On the fifth day of the fourth month of the thirtieth year of the exile to Babylon, while I was among the captives on the bank of the Chebar River, heaven opened up and I saw visions from God.

Go to the [Jewish] exiles [in Babylon], to the children of your people, and speak to them, whether they listen or not, and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord God.’”

But I will throw my net over him, and he will be caught in my snare. I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans (but he will not see it), and there he will die.

Yet, behold, survivors will be left in it [escaping the judgments], both sons and daughters. Listen carefully, they are going to come out to you [in Babylon] and you will see their [wicked] conduct and [despicable] actions; then you will be at peace in regard to the disaster which I have brought against Jerusalem for everything which I have brought on it [has been deserved].

He broke off the topmost of its young twigs (young King Jehoiachin) and carried it to a land of traders (Babylonia); he set it in a city of merchants (Babylon).

Then it sprouted and grew and became a low, spreading vine whose branches turned [in submission] toward him, but its roots remained under it. So it became a vine and yielded shoots and sent out branches.

"Say to the rebellious house of Israel: 'Don't you know what these things mean?' Say: 'See here, the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and took her king and her officials prisoner and brought them to himself in Babylon.

But this one from Israel's royal family rebelled against the king of Babylon by sending his emissaries to Egypt to obtain horses and a large army. Will he prosper? Will the one doing these things escape? Can he break the covenant and escape?

"'As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, surely in the city of the king who crowned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke -- in the middle of Babylon he will die!

I will throw my net over him and he will be caught in my snare; I will bring him to Babylon and judge him there because of the unfaithfulness he committed against me.

They put him in a collar with hooks; they brought him to the king of Babylon; they brought him to prison so that his voice would not be heard any longer on the mountains of Israel.

‘And now it is transplanted in the wilderness,
In a dry and thirsty land [of Babylon].

‘It is sharpened to make a slaughter,
Polished to flash and glimmer like lightning!’

Shall we then rejoice [when such a disaster approaches]? But it rejects and views with contempt the scepter of My son [Judah].

The sword [of Babylon] is ready to be polished so that it may be handled and put to use; the sword is sharpened and polished to be put in the hand of the slayer (Nebuchadnezzar).

"You, son of man, mark out two routes for the king of Babylon's sword to take; both of them will originate in a single land. Make a signpost and put it at the beginning of the road leading to the city.

For the king of Babylon stands at the fork in the road at the head of the two routes. He looks for omens: He shakes arrows, he consults idols, he examines animal livers.

But those in Jerusalem will view it as a false omen. They have sworn solemn oaths, but the king of Babylon will accuse them of violations in order to seize them.

Girded with waistcloths upon their loins With overhanging high turbans upon their heads, In appearance, knights all of theme-The likeness of the sons of Babylon of Chaldea, the land of their birth.

Then came in unto her the sons of Babylon into the bed of endearments, and defiled her with their unchaste doings,- And she defiled herself with them, And then was her soul torn from them.

The sons of Babylon and all Chaldeans Pekod and Shoa and Koa, All the sons of Assyria with them, - Attractive young men Governors and deputies, all of them. Knights and men of renown, Riders on horses all of them;

Again in the ninth year [of King Jehoiachin’s captivity by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon], in the tenth month, on the tenth [day] of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this same day: the king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day.

For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.

In the tenth year [of the captivity of King Jehoiachin by the king of Babylon], in the tenth month, on the twelfth of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

In the twenty-seventh year [after King Jehoiachin was taken to Babylon], in the first month, on the first of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

"Son of man, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon made his army labor hard against Tyre. Every head was rubbed bald and every shoulder rubbed bare; yet he and his army received no wages from Tyre for the work he carried out against it.

Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I am about to give the land of Egypt to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon. He will carry off her wealth, capture her loot, and seize her plunder; it will be his army's wages.

“A sword will come upon Egypt,
And anguish and trembling will be in Ethiopia (Cush),
When the slain fall in Egypt
And they [of Babylon] carry away her great mass of people and her riches
And her foundations are torn down.

"'This is what the sovereign Lord says: I will put an end to the hordes of Egypt, by the hand of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon.

In the eleventh year [after King Jehoiachin was taken to Babylon], in the first month, on the seventh of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and I will place my sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he will groan like the fatally wounded before the king of Babylon.

I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, but the arms of Pharaoh will fall limp. Then they will know that I am the Lord when I place my sword in the hand of the king of Babylon and he extends it against the land of Egypt.

In the eleventh year [after King Jehoiachin was taken captive to Babylon], in the third month, on the first of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

In the twelfth year [after King Jehoiachin of Judah was taken into exile by the king of Babylon], in the twelfth month, on the first of the month, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

"'For this is what the sovereign Lord says: "'The sword of the king of Babylon will attack you.

“Son of man, speak to the sons of your people [who are exiled in Babylon] and say to them, ‘If I bring a sword on a land, and the people of the land take one man from among them and make him their watchman,

In the twelfth year of our exile [in Babylon], on the fifth of the tenth month, a survivor from Jerusalem came to me, saying, “The city has been captured.”

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile [in Babylon], in the beginning of the year, on the tenth [day] of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city [of Jerusalem] was taken, on that [very] same day the hand of the Lord was upon me and He brought me there.

And it was like the appearance of the vision which I saw, like the vision I saw when He came to destroy the city. And the visions were like the vision I saw beside the River Chebar [near Babylon]; and I fell face downward.