Anyone who flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit. Anyone who climbs out of the pit will be caught in a trap. For the time is coming when I will punish the people of Moab. I, the Lord, affirm it!

“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord,
“When I will cause an alarm of war to be heard
Against Rabbah of the Ammonites;
And it [along with the high ground on which it stands] will become a desolate heap,
And its villages will be set on fire.
Then will Israel take possession of his possessors,”
Says the Lord.

“Flee, turn back, dwell in the depths [of the desert to escape the judgment of Edom],
O inhabitants of Dedan,
For I will bring the destruction of Esau (Edom) upon him
When I inspect and punish him.

As when Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown along with their neighbors,” says the Lord, “no one will live there; no human being will even stay in it as a temporary resident.

The people of the earth will quake when they hear of their downfall. Their cries of anguish will be heard all the way to the Gulf of Aqaba.

The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet about Elam, when Zedekiah first became king of Judah, saying,

"When that time comes," says the Lord, "the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together. They will come back with tears of repentance as they seek the Lord their God.

Because they used to be glad Because they used to be uproarious When plundering mine inheritance, - Because they used to caper about as a heifer at grass, And bellow like bulls.

In those days and in that time, says the Lord, when the evil-doing of Israel is looked for, there will be nothing; and in Judah no sins will be seen: for I will have forgiveness for those whom I will keep safe.

I laid a snare for thee yea and thou wast captured O Babylon, when, thou wast not aware, - Thou wast found out yea and taken, For with Yahweh, hadst thou contended.

“Behold, I am against you, [O Babylon, you] arrogant one, [you who are pride and presumption personified],”
Says the Lord God of hosts,
“For your day has come,
The time when I will punish you.

As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbor cities thereof, saith Jehovah, so shall no man dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein.

The king of Babylon will become paralyzed with fear when he hears news of their coming. Anguish will grip him, agony like that of a woman giving birth to a baby.

The people of the earth will quake when they hear Babylon has been captured. Her cries of anguish will be heard by the other nations."

I will send people to winnow Babylonia like a wind blowing away chaff. They will winnow her and strip her land bare. This will happen when they come against her from every direction, when it is time to destroy her.

When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens; and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth: he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures.

They're worthless, a work of mockery, and when the time of punishment comes, they'll perish.

Lift up a signal in the land [to spread the news]!
Blow the trumpet among the nations!
Dedicate the nations [for war] against her;
Call against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz.
Appoint a marshal against her;
Cause the horses to come up like bristly locusts [with their wings not yet released from their cases].

The land also shall shake and be afraid, when the device of the LORD shall come forth against Babylon: to make the land of Babylon so waste that no man shall dwell any more therein.

For thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for her.

They shall roar together like lions, and as the young lions when they be angry, so shall they bend themselves.

When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith Jehovah.

May you not become cowardly and fearful
when the report is proclaimed in the land,
for the report will come one year,
and then another the next year.
There will be violence in the land
with ruler against ruler.

Therefore behold, days are coming when I will punish the graven images of Babylon; and her whole land shall be put to shame, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

Heaven and earth, with all that is therein, shall rejoice over Babylon when the destroyers shall come upon her from the North, sayeth the LORD.

You who have got away safe from the sword, go, waiting for nothing; have the Lord in memory when you are far away, and keep Jerusalem in mind.

“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord,
“When I will judge and punish the idols [of Babylon],
And throughout her land the mortally wounded will groan.”

Because the LORD hath spoiled Babylon, and destroyed out of her the great voice; when her waves do roar like great waters, a noise of their voice is uttered:

The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Maaseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah into Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. And this Seraiah was a quiet prince.

And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When thou comest to Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read all these words;

And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates:

Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord's anger when he drove them out of his sight. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

In the fourth month, in the ninth of the month, when the famine is severe in the city, and there hath been no bread for the people of the land,

And so the Chaldeans followed upon them, and took Zedekiah the king in the field of Jericho, when his host was run from him.

And when Nebuzaradan chief the royal executioners, bad taken them, and brought them unto the king of Babylon at Riblah,

Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.

The adversary has spread out his hand
Over all her precious and desirable things;
For she has seen the [Gentile] nations enter her sanctuary (the Jerusalem temple)—
The ones whom You commanded
That they should not enter into Your congregation [not even in the outer courts].

(Lamed) Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by on the road? Look and see! Is there any pain like mine? The Lord has afflicted me, he has inflicted it on me when he burned with anger.

I called for my lovers, they -- they have deceived me, My priests and my elders in the city have expired; When they have sought food for themselves, Then they give back their soul.

Give ear to the voice of my grief; I have no comforter; all my haters have news of my troubles, they are glad because you have done it: let the day of fate come when they will be like me.

(Alef) Alas! The Lord has covered Daughter Zion with his anger. He has thrown down the splendor of Israel from heaven to earth; he did not protect his temple when he displayed his anger.

Blinded with tears are mine eyes, In ferment is my body, Poured out to the earth is my grief, for the sore hurt of the daughter of my people, - when child and suckling are swooning, in the broadways of the city.

They say to their mothers, Where is corn and wine? when they swooned as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul was poured out into their mothers' bosom.

(Qof) Get up! Cry out in the night when the night watches start! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord! Lift up your hands to him for your children's lives; they are fainting at every street corner.

(Sin/Shin) The young boys and old men lie dead on the ground in the streets. My young women and my young men have fallen by the sword. You killed them when you were angry; you slaughtered them without mercy.

Wilt thou proclaim, like the day of an appointed meeting - My terrors round about? when there was not - in the day of the anger of Yahweh - fugitive or survivor, - Those whom I dandled and reared, my foe hath destroyed.

Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.

Good! when one doth stay and stand still For the salvation of Jehovah.

It is good for a man to undergo the yoke when he is young.

Let him sit alone and be silent when he has laid it on him.

When any of the prisoners of the earth are crushed underfoot,

when a person's rights are perverted in defiance of the Most High.

When a man is thwarted in his appeal, does the Lord condone it?

Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?

Why should any living person complain when punished for his sins?

O LORD, when will thou look down from heaven, and consider?

You came near on a day [when] I called you, you said, "Do not fear!"

When they sit and when they rise, look,
I am mocked by their songs.

And the punishment of the daughter of my people hath grown greater than the punishment of Sodom, - which was overthrown as in a moment, when no hands had been laid violently upon her.

With their own hands, compassionate women boil their own children they become their food when my beloved people were destroyed.

They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.

{Shin} And thou, O daughter Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz, be glad and rejoice: for the cup shall come unto thee also, which when thou suppest of thou shalt be drunk.

Now it came about [when I was] in my thirtieth year [of life], on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles beside the River Chebar [in Babylonia], the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.

Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward.

And they went every one straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went.

When I looked at the living creatures, there was one wheel on the ground beside each creature that had four faces.

When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went.

They were large, great and horrible to look upon. Their bodies were full of eyes round about them all four. When the beasts went, the wheels went also with them:

And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.

When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

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.

I beheld him, and he was like a clear light, as it had been all of fire within from his loins upward. And beneath when I looked upon him under the loins, methought he was like a shining fire, that giveth light on every side.

As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake.

And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me.

And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein;

When He unrolled it before me, it was written on the front and back; words of lamentation, mourning, and woe were written on it.

And the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me the sound of a great earthquake when the glory of Yahweh rose from its place.

Now when the spirit took me up, and carried me away, I went with a heavy and sorrowful mind, but the hand of the LORD comforted me right soon.

And when the seven days were expired, the LORD said unto me,

"Son of man, I have appointed you [as] a watchman for the house of Israel. When you hear a word from my mouth, then you must warn them from me.

When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

Whereas when thou hast warned a lawless man, and he hath not turned from his lawlessness and from his lawless way he in his iniquity shall die, but Thou hast delivered thine own soul.

Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

whereas when Thou hast warned a righteous man. That a righteous man must not sin and he hath not sinned, he shall surely live in that he took warning, and thou hast delivered thine own soul.

So when I had risen up, and gone forth into the field: Behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, like as I saw it afore, by the waters of Chebar. Then fell I down upon my face,

But when I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; He that heareth, let him hear; and he that forbeareth, let him forbear: for they are a rebellious house.

And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.

And take for yourself wheat and barley and different sorts of grain, and put them in one vessel and make bread for yourself from them; all the days when you are stretched on your side it will be your food.

Then I said, Ah, Lord! see, my soul has never been unclean, and I have never taken as my food anything which has come to a natural death or has been broken by beasts, from the time when I was young even till now; no disgusting flesh has ever come into my mouth.

And when they have no more bread nor water, one shall be destroyed with another, and famish away for their wickedness."

Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them.

Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: and they shall know that I the LORD have spoken it in my zeal, when I have accomplished my fury in them.

So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the LORD have spoken it.

When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread:

"I'll send famine and wild beasts against you that will rob you of your children. Pestilence and bloodshed will devastate you when I'll declare war on you. I, the LORD, have spoken."

Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries.

And they that escape of you shall remember me among the nations whither they have been carried captives, when I shall have broken their whorish heart, which hath departed from me, and their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols; and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have committed, in all their abominations.

Then shall ye know that I am the LORD, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.