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.

Just as God demolished Sodom and Gomorrah
and their neighboring towns—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
so no one will live there;
no human being will even stay in it
as a temporary resident.

Look, like a lion he comes up from the thickets of the Jordan against {a pastureland by a constantly flowing stream}, so {I will chase them away quickly} from her, and I will appoint whoever [is] chosen over her. For who [is] like me, and who can summon me, and who [is] this shepherd who can stand {before me}?

For this, hear ye the counsel of Jehovah which he counseled against Babel; and his purposes which he purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: if the last of the flock shall not drag them out: if he shall not lay waste the habitation upon them.

This is what the Lord says:

I am about to stir up a destructive wind against Babylon
and against the population of Leb-qamai.

I will send people to winnow Babylonia like a wind blowing away chaff. They will winnow her and strip her land bare. This will happen when they come against her from every direction, when it is time to destroy her.

Flee from the midst of Babylon and save each one his life. You must not perish because of her guilt. For this [is the] time of vengeance for Yahweh, he [will] repay her what is deserved.

A cup of gold, was Babylon in the hand of Yahweh, Making drunk all the earth, - Of her wine, have the nations drunk, For this cause have the nations been acting as men who are mad.

Sharpen the arrows; take the shields. Jehovah hath stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; for his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it; for this is the vengeance of Jehovah, the vengeance of his temple.

“I will repay Babylon and all the residents of Chaldea for all their evil they have done in Zion before your very eyes.”

This is the Lord’s declaration.

Look, I am against you, devastating mountain—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
you devastate the whole earth.
I will stretch out My hand against you,
roll you down from the cliffs,
and turn you into a charred mountain.

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.

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.

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.

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.

While they are flushed with heat, I will serve them a feast,
and I will make them drunk so that they revel.
Then they will fall asleep forever
and never wake up.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Do this now, so your heart does not grow faint, and so you don't become frightened because of the rumors that are heard in the land a rumor comes one year and then after it another rumor comes the next year about violence in the land and one ruler against another 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.

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.

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 should ascend to the heavens
and fortify her tall fortresses,
destroyers will come against her from Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

I will make her princes and sages drunk,
along with her governors, officials, and warriors.
Then they will fall asleep forever
and never wake up.
This is the King’s declaration;
Yahweh of Hosts is His name.

This is what Yahweh of Hosts says:

Babylon’s thick walls will be totally demolished,
and her high gates consumed by fire.
The peoples will have labored for nothing;
the nations will exhaust themselves only to feed the fire.

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

and gave Seraiah this charge, "When thou comest unto Babylon, see that thou read all these words,

and thou shalt say - O Yahweh! thou, thyself, hast spoken against this place to cut it off, That there be in it no inhabitant Neither man nor beast, - But desolations age-abiding, shall it become!

And it shall be when thou hast made an end of reading this scroll, that thou shalt bind thereunto a stone, and cast it in the midst of the Euphrates,

And you shall say, In this way shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring on her. And they shall be weary. So far are the words of Jeremiah.

For because of the {anger} of Yahweh this happened in Jerusalem and Judah until his casting them from his {presence}. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

And this besieging of the city endured unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.

And in the fifth month, in the tenth to the month, this year the nineteenth year to king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel, came Nebuzaradan, chief of the cooks, standing before the face of the king of Babel, into Jerusalem,

On each pillar was a capital of bronze, and the height of each capital was five cubits. Latticework and pomegranates, all of bronze, were all around the capital. And the second pillar was like this, including the pomegranates.

After this manner were both the pillars fashioned with the pomegranates, whereof there were a hundredth and ninety six, which hanged upon the hoops round about.

This, is the people, whom Nebuchadrezzar carried away captive, - In the seventh year - of them of Judah, three thousand and twenty-three;

How lonely she lies, the city that thronged with people! Like a widow she has become, this great one among nations! The princess among provinces has become a vassal.

Jerusalem, hath grievously sinned, For this cause, unto exile, hath she been delivered, - All who used to honour her, have despised her, for they have descried her unseemliness, yea, she herself, hath sighed, and turned back.

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?

(Samek) He rounded up all my mighty ones; The Lord did this in my midst. He summoned an assembly against me to shatter my young men. The Lord has stomped like grapes the virgin daughter, Judah.

Because of all this, I weep; my eyes stream with tears because far from me is the comforter of my soul. My children are sorrowful, because the enemy has won.

All passing by, have clapped, over thee, their hands, have hissed and wagged their head over the daughter of Jerusalem, - saying , Is, this, the city, of which men used to say - The perfection of beauty! A joy to the whole earth!

All thy foes, have opened wide, over thee their mouth, They have hissed, and gnashed their teeth, They have said - We have swallowed her up! Surely, this, is the day for which we have waited, We have found! We have seen!

Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom you have done this. Shall the women eat their offspring, the children of their tender care? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

I continually think about this, and I am depressed.

This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.

My portion, is Yahweh, saith my soul, For this cause, will I wait for him.

to pervert a man in his cause. This, Jehovah does not see.

Who is this -- he hath said, and it is, And the Lord hath not commanded it?

Why should any living mortal, or any man,
Complain [of punishment] in view of his sins?

Because of the sins of her [counterfeit] prophets
And the wickedness of her [unfaithful] priests,
Who have shed in her midst
The blood of the just and righteous;

נ NunBlind, they stumbled in the streets,
defiled by this blood,
so that no one dared
to touch their garments.

For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim.

In the fifth to the month, this the fifth year to the captivity of king Jehoiachin,

Also from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.

Their faces had this appearance: Each of the four had the face of a man, with the face of a lion on the right, the face of an ox on the left and also the face of an eagle.

And under the firmament were their wings straight, the one towards the other: every one had two, which covered on this side, and every one had two, which covered on that side, their bodies.

There was the likeness of the appearance of a human being seated on the likeness of the throne high above. I noticed that from what appeared to look like his waist upward there was something that looked like metal that glowed as if it were immersed in fire. Below this there was something resembling fire, with a radiant light surrounding him.

As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness around. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one speaking.

And he said to me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against me: they and their fathers have transgressed against me: even to this very day.

The children are obstinate and hardhearted. I am sending you to them, and you must say to them, ‘This is what the Lord God says.’

Whether this rebellious group listens to you or not, at least they'll realize that a prophet had appeared in their midst!

Moreover he said to me, Son of man, eat what thou findest; eat this roll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.

So I opened my mouth, - and he caused me to eat this roll.

And he said to me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.

This isn't a large group of people whose speech is unintelligible to you or whose language is difficult for you to comprehend. Frankly, if I had sent you to that kind of people, they would certainly have listened to you!

And go now to those who have been taken away as prisoners, to the children of your people, and say to them, This is what the Lord has said; if they give ear or if they do not.

At the end of the seven days, this message from the LORD came to me:

In my saying to the unjust, Dying, thou shalt die; and thou admonished him not, and thou spakest not to admonish the unjust from his way of injustice to preserve him alive; this unjust one shall die in his iniquity, and his blood I will seek from thy hand.

The Spirit entered me, rested on me, caused me to stand on my feet, and then he spoke to me. This is what he had to say: "Go barricade yourself in your house.

But when I have talk with you I will make your mouth open, and you are to say to them, This is what the Lord has said: Let the hearer give ear; and as for him who will not, let him keep his ears shut: for they are an uncontrolled people.

Moreover take thou to thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.

I've assigned you to sleep this way for 390 days, representing the years they've been sinning, as you bear symbolically the punishment of the house of Israel.

When you have completed this, you are to sleep on your right side, symbolically bearing the iniquity of Judah for 40 days. Each day that I've assigned to you represents one year.

After this, you are to turn toward the rampart of Jerusalem and oppose it with your bare arms, because I'm going to prophesy about it.

And the meat that thou eatest, shall have a certain weight appointed: namely twenty shekels every day. This appointed meat shalt thou eat daily, from the beginning to the end.

The Lord said, “This is how the Israelites will eat their bread—ceremonially unclean—among the nations where I will banish them.”

Then said I, "O LORD God: Behold, my soul was yet never stained, for from my youth up to this hour. I did never eat of a dead carcass, or that which was slain of wild beasts, neither came there ever any unclean flesh in my mouth."

Thus saith the Lord GOD; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are around her.

For this cause the Lord has said: Because you have been more uncontrolled than the nations round about you, and have not been guided by my rules or kept my orders, but have kept the orders of the nations round about you;

For this cause the Lord has said: See, I, even I, am against you; and I will be judging among you before the eyes of the nations.

For this cause fathers will take their sons for food among you, and sons will make a meal of their fathers; and I will be judge among you, and all the rest of you I will send away to every wind.

For this cause, by my life, says the Lord, because you have made my holy place unclean with all your hated things and all your disgusting ways, you will become disgusting to me; my eye will have no mercy and I will have no pity.

You mountains of Israel, give ear to the words of the Lord: this is what the Lord has said to the mountains and the hills, to the waterways and the valleys: See, I, even I, am sending on you a sword for the destruction of your high places.

And they shall know that I am the LORD, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil to them.

This is what the Lord has said: Give blows with your hand, stamping with your foot, and say, O sorrow! because of all the evil and disgusting ways of the children of Israel: for death will overtake them by the sword and through need of food and by disease.

The one who is far off will die by plague; the one who is near will fall by the sword; and the one who remains and is spared will die of famine. In this way I will exhaust My wrath on them.

This message from the LORD arrived for me:

And you, son of man, say, This is what the Lord has said to the land of Israel: An end has come, the end has come on the four quarters of the land.

This is what the Lord has said: An evil, even one evil; see, it is coming.

While the beauty of his own ornament he had in majesty placed, Then the images, of their abominations. Their detestable things, Made they therein, - For this cause have I delivered it up to them for removal;

For this reason I will send the worst of the nations and they will take their houses for themselves: I will make the pride of their strength come to an end; and their holy places will be made unclean.

When this trouble cometh, they shall seek peace, but they shall have none.

This similitude stretched out a hand, and took me by the hairy locks of my head, and the spirit lift me up betwixt heaven and earth: And God brought me in a vision to Jerusalem, into the court of the inward port that lieth toward the north. There stood an image, with whom he that hath all things in his power was very wroth.

Then said he to me, Son of man, lift up thy eyes now the way towards the north. So I lifted up my eyes the way towards the north, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry.

And he said furthermore unto me, "Thou son of man, seest thou what these do? Seest thou the great abominations that the house of Israel commit in this place? Which ought not to be done in my sanctuary: But turn thee about, and thou shalt see yet greater abominations."

Then said he to me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

Then he said to me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and lo, they put the branch to their nose.

For this reason I will let loose my wrath: my eye will not have mercy, and I will have no pity.

Then I noticed the man dressed in linen who wore the writing case by his side as he brought back this message: "I've done as you have commanded me."

He issued this order to the man who was clothed in white linen: "Take fire from within the whirling wheels, among the cherubim." So he went and stood beside the wheels.

And the cherubim were lifted up. This is the living creature that I saw by the river of Kebar.