Set up a banner in the land; blow a trumpet among the nations; prepare the nations against her. Call the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz together against her; set a commander against her. Cause the horses to come up as the rough locusts.

And the land shall tremble and writhe. For every purpose of Jehovah shall be done against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desert without inhabitant.

A runner shall run to meet a runner, and a herald to a herald, to announce to the king of Babylon that his city is captured from end to end;

For so says Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor; it is time to thresh her. Yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come.

the violence done to me and to my flesh shall be on Babylon; the dweller in Zion shall say. And, My blood shall be on the people of Chaldea, Jerusalem shall say.

I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he-goats.

And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up. And the nations shall not flow together any more to him; yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.

So, behold, the days come that I will punish the idols of Babylon. And all her land shall be put to shame, and all her slain shall fall in her midst.

And the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them, shall shout for Babylon; for the plunderers shall come to her from the north, says Jehovah.

As Babylon is to fall for the dead of Israel, so at Babylon the dead of all the earth shall fall.

You who have escaped the sword, go away; do not stand still. Remember Jehovah afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

Though Babylon should mount up to the heavens, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet plunderers shall come to her from Me, says Jehovah.

And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, and shall see and shall read all these words,

then you shall say, O Jehovah, You have spoken against this place to cut it off, so that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be a ruin forever.

And it shall be, when you have made an end of reading this book, you shall tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of Euphrates.

Zedekiah was twenty-one 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.

And he did evil in the eyes of Jehovah, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.

And it happened in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it and built forts against it all around.

And the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king's garden. (And the Chaldeans lay around the city all around.) And they went by the way of the plain.

And they took the king and carried him up to the king of Babylon, to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgments against him.

And he blinded the eyes of Zedekiah. And the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.

And Nebuzaradan the chief of the executioners exiled some of the poor of the people, and the rest of the people who remained in the city, and those who fell away, who fell to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude.

Also the Chaldeans broke the pillars of bronze that were in the house of Jehovah, and the bases, and the bronze sea in the house of Jehovah, and carried all the bronze of them to Babylon.

the two pillars, one sea, and twelve bronze bulls that were under the bases, which King Solomon had made in the house of Jehovah; the bronze of all these vessels was without weight.

And Nebuzaradan the chief of the executioners took them and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah.

in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar he exiled from Jerusalem eight hundred and thirty-two persons;

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

And his allowance in continual allowance was given him from the king of Babylon, the matter of a day in its day, until the day of his death, all the days of his life.

She bitterly weeps in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers, she has none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt deceitfully with her; they became her enemies.

The roads of Zion mourn without any going to the appointed feasts. All her gates are deserted; her priests sigh; her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

All her people sigh; they seek bread. They have given their desirable things for food to relieve the soul. See, O Jehovah, and look on me, for I have become vile.

Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which is done to me, with which Jehovah has afflicted me in the day of His fierce anger.

From above He has sent fire into my bones and it has laid them low. He has spread a net for my feet; He has turned me back; He has made me amazed and faint all the day.

The yoke of my transgressions is bound by His hand; they intertwine; they rise on my neck. He has made my strength to falter; Jehovah has delivered me into their hands. I am not able to rise up.

Jehovah has trampled all my mighty ones in my midst; He has called a gathering against me to crush my young men. Jehovah has trod the virgin daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

Zion spreads forth her hands; none is comforting to me; Jehovah has commanded concerning Jacob that his enemies should be all around him; Jerusalem has become as an impure thing among them.

I called for my lovers, but they deceived me; my priests and my elders expired in the city while they sought food for them to bring back their life.

They hear that I sigh; there is none to comfort me. All my enemies have heard my evil; they are glad that You have done it. You will bring the day that You have called, and they shall be like me.

Let all their wickedness come before You; and do to them as You have done to me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He cast down the beauty of Israel from the heavens to the earth and remembered not His footstool in the day of His anger.

The Lord swallowed up all the dwelling-places of Jacob and has not pitied. In His wrath He has thrown down the strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground. He has defiled the kingdom and its rulers.

He has bent His bow like an enemy; He stood with His right hand like an adversary, and killed all who were desirable to the eye in the tabernacle of the daughter of Zion. He poured out His fury like fire.

And He violated His booth like a garden, and destroyed His meeting places. Jehovah caused the meeting places and sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion, and He despised the king and the priest in the fury of His anger.

Jehovah has cast off His altar; He rejected His sanctuary; He has given up the walls of her palaces into the hater's hand. They gave a noise in the house of Jehovah, as a day of meeting.

Jehovah purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion; He has stretched out a line; He has not withdrawn His hand from swallowing, and He made rampart and wall lament; they languish together.

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit upon the ground and are silent; they send up dust on their heads; they gird on sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

They say to their mothers, Where are grain and wine? In their fainting they are like the wounded in the streets of the city, in their pouring out their lives to their mothers' bosom.

What can I testify for you? What thing shall I compare to you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to you, so that I may comfort you, O virgin daughter of Zion? For your break is great like the sea! Who can heal you?

Your prophets have seen false and foolish things for you, and they have not uncovered your iniquity, to turn away your captivity; but they have seen false oracles and seductions for you.

All your enemies have opened their mouth against you; they hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen.

Jehovah has done what He has purposed; He has fulfilled His Word which He commanded from the days of old. He has thrown down and not pitied. And He caused your hater to rejoice over you; He has set up the horn of your foes.

Their heart cried to Jehovah. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a torrent day and night; give yourself no rest. Let not the daughter of your eye cease.

Behold, O Jehovah, and consider to whom You have done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, children of tender care? Shall the priest and the prophet be killed in the holy place of the Lord?