) The Lord was determined to tear down Daughter Zion's wall. He prepared to knock it down; he did not withdraw his hand from destroying. He made the ramparts and fortified walls lament; together they mourned their ruin.

Her doors have gone down into the earth; he has sent destruction on her locks: her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; even her prophets have had no vision from the Lord.

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground, and keep silence: they have cast up dust upon their heads; they have girded themselves with sackcloth: the virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

My eyes are wasted with weeping, the inmost parts of my body are deeply moved, my inner parts are drained out on the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people; because of the young children and babies at the breast who are falling without strength in the open squares of the town.

They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? when they are falling like the wounded in the open squares of the town, when their life is drained out on their mother's breast.

All who go by make a noise with their hands at you; they make hisses, shaking their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, and saying, Is this the town which was the crown of everything beautiful, the joy of all the earth?

All thine enemies opened wide their mouth upon thee: they hissed and they will gnash the teeth: they said, We swallowed down: surely this the day we longed for; we found; we saw.

The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.

Their heart cried unto the Lord, O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night: give thyself no rest; let not the apple of thine eye cease.

Up! give cries in the night, at the starting of the night-watches; let your heart be flowing out like water before the face of the Lord, lifting up your hands to him for the life of your young children who are falling down, feeble for need of food, at the top of every street.

Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

Youth and elder, have lain down on the ground in the streets, My virgins and my young men, have fallen by the sword, - Thou hast slain, in the day of thine anger, Thou hast slaughtered, hast not spared!

He walled me in so that I cannot get out;
He has weighted down my chain.

He has broken my teeth on grit, he has trampled me down in ash.

My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is bowed down within me.

Let him fall face down in the dust, so there may yet be hope.

Who was it that spake, and it was done, when , My Lord, had not commanded?

We have done wrong and gone against your law; we have not had your forgiveness.

Mine eye runneth down with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

Mine eye trickleth down, and ceaseth not, without any intermission,

Till the LORD look down, and behold from heaven.

The Lord is unkind to my soul, more than all the daughters of my town.

Without cause my enemies
Hunted me down like a bird;

They have put down my life into a pit, and laid a stone upon me.

The waters ran down on my head;
I said, “I am cut off (destroyed)!”

You heard my voice; don't hide your ear at my breathing, at my cry.

You drew near in the day that I called on you; you said, Don't be afraid.

O Lord, You have seen the wrong [done to me];
Judge my case.

Behold their sitting down, and their rising up; I am their musick.

(Tav) Pay them back what they deserve, O Lord, according to what they have done.

(Tet) Those who died by the sword are better off than those who die of hunger, those who waste away, struck down from lack of food.

ס Samek“Stay away! Unclean!” people shouted at them.
“Away, away! Don’t touch us!”
So they wandered aimlessly.
It was said among the nations,
“They can stay here no longer.”

(Tsade) Our enemies hunted us down at every step so that we could not walk about in our streets. Our end drew near, our days were numbered, for our end had come!

O Lord, remember what has come upon us;
Look, and see our reproach (national disgrace)!

Our pursuers breathe down our necks; we are weary, but there is no rest for us.

As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.

And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an host: when they stood, they let down their wings.

And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads, when they stood, and had let down their wings.

From what seemed to be His waist up, I saw a gleam like amber, with what looked like fire enclosing it all around. From what seemed to be His waist down, I also saw what looked like fire. There was a brilliant light all around Him.

Like the bow in the cloud on a day of rain, so was the light shining round him. And this is what the glory of the Lord was like. And when I saw it I went down on my face, and the voice of one talking came to my ears.

“But you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words, though briers and thorns are beside you and you live among scorpions. Don’t be afraid of their words or be discouraged by the look on their faces, for they are a rebellious house.

But you, son of man, hear what I tell you; don't be rebellious like that rebellious house: open your mouth, and eat that which I give you.