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.

Raise a signal flag in the land;
blow a ram’s horn among the nations;
set apart the nations against her.
Summon kingdoms against her—
Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz.
Appoint a marshal against her;
bring up horses like a swarm of locusts.

The earth quakes and trembles
because the Lord’s intentions against Babylon stand:
to make the land of Babylon an uninhabited desolation.

Babylon’s warriors have stopped fighting;
they sit in their strongholds.
Their might is exhausted;
they have become like women.
Babylon’s homes have been set ablaze,
her gate bars are shattered.

The fords have been seized,
the marshes set on fire,
and the soldiers are terrified.

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.

“Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has devoured me;
he has crushed me.
He has set me aside like an empty dish;
he has swallowed me like a sea monster;
he filled his belly with my delicacies;
he has vomited me out,”

says the inhabitant of Zion;
“Let the violence done to me and my family be done to Babylon.
Let my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
says Jerusalem.

Therefore, this is what the Lord says:

I am about to plead your case
and take vengeance on your behalf;
I will dry up her sea
and make her fountain run dry.

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

Her cities have become a desolation,
a dry and arid land,
a land where no one lives,
where no human being passes through.

I will punish Bel in Babylon.
I will make him vomit what he swallowed.
The nations will no longer stream to him;
even Babylon’s wall will fall.

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, look, the days are coming
when I will punish Babylon’s carved images.
Her entire land will suffer shame,
and all her slain will lie fallen within 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.

Therefore, look, the days are coming—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
when I will punish her carved images,
and the wounded will groan
throughout her land.

This is what Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah son of Neriah son of Mahseiah, the quartermaster, when he went to Babylon with King Zedekiah of Judah in the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign.

Jeremiah wrote on one scroll about all the disaster that would come to Babylon; all these words were written against Babylon.

Jeremiah told Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, see that you read all these words aloud.

You must say, ‘Lord, You have threatened to cut off this place so that no one will live in it—man or beast. Indeed, it will remain desolate forever.’

When you have finished reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates River.

Then say, ‘In the same way, Babylon will sink and never rise again because of the disaster I am bringing on her. They will grow weary.’”

The words of Jeremiah end here.

Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king and reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

Zedekiah did what was evil in the Lord’s sight just as Jehoiakim had done.

Because of the Lord’s anger, it came to the point in Jerusalem and Judah that He finally banished them from His presence. Nevertheless, Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

In the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon advanced against Jerusalem with his entire army. They laid siege to the city and built a siege wall all around it.

By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that the people of the land had no food.

The Chaldean army pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. Zedekiah’s entire army was scattered from him.

The Chaldeans seized the king and brought him to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him.

Then he blinded Zedekiah and bound him with bronze chains. The king of Babylon brought Zedekiah to Babylon, where he kept him in custody until his dying day.

On the tenth day of the fifth month—which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, entered Jerusalem as the representative of the king of Babylon.

Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, deported some of the poorest of the people, as well as the rest of the people who were left in the city, the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen.

Now the Chaldeans broke into pieces the bronze pillars for the Lord’s temple and the water carts and the bronze reservoir that were in the Lord’s temple, and carried all the bronze to Babylon.

They took the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, sprinkling basins, dishes, and all the bronze articles used in the temple service.

As for the two pillars, the one reservoir, and the 12 bronze bulls under the water carts that King Solomon had made for the Lord’s temple, the weight of the bronze of all these articles was beyond measure.

One pillar was 27 feet tall, had a circumference of 18 feet, was hollow—four fingers thick—

and had a bronze capital on top of it. One capital, encircled by bronze latticework and pomegranates, stood 7½ feet high. The second pillar was the same, with pomegranates.

From the city he took a court official who had been appointed over the warriors; seven trusted royal aides found in the city; the secretary of the commander of the army, who enlisted the people of the land for military duty; and 60 men from the common people who were found within the city.

The king of Babylon put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah went into exile from its land.

These are the people Nebuchadnezzar deported: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews;

in his eighteenth year, 832 people from Jerusalem;

in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year, Nebuzaradan, the commander of the guards, deported 745 Jews. All together 4,600 people were deported.

On the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Judah’s King Jehoiachin, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, pardoned King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison.

He spoke kindly to him and set his throne above the thrones of the kings who were with him in Babylon.

So Jehoiachin changed his prison clothes, and he dined regularly in the presence of the king of Babylon for the rest of his life.

ב BetShe weeps aloud during the night,
with tears on her cheeks.
There is no one to offer her comfort,
not one from all her lovers.
All her friends have betrayed her;
they have become her enemies.

ג GimelJudah has gone into exile
following affliction and harsh slavery;
she lives among the nations
but finds no place to rest.
All her pursuers have overtaken her
in narrow places.

ד DaletThe roads to Zion mourn,
for no one comes to the appointed festivals.
All her gates are deserted;
her priests groan,
her young women grieve,
and she herself is bitter.

ז ZayinDuring the days of her affliction and homelessness
Jerusalem remembers all her precious belongings
that were hers in days of old.
When her people fell into the adversary’s hand,
she had no one to help.
The adversaries looked at her,
laughing over her downfall.

ח KhetJerusalem has sinned grievously;
therefore, she has become an object of scorn.
All who honored her now despise her,
for they have seen her nakedness.
She herself groans and turns away.

ט TetHer uncleanness stains her skirts.
She never considered her end.
Her downfall was astonishing;
there was no one to comfort her.
Lord, look on my affliction,
for the enemy triumphs!

כ KafAll her people groan
while they search for bread.
They have traded their precious belongings for food
in order to stay alive.
Lord, look and see
how I have become despised.

ל LamedIs this nothing to you, all you who pass by?
Look and see!
Is there any pain like mine,
which was dealt out to me,
which the Lord made me suffer
on the day of His burning anger?

מ MemHe sent fire from heaven into my bones;
He made it descend.
He spread a net for my feet
and turned me back.
He made me desolate,
sick all day long.

נ NunMy transgressions have been formed into a yoke,
fastened together by His hand;
they have been placed on my neck,
and the Lord has broken my strength.
He has handed me over
to those I cannot withstand.

ס SamekThe Lord has rejected
all the mighty men within me.
He has summoned an army against me
to crush my young warriors.
The Lord has trampled Virgin Daughter Judah
like grapes in a winepress.

ע AyinI weep because of these things;
my eyes flow with tears.
For there is no one nearby to comfort me,
no one to keep me alive.
My children are desolate
because the enemy has prevailed.

פ PeZion stretches out her hands;
there is no one to comfort her.
The Lord has issued a decree against Jacob
that his neighbors should be his adversaries.
Jerusalem has become
something impure among them.

צ TsadeThe Lord is just,
for I have rebelled against His command.
Listen, all you people;
look at my pain.
My young men and women
have gone into captivity.

ק QofI called to my lovers,
but they betrayed me.
My priests and elders
perished in the city
while searching for food
to keep themselves alive.

ר ReshLord, see how I am in distress.
I am churning within;
my heart is broken,
for I have been very rebellious.
Outside, the sword takes the children;
inside, there is death.

שׁ ShinPeople have heard me groaning,
but there is no one to comfort me.
All my enemies have heard of my misfortune;
they are glad that You have caused it.
Bring on the day You have announced,
so that they may become like me.

How the Lord has overshadowed
Daughter Zion with His anger!
He has thrown down Israel’s glory
from heaven to earth.
He has abandoned His footstool
in the day of His anger.

ב BetWithout compassion the Lord has swallowed up
all the dwellings of Jacob.
In His wrath He has demolished
the fortified cities of Daughter Judah.
He brought them to the ground
and defiled the kingdom and its leaders.

ג GimelHe has cut off every horn of Israel
in His burning anger
and withdrawn His right hand
in the presence of the enemy.
He has blazed against Jacob like a flaming fire
that consumes everything.

ד DaletHe has bent His bow like an enemy;
His right hand is positioned like an adversary.
He has killed everyone who was loved,
pouring out His wrath like fire
on the tent of Daughter Zion.

ה HeThe Lord is like an enemy;
He has swallowed up Israel.
He swallowed up all its palaces
and destroyed its fortified cities.
He has multiplied mourning and lamentation
within Daughter Judah.

ו VavHe has done violence to His temple
as if it were a garden booth,
destroying His place of meeting.
The Lord has abolished
appointed festivals and Sabbaths in Zion.
He has despised king and priest
in His fierce anger.

ז ZayinThe Lord has rejected His altar,
repudiated His sanctuary;
He has handed the walls of her palaces
over to the enemy.
They have raised a shout in the house of the Lord
as on the day of an appointed festival.

ט TetZion’s gates have fallen to the ground;
He has destroyed and shattered the bars on her gates.
Her king and her leaders live among the nations,
instruction is no more,
and even her prophets receive
no vision from the Lord.

י YodThe elders of Daughter Zion
sit on the ground in silence.
They have thrown dust on their heads
and put on sackcloth.
The young women of Jerusalem
have bowed their heads to the ground.

כ KafMy eyes are worn out from weeping;
I am churning within.
My heart is poured out in grief
because of the destruction of my dear people,
because children and infants faint
in the streets of the city.

ל LamedThey cry out to their mothers:
Where is the grain and wine?
as they faint like the wounded
in the streets of the city,
as their lives fade away
in the arms of their mothers.

מ MemWhat can I say on your behalf?
What can I compare you to, Daughter Jerusalem?
What can I liken you to,
so that I may console you, Virgin Daughter Zion?
For your ruin is as vast as the sea.
Who can heal you?

ע AyinThe Lord has done what He planned;
He has accomplished His decree,
which He ordained in days of old.
He has demolished without compassion,
letting the enemy gloat over you
and exalting the horn of your adversaries.

ק QofArise, cry out in the night
from the first watch of the night.
Pour out your heart like water
before the Lord’s presence.
Lift up your hands to Him
for the lives of your children
who are fainting from hunger
on the corner of every street.

ר ReshLord, look and consider
who You have done this to.
Should women eat their own children,
the infants they have nurtured?
Should priests and prophets
be killed in the Lord’s sanctuary?

שׁ ShinBoth young and old
are lying on the ground in the streets.
My young men and women
have fallen by the sword.
You have killed them in the day of Your anger,
slaughtering without compassion.

ת TavYou summoned my attackers on every side,
as if for an appointed festival day;
on the day of the Lord’s anger
no one escaped or survived.
My enemy has destroyed
those I nurtured and reared.

He has driven me away and forced me to walk
in darkness instead of light.

He has made me dwell in darkness
like those who have been dead for ages.

ג GimelHe has walled me in so I cannot escape;
He has weighed me down with chains.

Even when I cry out and plead for help,
He rejects my prayer.

He has walled in my ways with cut stones;
He has made my paths crooked.

ד DaletHe is a bear waiting in ambush,
a lion in hiding.

ו VavHe ground my teeth on gravel
and made me cower in the dust.

I say: The Lord is my portion,
therefore I will put my hope in Him.

Let him put his mouth in the dust—
perhaps there is still hope.

Let him offer his cheek
to the one who would strike him;
let him be filled with shame.

For He does not enjoy bringing affliction
or suffering on mankind.

ל LamedCrushing all the prisoners of the land
beneath one’s feet,

denying justice to a man
in the presence of the Most High,

Let us lift up our hearts and our hands
to God in heaven:

ס SamekYou have covered Yourself in anger and pursued us;
You have killed without compassion.

My eyes bring me grief
because of the fate of all the women in my city.

ק QofI called on Your name, Yahweh,
from the depths of the Pit.

You come near when I call on You;
You say: “Do not be afraid.”

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

You will give them a heart filled with anguish.
May Your curse be on them!

You will pursue them in anger and destroy them
under Your heavens.