Jeremiah 50:1-Jeremiah 51:58 - A Message Concerning Babylon
1 The word Jehovah spoke concerning [BABYLON], the land of the Chaldeans, through Jeremiah the prophet:
2 Declare and proclaim among the nations. Proclaim it and lift up a standard. Do not conceal it but say: 'Babylon has been captured. Bel has been put to shame. Marduk has been shattered! Her images have been put to shame and her idols have been shattered.' 3 A nation has come up against her out of the north. It will make her land an object of horror. There will be no inhabitant in it. Both man and beast wander off. They have gone away! 4 In those days and at that time, declares Jehovah, the sons of Israel will come. Both they and the sons of Judah will go along weeping as they go. They will seek Jehovah their God. 5 They will ask for the way to Zion turning their faces in its direction. They will come to join themselves to Jehovah in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.
6 My people have become lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray. They have made them turn aside on the mountains. They have gone along from mountain to hill and have forgotten their resting place. 7 All who came upon them have devoured them. Their adversaries said: 'We are not guilty. They have sinned against Jehovah who is the habitation of righteousness, Even Jehovah, the hope of their fathers.'
8 Wander away from the midst of Babylon. Go forth from the land of the Chaldeans. Be also like male goats at the head of the flock. 9 I am going to stir up an alliance of strong nations from the north and bring it against Babylon. Those nations will take up positions against Babylon. Babylon will be captured from the north. Its enemy's arrows will be like skilled soldiers who don't come back empty-handed. 10 The Babylonians will become the prize. All who loot them will get everything they want, declares Jehovah. 11 You are happy and excited. You have looted the people who belong to me. You dance around like calves on the grass and neigh like stallions. 12 But your mother will be greatly ashamed. The woman who gave birth to you will be disgraced. Babylon, you will be the least important nation. You will become a parched desert. 13 No one will live in Babylon because of Jehovah's anger. It will be completely abandoned. Everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified and hiss at all its wounds. 14 Take up your positions around Babylon, all you archers with bows. Shoot at it and do not save any arrows. For the people of Babylon have sinned against Jehovah. 15 Shout a war cry against them on every side. They will surrender. Their towers will fall and their walls will be torn down. Since this is Jehovah's vengeance, take revenge against them. Do to them what they did to others. 16 Do not allow anyone in Babylon to plant or harvest. Everyone will turn to his own people and flee to his own homeland because of the enemies' swords.
17 The people of Israel are like scattered sheep that lions have chased. The first to devour them was the king of Assyria. The last to gnaw at their bones was King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
18 This is what Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: 'I am going to punish the king of Babylon and his land as I punished the king of Assyria.
19 I will bring the people of Israel back to their pastures. They will eat on Mount Carmel and Mount Bashan. They will eat until they are full on the mountains of Ephraim and Gilead. 20 In those days and at that time, says Jehovah, people will look for Israel's crimes, but they will find none. They will look for Judah's sins, but none will be found. I will forgive the faithful few whom I have spared.
21 Attack the land of Merathaim and the people who live in Pekod. Claim them for me by killing them with a sword, says Jehovah. Do everything I commanded you. 22 The noise of battle and great destruction fills the land. 23 The hammer of the whole earth is broken and shattered. See how desolate Babylon is of all the nations! 24 I will set traps for you, Babylon. You will be caught, but you will not know it. You will be found and captured because you have opposed Jehovah. 25 Jehovah will open his armory and bring out the weapons of his fury, because Jehovah of Hosts has a job to do in the land of the Babylonians. 26 Attack them from a distance, open their storehouses, pile up their corpses like piles of grain, claim them for me by destroying them, and do not leave anyone behind. 27 Kill all their young bulls. Let them go to be slaughtered. How horrible it will be for them when their time has come, the time for them to be punished.
28 Fugitives and refugees from Babylon are coming to Zion to tell about the vengeance of Jehovah our God, the vengeance for his temple. 29 Call together the archers, the soldiers with bows, against Babylon. Set up blockades around it. Do not let anyone escape. Pay the people of Babylon back for what they have done. Do to them what they did to others. They have disobeyed Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel. 30 That is why their young men will die in the streets, and all their soldiers will be silenced that day, declares Jehovah. 31 I am against you, you arrogant city, declares the Lord Jehovah of Hosts. Your day has come, the time when I will punish you. 32 Those prideful people will stumble and fall, and there will be no one to help them get up. I will light a fire in their cities that will burn up everything around them.
33 Jehovah of Hosts says: All the people of Israel and Judah are oppressed. All their enemies have captured them. They refuse to let them go. 34 Their defender is strong. His name is Jehovah of Hosts. He will certainly take up their cause in order to bring rest to the land of Israel and unrest to the people who live in Babylon. 35 A sword will kill the Babylonians and everyone who lives in Babylon, declares Jehovah. A sword will kill their officials and their wise men. 36 A sword will kill the false prophets. They will become fools. A sword will kill their soldiers and defeat them. 37 A sword will kill their horses, their chariots, and all the foreigners within their ranks. They will become women. A sword will destroy their treasures, and they will be looted. 38 A drought will diminish their water supply, and it will dry up. Babylon is a land of idols, statues that will go crazy with fear.
39 That is why desert animals will live with hyenas. Desert owls will also live there. It will no longer be inhabited or lived in for generations. 40 Babylon will be like Sodom and Gomorrah, and their neighboring cities when I, God, destroyed them. No one will live there. No human will stay there, proclaims Jehovah.
41 People are going to come from the north. A great nation and many kings will rise from the ends of the earth. 42 They will take hold of bows and spears. They will be cruel and have no compassion. They will sound like the sea when it roars. They will ride horses. They are ready for war, ready to attack you, people of Babylon. 43 The king of Babylon has heard reports about them, and he loses courage. Anguish will grip him as pain grips a woman in labor.
44 I will suddenly chase them from their places like a lion coming out of the jungle along the Jordan River into pastureland. I will appoint over Babylon whomever I choose. Who is like me? Who can challenge me? Is there any leader who can stand up to me?
45 Listen to what Jehovah is going to do against Babylon and the things he intends to do to the land of the Babylonians. He will surely drag away the little ones of the flock. He will surely destroy the pasture because of the Babylonians. 46 The earth will quake at the news, Babylon has been captured! Its cry will be heard among the nations.
1 Jehovah says: I am bringing a destructive wind against Babylon and its people. 2 I will send foreigners to destroy Babylon like a wind that blows straw away. When that day of destruction comes, they will attack from every side and leave the land bare. 3 Do not give its soldiers time to shoot their arrows or to put on their armor. Do not spare the young men! Destroy the whole army! 4 They will be wounded and die in the streets of their cities. 5 I, the Lord Jehovah, have not abandoned Israel and Judah, even though they have sinned against me, the Holy One of Israel.
6 Run away from Babylon! Run for your lives! Do not be killed because of Babylon's sin. I am now taking my revenge. I am punishing it as it deserves. 7 Babylon was like a gold cup in my hand, making the whole world drunk. The nations drank its wine and went out of their minds. 8 Babylon has suddenly fallen and is destroyed! Mourn over it! Get medicine for its wounds, and maybe it can be healed.
9 Foreigners living there said: 'We tried to help Babylon, but it was too late. Let us leave now and go back home. God has punished Babylon with all his might and has destroyed it completely.'
10 Jehovah says: My people shout, Jehovah has shown that we are in the right. Let us go and tell the people in Jerusalem what Jehovah our God has done.
11 Jehovah has stirred up the kings of Media, because he intends to destroy Babylon. That is how he will take revenge for the destruction of his Temple. The attacking officers command: Sharpen your arrows! Get your shields ready! 12 Give the signal to attack Babylon's walls. Strengthen the guard! Post the sentries! Place troops in ambush! Jehovah has done what he said he would do to the people of Babylon. 13 That country has many rivers and rich treasures. Yet its time is up, and its thread of life is cut.
14 Jehovah has sworn by his own life: I will bring many men to attack Babylon like a swarm of locusts, and they will shout with victory.
15 Jehovah made the earth by his power. By his wisdom he created the world and stretched out the heavens. 16 When He utters His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens. He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.
17 All mankind is stupid and devoid of knowledge. Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. His molten images are deceitful, and there is no breath in them. 18 They are worthless, a work of mockery. In the time of their punishment they will perish. 19 The portion of Jacob is not like these. He is the maker of all and of the tribe of his inheritance. Jehovah of Hosts is his name.
20 He says: You are my war-club, my weapon of war. I shatter nations with you and with you I destroy kingdoms. 21 I will use you to crush horses and their riders. I will use you to crush chariots and their drivers. 22 I will use you to crush men and women. I will use you to crush the old and the young. I will use you to crush young men and women. 23 I will use you to crush shepherds and their flocks. I will use you to crush farmers and their oxen. I will use you to crush governors and officials.
24 In your presence I will pay back Babylon and all the people who live in Babylon for all the evil things that they did in Zion, proclaims Jehovah.
25 I am against you, Babylon, you destructive mountain. You have destroyed the whole earth, declares Jehovah. I will use my power against you and roll you off the cliffs, and make you a scorched mountain. 26 People will not find any stones in you to use as a cornerstone. They will not find any stones in you to use for a foundation. You will become permanent ruins, declares Jehovah.
27 Raise your battle flag throughout the world. Blow the ram's horn among the nations. Prepare nations to attack Babylon. Tell the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz to attack it. Appoint a commander to lead the attack. Bring up horses like a swarm of locusts. 28 Prepare nations to attack Babylon. Prepare the king of the Medes, their governors, all their deputies, and all the countries that they rule. 29 The earth trembles and writhes in pain. Jehovah carries out his plans against Babylon to make Babylon a wasteland so that no one will live there. 30 The warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting. They stay in their fortified cities. Their strength has failed. They have become women. Their buildings are set on fire. The bars across their gates are broken. 31 Runners run to meet runners. Messengers follow messengers. They inform the king of Babylon that his entire city is captured. 32 The river crossings have been taken. The enemy has burned its marshes, and its soldiers are terrified.
33 I am the All-Powerful Jehovah, the God of Israel, and I make this promise: Soon Babylon will be leveled and packed down like a threshing place at harvest time.
34 The people of Jerusalem say: King Nebuchadnezzar made us panic. That monster (big snake) filled up with our treasures, leaving us empty. He gobbled down what he wanted and spit out the rest. 35 The people of Babylon harmed some of us and killed others. Now Jehovah will make them pay.
36 Therefore Jehovah says: I am going to plead your case and exact full vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea and make her fountain dry. 37 Babylon will become a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, an object of horror and hissing, without inhabitants. 38 They will roar together like young lions. They will growl like lions' cubs. 39 When they become heated up, I will serve them their banquet and make them drunk, that they may become jubilant. Then they may sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake up, declares Jehovah. 40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams together with male goats.
41 How Sheshak has been captured, and the praise of the whole earth been seized! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations! 42 The sea has come up over Babylon. She has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves. 43 Her cities have become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert, a land in which no man lives and through which no son of man passes. 44 I will punish Bel in Babylon. I will make Bel spit out everything that it has swallowed. Nations will no longer stream to Babylon. Its walls will fall.
45 Get out of her, my people! Run for your lives! Run from the burning anger of Jehovah. 46 Do not lose courage or be afraid when rumors are heard in the land. One rumor comes one year; another rumor comes the next year. Rumors of violence are in the land. Rumors that one ruler will fight against another are in the land. 47 That is why the days are coming when I will punish Babylon's idols. The whole country will be put to shame, and all its soldiers will lie dead. 48 Then heaven and earth and everything in them will rejoice over Babylon. Destroyers from the north will attack it, declares Jehovah.
49 Because the people of Babylon have killed many Israelites and because they have killed many people throughout the earth, Babylon must fall. 50 You people escaped from the sword. Now leave! Do not just stand there. Remember Jehovah in a distant land and think about Jerusalem.
51 We have been put to shame. We have been disgraced. Shame covers our faces, because foreigners have gone into the holy places of Jehovah's temple.
52 That is why the days are coming, declares Jehovah, when I will punish their idols, and those who are wounded will moan everywhere in the land. 53 The people of Babylon might go up to heaven. They might fortify their strongholds. But destroyers will still come from me against them, declares Jehovah.
54 Cries of agony are heard from Babylon. Sounds of terrible destruction are heard from the land of the Babylonians. 55 Jehovah will destroy Babylon. He will silence the loud noise coming from it. Waves of enemies will come roaring in like raging water. The noise will be heard everywhere.