My people are lost sheep; their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they turned them away on the mountains: they went from mountain to hill, they forgot their resting-place.

All that found them have devoured them; and their adversaries said, We are not guilty, because they have sinned against Jehovah, the habitation of righteousness, even Jehovah, the hope of their fathers.

For, lo, I will raise and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country: and they shall set themselves in array against her; from thence she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man; none shall return in vain.

And Chaldea hath been for a spoil, All her spoilers are satisfied, An affirmation of Jehovah.

Because ye were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye destroyers of mine heritage, because ye are grown fat as the heifer at grass, and bellow as bulls;

Your mother shall be sore confounded; she that bare you shall be ashamed: behold, the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

Put yourselves in array against Babylon round about: all ye that bend the bow, shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she hath sinned against the LORD.

Shout against her round about: she hath given her hand: her foundations are fallen, her walls are thrown down: for it is the vengeance of the LORD: take vengeance upon her; as she hath done, do unto her.

"The people of Israel are like scattered sheep which lions have chased away. First the king of Assyria devoured them. Now last of all King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has gnawed their bones.

But I will restore the flock of Israel to their own pasture. They will graze on Mount Carmel and the land of Bashan. They will eat until they are full on the hills of Ephraim and the land of Gilead.

“Go against [Babylon] the land of Merathaim (Double Rebellion),
Go up against it and against the people of Pekod (Punishment).
Kill and utterly destroy them,” says the Lord,
“And do everything that I have commanded you.”

The sound of war is in the land—
a great destruction.

“I set a trap for you and you also were caught, O Babylon,
And you did not know it;
You have been found and also seized
Because you have struggled against the Lord.”

The Lord has opened His armory
And has brought out [the nations who unknowingly are] the weapons of His indignation (wrath),
For it is a work of the Lord God of hosts
In the land of the Chaldeans.

Come from far away and attack Babylonia! Open up the places where she stores her grain! Pile her up in ruins! Destroy her completely! Do not leave anyone alive!

Kill all her soldiers! Let them be slaughtered! They are doomed, for their day of reckoning has come, the time for them to be punished."

The voice of them that flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God, the vengeance of his temple.

Send for the archers to come together against Babylon, all the bowmen; put up your tents against her on every side; let no one get away: give her the reward of her work; as she has done, so do to her: for she has been uplifted in pride against the Lord, against the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore shall her young men fall in the streets, and all her men of war shall be cut off in that day, saith the LORD.

“Behold, I am against you, [O Babylon, you] arrogant one, [you who are pride and presumption personified],”
Says the Lord God of hosts,
“For your day has come,
The time when I will punish you.

And the proud one shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up; and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all that are round about him.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The children of Israel and the children of Judah were oppressed together: and all that took them captives held them fast; they refused to let them go.

A sword is on the men of pride, and they will become foolish: a sword is on her men of war, and they will be broken.

A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women: a sword is upon her treasures; and they shall be robbed.

A drought is upon her waters; and they shall be dried up: for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols.

Therefore, desert creatures will live with hyenas,
and ostriches will also live in her.
It will never again be inhabited
or lived in through all generations.

As when Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbouring towns were overturned by God, says the Lord, so no man will be living in it, and no son of man will have a resting-place there.

Lo, a people hath come from the north, Even a great nation, And many kings are stirred up from the sides of the earth.

They shall hold the bow and the lance: they are cruel, and will not shew mercy: their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, every one put in array, like a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon.

The king of Babylon hath beard the report of them, And unnerved are his hands, - Anguish, hath seized him, Writhing pain, as a woman in child-birth.

"Look, like a lion comes up from the thicket of the Jordan to a pasture that grows year round, so I'll drive them away from her in an instant, and I'll appoint whomever is chosen over her. Indeed, who is like me? Who gives me counsel? Who is the shepherd who will stand against me?"

So give ear to the decision of the Lord which he has made against Babylon, and to his purposes designed against the land of the Chaldaeans; Truly, they will be pulled away by the smallest of the flock; truly, he will make waste their fields with them.

The Lord has said: See, I will make a wind of destruction come up against Babylon and against those who are living in Chaldaea;

“And I will send foreigners to Babylon that they may winnow her
And may devastate and empty her land;
For in the day of destruction
They will be against her on every side.

Do not give her archers time to string their bows or to put on their coats of armor. Do not spare any of her young men. Completely destroy her whole army.

Thus the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and they that are thrust through in her streets.

For Israel and Judah are not left widowed
by their God, the Lord of Hosts,
though their land is full of guilt
against the Holy One of Israel.

Leave Babylon;
save your lives, each of you!
Don’t perish because of her guilt.
For this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance—
He will pay her what she deserves.

Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD'S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.

We would have healed Babylon, but she was not to be healed.
Abandon her and let each [captive] return to his own country,
For her guilt and judgment have reached to heaven
And are lifted up to the very skies.

The LORD hath brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us declare in Zion the work of the LORD our God.

Sharpen the arrows, take up the shields [and cover yourselves]!
The Lord has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes,
Because His purpose concerning Babylon is to destroy it;
For that is the vengeance of the Lord, vengeance [on Babylon] for [plundering and destroying] His temple.

Set up a signal on the walls of Babylon [to spread the news];
Post a strong blockade,
Station the guards,
Prepare the men for ambush!
For the Lord has both purposed and done
That which He spoke against the people of Babylon.

[O Babylon] you who live by many waters,
Rich in treasures,
Your end has come,
And the line measuring your life is cut.

Yahweh of hosts has sworn by himself, "Surely I will fill you [with] troops like the creeping locusts, and they will sing over you a war cry."

At the voice He giveth forth, A multitude of waters are in the heavens, And He causeth vapours to come up from the end of the earth, Lightnings for rain He hath made, And He bringeth out wind from His treasures.

Every man has become stupid and brutelike, without knowledge [of God];
Every goldsmith is shamed by the cast images he has made;
For his molten idols are a lie,
And there is no breath [of life] or spirit in them.

They are vanity, the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms;

With you the horse and the horseman will be broken; with you the war-carriage and he who goes in it will be broken;

And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the LORD.

The Lord says, "Beware! I am opposed to you, Babylon! You are like a destructive mountain that destroys all the earth. I will unleash my power against you; I will roll you off the cliffs and make you like a burned-out mountain.

“They will not take from you [even] a stone for a cornerstone
Nor any rock for a foundation,
But you will be desolate forever,” says the Lord.

Lift up a signal in the land [to spread the news]!
Blow the trumpet among the nations!
Dedicate the nations [for war] against her;
Call against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz.
Appoint a marshal against her;
Cause the horses to come up like bristly locusts [with their wings not yet released from their cases].

Prepare and dedicate the nations for war against her—
The kings of Media,
With their governors and commanders,
And every land of their dominion.

And the land is shaking and in pain: for the purposes of the Lord are fixed, to make the land of Babylon an unpeopled waste.

The mighty men of Babylon have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwellingplaces; her bars are broken.

And that the passages are stopped, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted.

For these are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a grain-floor when it is stamped down; before long, the time of her grain-cutting will come.

“Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me,
He has set me down like an empty vessel.
Like a monster he has swallowed me up,
He has filled his belly with my delicacies;
He has spit me out and washed me away.

Therefore thus says the Lord,

“Behold, I will plead your case
And take full vengeance for you;
I will dry up her sea and great reservoir
And make her fountain dry.

Babylon will become a heap of ruins. Jackals will make their home there. It will become an object of horror and of hissing scorn, a place where no one lives.

The Babylonians are all like lions roaring for prey. They are like lion cubs growling for something to eat.

When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith Jehovah.

Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.

“I will punish and judge Bel [the handmade god] in Babylon
And take out of his mouth what he has swallowed up [the stolen sacred articles and the captives of Judah and elsewhere].
The nations will no longer flow to him.
Yes, the wall of Babylon has fallen down!

Come out from among her, My people!
Save your lives, each of you,
from the Lord’s burning anger.

And lest your heart faint, and ye fear for the rumour that shall be heard in the land; a rumour shall both come one year, and after that in another year shall come a rumour, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler.

Therefore behold, days are coming when I will punish the graven images of Babylon; and her whole land shall be put to shame, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

Then shall shout over Babylon - heavens and earth and all who are therein, - For out of the North, shall come to her the spoilers Declareth Yahweh.

Ye that have escaped the sword, go away, stand not still: remember the LORD afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

We are confounded, because we have heard reproach: shame hath covered our faces: for strangers are come into the sanctuaries of the LORD'S house.

Therefore, lo, days are coming, An affirmation of Jehovah, And I have seen after its graven images, And in all its land groan doth the wounded.

For the Lord is making Babylon waste, and putting an end to the great voice coming out of her; and her waves are thundering like great waters, their voice is sounding loud:

Because the spoiler is come upon her, even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, every one of their bows is broken: for the LORD God of recompences shall surely requite.

And I will make her chiefs and her wise men, her rulers and her captains and her men of war, overcome with wine; their sleep will be an eternal sleep without awaking, says the King; the Lord of armies is his name.

Thus said Jehovah of Hosts, the wall of Babylon -- The broad one -- is utterly made bare, And her high gates with fire are burnt, And peoples labour in vain, And nations in fire, and have been weary!

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

So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon.

And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, "At your coming [to] Babylon, then you must see [that] you read aloud all these words.

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.’

And it will be that, when you have come to an end of reading this book, you are to have a stone fixed to it, and have it dropped into the Euphrates:

And thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and built forts against it round about.

So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.

And in the fourth Month, the ninth day of the Month, there was so great hunger in the city that there were no more victuals for the people of the land.

Then 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; (now the Chaldeans were by the city round about:) and they went by the way of the plain.

The Chaldean army went after the king, overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his troops were scattered from him.

Then they took the king, and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; where he gave judgment upon 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.

Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, which served the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem,

And all the army of the Chaldeans, that were with the captain of the guard, brake down all the walls of Jerusalem round about.

Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest of the people, and the residue of the people that were left in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to the king of Babylon, and the residue of the multitude.

Also the pillars of brass that were in the house of the LORD, and the bases, and the brasen sea that was in the house of the LORD, the Chaldeans brake, and carried all the brass of them to Babylon.

And they took with them the pots, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the sprinkling bowls, and the pans, and all the vessels of bronze which [were used in temple] service.

The commander of the guards took away the bowls, firepans, sprinkling basins, pots, lampstands, pans, and drink offering bowls—whatever was gold or silver.

The two pillars, one sea, and twelve brasen bulls that were under the bases, which king Solomon had made in the house of the LORD: the brass of all these vessels was without weight.

And a chapiter of brass was upon it; and the height of one chapiter was five cubits, with network and pomegranates upon the chapiters round about, all of brass. The second pillar also and the pomegranates were like unto these.

And there were ninety and six pomegranates on a side; and all the pomegranates upon the network were an hundred round about.

He took also out of the city an eunuch, which had the charge of the men of war; and seven men of them that were near the king's person, which were found in the city; and the principal scribe of the host, who mustered the people of the land; and threescore men of the people of the land, that were found in the midst of the city.