Because of this, see, the days are coming when I will have a cry of war sounded against Rabbah, the town of the children of Ammon; it will become a waste of broken walls, and her daughter-towns will be burned with fire: then Israel will take the heritage of those who took his heritage, says the Lord.

Make sounds of grief, O Heshbon, for Ai is wasted; give loud cries, O daughters of Rabbah, and put haircloth round you: give yourselves to weeping, running here and there and wounding yourselves; for Milcom will be taken prisoner together with his rulers and his priests.

Why are you lifted up in pride on account of your valleys, your flowing valley, O daughter ever turning away? who puts her faith in her wealth, saying, Who will come against me?

See, I will send fear on you, says the Lord, the Lord of armies, from those who are round you on every side; you will be forced out, every man straight before him, and there will be no one to get together the wanderers.

But after these things, I will let the fate of the children of Ammon be changed, says the Lord.

Go in flight, go back, take cover in deep places, you who are living in Dedan; for I will send the fate of Edom on him, even the time of his punishment.

Put in my care your children who have no father, and I will keep them safe; and let your widows put their faith in me.

For the Lord has said, Those for whom the cup was not made ready will certainly be forced to take of it; and are you to go without punishment? you will not be without punishment, but will certainly be forced to take from the cup.

For I have taken an oath by myself, says the Lord, that Bozrah will become a cause of wonder, a name of shame, a waste and a curse; and all its towns will be waste places for ever.

And Edom will become a cause of wonder: everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder, and make sounds of fear at all her punishments.

As at the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbouring towns, says the Lord, no man will be living in it, no son of man will have a resting-place there.

See, he will come up like a lion from the thick growth of Jordan against the resting-place of Teman: but I will suddenly make him go in flight from her; and I will put over her the man of my selection: for who is like me? and who will put forward his cause against me? and what keeper of sheep will be able to keep his place before me?

For this cause give ear to the decision of the Lord which he has made against Edom, and to his purposes designed against the people of Teman: Truly, they will be pulled away by the smallest of the flock; truly, he will make waste their fields with them.

See, he will come up like an eagle in flight, stretching out his wings against Bozrah: and the hearts of Edom's men of war on that day will be like the heart of a woman in birth-pains.

About Damascus. Hamath is put to shame, and Arpad; for the word of evil has come to their ears, their heart in its fear is turned to water, it will not be quiet.

So her young men will be falling in her streets, and all the men of war will be cut off in that day, says the Lord of armies.

And I will have a fire lighted on the wall of Damascus, burning up the great houses of Ben-hadad.

Their tents and their flocks they will take; they will take away for themselves their curtains and all their vessels and their camels: they will give a cry to them, Fear on every side.

And their camels will be taken from them by force, and their great herds will come into the hands of their attackers: those who have the ends of their hair cut I will send in flight to all the winds; and I will send their fate on them from every side, says the Lord.

And Hazor will be a hole for jackals, a waste for ever: no one will be living in it, and no son of man will have a resting-place there.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, I will have the bow of Elam, their chief strength, broken.

And I will send on Elam four winds from the four quarters of heaven, driving them out to all those winds; there will be no nation into which the wanderers from Elam do not come.

And I will let Elam be broken before their haters, and before those who are making designs against their lives: I will send evil on them, even my burning wrath, says the Lord; and I will send the sword after them till I have put an end to them:

I will put the seat of my power in Elam, and in Elam I will put an end to kings and rulers, says the Lord.

But it will come about that, in the last days, I will let the fate of Elam be changed, says the Lord.

For out of the north a nation is coming up against her, which will make her land waste and unpeopled: they are in flight, man and beast are gone.

In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping and making prayer to the Lord their God.

They will be questioning about the way to Zion, with their faces turned in its direction, saying, Come, and be united to the Lord in an eternal agreement which will be kept in mind for ever.

For see, I am moving and sending up against Babylon a band of great nations from the north country: and they will put their armies in position against her; and from there she will be taken: their arrows will be like those of an expert man of war; not one will come back without getting its mark.

And the wealth of Chaldaea will come into the hands of her attackers: all those who take her wealth will have enough, says the Lord.

Your mother will be put to shame; she who gave you birth will be looked down on: see, she will be the last of the nations, a waste place, a dry and unwatered land.

Because of the wrath of the Lord no one will be living in it, and it will be quite unpeopled: everyone who goes by Babylon will be overcome with wonder, and make sounds of fear at all her punishments.

Let the planter of seed be cut off from Babylon, and everyone using the curved blade at the time of the grain-cutting: for fear of the cruel sword, everyone will be turned to his people, everyone will go in flight to his land.

So this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, I will send punishment on the king of Babylon and on his land, as I have given punishment to the king of Assyria.

And I will make Israel come back to his resting-place, and he will get his food on Carmel and Bashan, and have his desire in full measure on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead.

In those days and in that time, says the Lord, when the evil-doing of Israel is looked for, there will be nothing; and in Judah no sins will be seen: for I will have forgiveness for those whom I will keep safe.

For this cause her young men will be falling in her streets, and all her men of war will be cut off in that day, says the Lord.

See, I am against you, O pride, says the Lord, the Lord of armies, for your day has come, the time when I will send punishment on you.

And pride will go with uncertain steps and have a fall, and there will be no one to come to his help: and I will put a fire in his towns, burning up everything round about him.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: The children of Israel and the children of Judah are crushed down together: all those who took them prisoner keep them in a tight grip; they will not let them go.

Their saviour is strong; the Lord of armies is his name: he will certainly take up their cause, so that he may give rest to the earth and trouble to the people of Babylon.

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 on all the mixed people in her, and they will become like women: a sword is on her store-houses, and they will be taken by her attackers.

For this reason the beasts of the waste land with the wolves will make their holes there and the ostriches will be living in it: never again will men be living there, it will be unpeopled from generation to generation.

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.

See, a people is coming from the north; a great nation and a number of kings will be put in motion from the inmost parts of the earth.

See, he will come up like a lion from the thick growth of Jordan against the resting-place of Teman: but I will suddenly make them go in flight from her; and I will put over her the man of my selection: for who is like me? and who will put forward his cause against me? and what keeper of sheep will keep his place before 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 men to Babylon to make her clean and get her land cleared: for in the day of trouble they will put up their tents against her on every side.

And the dead will be stretched out in the land of the Chaldaeans, and the wounded in her streets.

Go in flight out of Babylon, so that every man may keep his life; do not be cut off in her evil-doing: for it is the time of the Lord's punishment; he will give her her reward.

The Lord of armies has taken an oath by himself, saying, Truly, I will make you full with men as with locusts, and their voices will be loud against you.

They are nothing, a work of error: in the time of their punishment, destruction will overtake them.

You are my fighting axe and my instrument of war: with you the nations will be broken; with you kingdoms will be broken;

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

With you man and woman will be broken; with you the old man and the boy will be broken; with you the young man and the virgin will be broken;

With you the keeper of sheep with his flock will be broken, and with you the farmer and his oxen will be broken, and with you captains and rulers will be broken.

And I will give to Babylon, and to all the people of Chaldaea, their reward for all the evil they have done in Zion before your eyes, says the Lord.

See, I am against you, says the Lord, O mountain of destruction, causing the destruction of all the earth: and my hand will be stretched out on you, rolling you down from the rocks, and making you a burned mountain.

And they will not take from you a stone for the angle of a wall or the base of a building; but you will be a waste place for ever, says the Lord.

One man, running, will give word to another, and one who goes with news will be handing it on to another, to give word to the king of Babylon that his town has been taken from every quarter:

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.

May the violent things done to me, and my downfall, come on Babylon, the daughter of Zion will say; and, May my blood be on the people of Chaldaea, Jerusalem will say.

For this reason the Lord has said: See, I will give support to your cause, and take payment for what you have undergone; I will make her sea dry, and her fountain without water.

And Babylon will become a mass of broken walls, a hole for jackals, a cause of wonder and surprise, without a living man in it.

They will be crying out together like lions, their voices will be like the voices of young lions.

When they are heated, I will make a feast for them, and overcome them with wine, so that they may become unconscious, sleeping an eternal sleep without awaking, says the Lord.

I will make them go down to death like lambs, like he-goats together.

And I will send punishment on Bel in Babylon, and take out of his mouth what went into it; no longer will the nations be flowing together to him: truly, the wall of Babylon will come down.

So that your hearts may not become feeble and full of fear because of the news which will go about in the land; for a story will go about one year, and after that in another year another story, and violent acts in the land, ruler against ruler.

For this cause, truly, the days are coming when I will send punishment on the images of Babylon, and all her land will be shamed, and her dead will be falling down in her.

And the heaven and the earth and everything in them, will make a song of joy over Babylon: for those who make her waste will come from the north, says the Lord.

As Babylon had the dead of Israel put to the sword, so in Babylon the dead of all the land will be stretched out.

For this reason, see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will send punishment on her images; and through all her land the wounded will be crying out in pain.

Even if Babylon was lifted up to heaven, even if she had the high places of her strength shut in with walls, still I would send against her those who will make her waste, says the Lord.

For the waster has come on her, even on Babylon, and her men of war are taken, their bows are broken: for the Lord is a rewarding God, and he will certainly give payment.

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.

The Lord of armies has said: The wide walls of Babylon will be completely uncovered and her high doorways will be burned with fire; so peoples keep on working for nothing, and the weariness of nations comes to an end in the smoke.

And after reading them, say, O Lord, you have said about this place that it is to be cut off, so that no one will be living in it, not a man or a beast, but it will be unpeopled for ever.

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 you are to say, So Babylon will go down, never to be lifted up again, because of the evil which I will send on her: and weariness will overcome them. So far, these are the words of Jeremiah.

Give ear to the voice of my grief; I have no comforter; all my haters have news of my troubles, they are glad because you have done it: let the day of fate come when they will be like me.

I said to myself, The Lord is my heritage; and because of this I will have hope in him.

For though he sends grief, still he will have pity in the full measure of his love.

You will give them their reward, O Lord, answering to the work of their hands.

You will let their hearts be covered over with your curse on them.

You will go after them in wrath, and put an end to them from under the heavens of the Lord.

The face of the Lord has sent them in all directions; he will no longer take care of them: they had no respect for the priests, they gave no honour to the old men.

Our breath of life, he on whom the holy oil was put, was taken in their holes; of whom we said, Under his shade we will be living among the nations.

Have joy and be glad, O daughter of Edom, living in the land of Uz: the cup will be given to you in your turn, and you will be overcome with wine and your shame will be seen.

The punishment of your evil-doing is complete, O daughter of Zion; never again will he take you away as a prisoner: he will give you the reward of your evil-doing, O daughter of Edom; he will let your sin be uncovered.

And they, if they give ear to you or if they do not give ear (for they are an uncontrolled people), will see that there has been a prophet among them.

But the children of Israel will not give ear to you; for they have no mind to give ear to me: for all the children of Israel have a hard brow and a stiff heart.

When I say to the evil-doer, Death will certainly be your fate; and you give him no word of it and say nothing to make clear to the evil-doer the danger of his evil way, so that he may be safe; that same evil man will come to death in his evil-doing; but I will make you responsible for his blood.

But if you give the evil-doer word of his danger, and he is not turned from his sin or from his evil way, death will overtake him in his evil-doing; but your life will be safe.

Again, when an upright man, turning away from his righteousness, does evil, and I put a cause of falling in his way, death will overtake him: because you have given him no word of his danger, death will overtake him in his evil-doing, and there will be no memory of the upright acts which he has done; but I will make you responsible for his blood.

But if you say to the upright man that he is not to do evil, he will certainly keep his life because he took note of your word; and your life will be safe.

And the hand of the Lord was on me there; and he said, Get up and go out into the valley and there I will have talk with you.

But see, O son of man, I will put bands on you, prisoning you in them, and you will not go out among them: