This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, I will have the bow of Elam, their chief strength, broken.

I will devastate Elam before their enemies,
before those who want to take their lives.
I will bring disaster on them,
My burning anger.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
I will send the sword after them
until I finish them off.

I will set My throne in Elam,
and I will destroy the king and officials from there.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

In the last days,
I will restore the fortunes of Elam.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

This is the message that the LORD spoke through the prophet Jeremiah about Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans.

In those days and at that time—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
the Israelites and Judeans will come together,
weeping as they come,
and will seek the Lord their God.

They will ask about Zion,
turning their faces to this road.
They will come and join themselves to the Lord
in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.

All who encountered them devoured them. Their enemies who did this said, 'We are not liable for punishment! For those people have sinned against the Lord, their true pasture. They have sinned against the Lord in whom their ancestors trusted.'

The Chaldeans will become plunder;
all Babylon’s plunderers will be fully satisfied.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Raise a war cry against her on all sides. {She has surrendered}. Her towers have fallen, her walls are ruined. For this [is] the vengeance of Yahweh. Take revenge on her. As she has done [to others], [so] do to her.

Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria has devoured him; and last this Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.

So this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, I will send punishment on the king of Babylon and on his land, as I have given punishment to the king of Assyria.

In those days and at that time—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
one will search for Israel’s guilt,
but there will be none,
and for Judah’s sins,
but they will not be found,
for I will forgive those I leave as a remnant.

“Go against the land of Merathaim,
and against those living in Pekod.
Put them to the sword;
completely destroy them—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
do everything I have commanded you.

There is gone about the land a cry of a slaughter and great murder, namely on this manner:

How happeneth it that the hammer of the whole world is thus broken and bruised in sunder? How chanceth it that Babylon is become a wilderness among the Heathen on this manner?

The LORD has opened his armory, and has brought forth the weapons of his indignation: for this is the work of the Lord GOD of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans.

For this cause her young men will be falling in her streets, and all her men of war will be cut off in that day, says the Lord.

Look, I am against you, you arrogant one—
this is the declaration of
the Lord God of Hosts—
because your day has come,
the time when I will punish you.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: The children of Israel and the children of Judah are crushed down together: all those who took them prisoner keep them in a tight grip; they will not let them go.

A sword is over the Chaldeans—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
against those who live in Babylon,
against her officials, and against her sages.

A drought will come upon her land; her rivers and canals will be dried up. All of this will happen because her land is filled with idols. Her people act like madmen because of those idols they fear.

For this reason the beasts of the waste land with the wolves will make their holes there and the ostriches will be living in it: never again will men be living there, it will be unpeopled from generation to generation.

Just as God demolished Sodom and Gomorrah
and their neighboring towns—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
so no one will live there;
no human being will even stay in it
as a temporary resident.

Look, like a lion he comes up from the thickets of the Jordan against {a pastureland by a constantly flowing stream}, so {I will chase them away quickly} from her, and I will appoint whoever [is] chosen over her. For who [is] like me, and who can summon me, and who [is] this shepherd who can stand {before me}?

For this, hear ye the counsel of Jehovah which he counseled against Babel; and his purposes which he purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: if the last of the flock shall not drag them out: if he shall not lay waste the habitation upon them.

This is what the Lord says:

I am about to stir up a destructive wind against Babylon
and against the population of Leb-qamai.

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.

Flee from the midst of Babylon and save each one his life. You must not perish because of her guilt. For this [is the] time of vengeance for Yahweh, he [will] repay her what is deserved.

A cup of gold, was Babylon in the hand of Yahweh, Making drunk all the earth, - Of her wine, have the nations drunk, For this cause have the nations been acting as men who are mad.

Sharpen the arrows; take the shields. Jehovah hath stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; for his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it; for this is the vengeance of Jehovah, the vengeance of his temple.

“I will repay Babylon and all the residents of Chaldea for all their evil they have done in Zion before your very eyes.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

Look, I am against you, devastating mountain—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
you devastate the whole earth.
I will stretch out My hand against you,
roll you down from the cliffs,
and turn you into a charred mountain.

No one will be able to retrieve a cornerstone
or a foundation stone from you,
because you will become desolate forever.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

The land trembles and writhes [in pain and sorrow],
For the purposes of the Lord against Babylon stand,
To make the land of Babylon
A desolation without inhabitants.

For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says:

Daughter Babylon is like a threshing floor
at the time it is trampled.
In just a little while her harvest time will come.

For this reason the Lord has said: See, I will give support to your cause, and take payment for what you have undergone; I will make her sea dry, and her fountain without water.

While they are flushed with heat, I will serve them a feast,
and I will make them drunk so that they revel.
Then they will fall asleep forever
and never wake up.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Do this now, so your heart does not grow faint, and so you don't become frightened because of the rumors that are heard in the land a rumor comes one year and then after it another rumor comes the next year about violence in the land and one ruler against another 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.

Heaven and earth and everything in them
will shout for joy over Babylon
because the destroyers from the north
will come against her.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

For this reason, see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will send punishment on her images; and through all her land the wounded will be crying out in pain.

Even if Babylon should ascend to the heavens
and fortify her tall fortresses,
destroyers will come against her from Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

I will make her princes and sages drunk,
along with her governors, officials, and warriors.
Then they will fall asleep forever
and never wake up.
This is the King’s declaration;
Yahweh of Hosts is His name.

This is what Yahweh of Hosts says:

Babylon’s thick walls will be totally demolished,
and her high gates consumed by fire.
The peoples will have labored for nothing;
the nations will exhaust themselves only to feed the fire.

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

and gave Seraiah this charge, "When thou comest unto Babylon, see that thou read all these words,

and thou shalt say - O Yahweh! thou, thyself, hast spoken against this place to cut it off, That there be in it no inhabitant Neither man nor beast, - But desolations age-abiding, shall it become!

And it shall be when thou hast made an end of reading this scroll, that thou shalt bind thereunto a stone, and cast it in the midst of the Euphrates,

And you shall say, In this way shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring on her. And they shall be weary. So far are the words of Jeremiah.

For because of the {anger} of Yahweh this happened in Jerusalem and Judah until his casting them from his {presence}. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

And this besieging of the city endured unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.

And in the fifth month, in the tenth to the month, this year the nineteenth year to king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel, came Nebuzaradan, chief of the cooks, standing before the face of the king of Babel, into Jerusalem,

On each pillar was a capital of bronze, and the height of each capital was five cubits. Latticework and pomegranates, all of bronze, were all around the capital. And the second pillar was like this, including the pomegranates.

After this manner were both the pillars fashioned with the pomegranates, whereof there were a hundredth and ninety six, which hanged upon the hoops round about.

This, is the people, whom Nebuchadrezzar carried away captive, - In the seventh year - of them of Judah, three thousand and twenty-three;