"People of Judah, get out of Babylon quickly! Leave the land of Babylonia! Be the first to depart! Be like the male goats that lead the herd.

For I will rouse into action and bring against Babylon a host of mighty nations from the land of the north. They will set up their battle lines against her. They will come from the north and capture her. Their arrows will be like a skilled soldier who does not return from the battle empty-handed.

Your mother [Babylon] shall be greatly shamed;
She who gave you birth will be ashamed.
Behold, she will be the least of the nations,
A wilderness, a parched land and a desert.

After I vent my wrath on it Babylon will be uninhabited. It will be totally desolate. All who pass by will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn because of all the disasters that have happened to it.

"Take up your battle positions all around Babylon, all you soldiers who are armed with bows. Shoot all your arrows at her! Do not hold any back! For she has sinned against the Lord.

Kill all the farmers who sow the seed in the land of Babylon. Kill all those who wield the sickle at harvest time. Let all the foreigners return to their own people. Let them hurry back to their own lands to escape destruction by that enemy army.

"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.

So I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, say: 'I will punish the king of Babylon and his land just as I punished the king of Assyria.

“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.”

Babylon hammered the whole world to pieces. But see how that 'hammer' has been broken and shattered! See what an object of horror Babylon has become among the nations!

I set a trap for you, Babylon; you were caught before you knew it. You fought against me. So you were found and captured.

Listen! Fugitives and refugees are coming from the land of Babylon. They are coming to Zion to declare there how the Lord our God is getting revenge, getting revenge for what they have done to his temple.

"Call for archers to come against Babylon! Summon against her all who draw the bow! Set up camp all around the city! Do not allow anyone to escape! Pay her back for what she has done. Do to her what she has done to others. For she has proudly defied me, the Holy One of Israel.

“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.

“Their Redeemer is strong; the Lord of hosts is His name.
He will most certainly plead their case and defend their cause
So that He may bring rest to their land,
But turmoil to the inhabitants of Babylon.

“A sword against the Chaldeans,” says the Lord,
“And against the inhabitants of Babylon
And against her princes (officials, civic rulers) and against her wise men (astrologers, religious rulers)!

“Therefore wild beasts of the desert will live there [in Babylon] with the jackals;
The ostriches also will live there,
And it will never again be inhabited [with people]
Or lived in from generation to generation.

Its soldiers are armed with bows and spears. They are cruel and show no mercy. They sound like the roaring sea as they ride forth on their horses. Lined up in formation like men going into battle, they are coming against you, fair Babylon!

The king of Babylon will become paralyzed with fear when he hears news of their coming. Anguish will grip him, agony like that of a woman giving birth to a baby.

“See, one will come up like a lion from the thicket of the Jordan against the enduring habitation [of Babylon] and its watered pastures; for in an instant I will make Babylon run from his land. I will appoint over Babylon the one whom I choose. For who is like Me, and who will summon Me [into court] and prosecute Me [for this]? Who is the [earthly] shepherd who can stand [defiantly] before Me?”

So listen to what I, the Lord, have planned against Babylon, what I intend to do to the people who inhabit the land of Babylonia. Their little ones will be dragged off. I will completely destroy their land because of what they have done.

The people of the earth will quake when they hear Babylon has been captured. Her cries of anguish will be heard by the other nations."

The Lord says, "I will cause a destructive wind to blow against Babylon and the people who inhabit Babylonia.

“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.

Flee out of Babylon,
Let every one of you save his life!
Do not be destroyed in her punishment,
For this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance;
He is going to pay her what she has earned.

Babylon has been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand,
Intoxicating all the earth.
The nations drank her wine;
Therefore the nations have gone mad.

Babylon has suddenly fallen and is shattered!
Wail for her [if you care to]!
Get balm for her [incurable] pain;
Perhaps she may be healed.

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.

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.

Give the signal to attack Babylon's wall! Bring more guards! Post them all around the city! Put men in ambush! For the Lord will do what he has planned. He will do what he said he would do to the people of Babylon.

"You who live along the rivers of Babylon, the time of your end has come. You who are rich in plundered treasure, it is time for your lives to be cut off.

"Babylon, you are my war club, my weapon for battle. I used you to smash nations. I used you to destroy kingdoms.

"But I will repay Babylon and all who live in Babylonia for all the wicked things they did in Zion right before the eyes of you Judeans," says 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.

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.

The mighty warriors of Babylon have ceased to fight;
They remain in their strongholds.
Their strength and power have failed;
They are becoming [weak and helpless] like women.
Their dwelling places are set on fire;
The bars on her gates are broken.

One runner after another will come to the king of Babylon. One messenger after another will come bringing news. They will bring news to the king of Babylon that his whole city has been captured.

For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, 'Fair Babylon will be like a threshing floor which has been trampled flat for harvest. The time for her to be cut down and harvested will come very soon.'

"King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon devoured me and drove my people out. Like a monster from the deep he swallowed me. He filled his belly with my riches. He made me an empty dish. He completely cleaned me out."

The person who lives in Zion says, "May Babylon pay for the violence done to me and to my relatives." Jerusalem says, "May those living in Babylonia pay for the bloodshed of my people."

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.

"See how Babylon has been captured! See how the pride of the whole earth has been taken! See what an object of horror Babylon has become among the nations!

The sea has swept over Babylon. She has been covered by a multitude of its waves.

I will punish the god Bel in Babylon. I will make him spit out what he has swallowed. The nations will not come streaming to him any longer. Indeed, the walls of Babylon will fall."

"Get out of Babylon, my people! Flee to save your lives from the fierce anger of the Lord!

"So the time will certainly come when I will punish the idols of Babylon. Her whole land will be put to shame. All her mortally wounded will collapse in her midst.

Then heaven and earth and all that is in them will sing for joy over Babylon. For destroyers from the north will attack it," says the Lord.

"Babylon must fall because of the Israelites she has killed, just as the earth's mortally wounded fell because of Babylon.

You who have escaped the sword,
Go away! Do not stay!
Remember the Lord from far away,
And let [desolate] Jerusalem come into your mind.

“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord,
“When I will judge and punish the idols [of Babylon],
And throughout her land the mortally wounded will groan.”

Even if Babylon climbs high into the sky and fortifies her elevated stronghold, I will send destroyers against her," says the Lord.

Cries of anguish will come from Babylon, the sound of great destruction from the land of the Babylonians.

For the Lord is ready to destroy Babylon, and put an end to her loud noise. Their waves will roar like turbulent waters. They will make a deafening noise.

For a destroyer is attacking Babylon. Her warriors will be captured; their bows will be broken. For the Lord is a God who punishes; he pays back in full.

This is what the Lord who rules over all says, "Babylon's thick wall will be completely demolished. Her high gates will be set on fire. The peoples strive for what does not satisfy. The nations grow weary trying to get what will be destroyed."

This is the order Jeremiah the prophet gave to Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when he went to King Zedekiah of Judah in Babylon during the fourth year of his reign. (Seraiah was a quartermaster.)

Jeremiah recorded on one scroll all the judgments that would come upon Babylon -- all these prophecies written about Babylon.

Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, "When you arrive in Babylon, make sure you read aloud all these prophecies.

Then say, 'In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again because of the judgments I am ready to bring upon her; they will grow faint.'" The prophecies of Jeremiah end here.

What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord's anger when he drove them out of his sight. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside it. They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year that Zedekiah ruled over Judah.

They captured him and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the territory of Hamath and he passed sentence on him there.

The king of Babylon had Zedekiah's sons put to death while Zedekiah was forced to watch. He also had all the nobles of Judah put to death there at Riblah.

He had Zedekiah's eyes put out and had him bound in chains. Then the king of Babylon had him led off to Babylon and he was imprisoned there until the day he died.

On the tenth day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard who served the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem.

Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took away into exile some of the poorest of the people, those who were left in the city [at the time it was captured], along with those who deserted to join the king of Babylon [during the siege] and the rest of the artisans.

The Babylonians broke the two bronze pillars in the temple of the Lord, as well as the movable stands and the large bronze basin called the "The Sea." They took all the bronze to Babylon.

Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

The king of Babylon ordered them to be executed at Riblah in the territory of Hamath. So Judah was taken into exile away from its land.

Now it came about in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin [also called Coniah and Jeconiah] king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth of the month, Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, showed favor to Jehoiachin king of Judah and brought him out of prison.

He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prestigious position than the other 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.

He was given daily provisions by the king of Babylon for the rest of his life until the day he died.

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.