"Moab has vaunted itself against me. So make him drunk with the wine of my wrath until he splashes around in his own vomit, until others treat him as a laughingstock.

So I will weep with sorrow for Moab. I will cry out in sadness for all of Moab. I will moan for the people of Kir Heres.

I will weep for the grapevines of Sibmah just like the town of Jazer weeps over them. Their branches once spread as far as the Dead Sea. They reached as far as the town of Jazer. The destroyer will ravage her fig, date, and grape crops.

So my heart moans for Moab like a flute playing a funeral song. Yes, like a flute playing a funeral song, my heart moans for the people of Kir Heres. For the wealth they have gained will perish.

Yet in days to come I will reverse Moab's ill fortune." says the Lord. The judgment against Moab ends here.

Why do you brag about your great power? Your power is ebbing away, you rebellious people of Ammon, who trust in your riches and say, 'Who would dare to attack us?'

Yet in days to come I will reverse Ammon's ill fortune." says the Lord.

The Lord who rules over all spoke about Edom. "Is wisdom no longer to be found in Teman? Can Edom's counselors not give her any good advice? Has all of their wisdom turned bad?

But I will strip everything away from Esau's descendants. I will uncover their hiding places so they cannot hide. Their children, relatives, and neighbors will all be destroyed. Not one of them will be left!

I said, "I have heard a message from the Lord. A messenger has been sent among the nations to say, 'Gather your armies and march out against her! Prepare to do battle with her!'"

"A lion coming up from the thick undergrowth along the Jordan scatters the sheep in the pastureland around it. So too I will chase the Edomites off their land. Then I will appoint over it whomever I choose. For there is no one like me, and there is no one who can call me to account. There is no ruler who can stand up against me.

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

"Yet in days to come I will reverse Elam's ill fortune." says the Lord.

"Announce the news among the nations! Proclaim it! Signal for people to pay attention! Declare the news! Do not hide it! Say: 'Babylon will be captured. Bel will be put to shame. Marduk will be dismayed. Babylon's idols will be put to shame. Her disgusting images will be dismayed.

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.

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.

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.

So her young men will fall in her city squares. All her soldiers will be destroyed at that time," says the Lord.

The Lord who rules over all says, "The people of Israel are oppressed. So too are the people of Judah. All those who took them captive are holding them prisoners. They refuse to set them free.

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!

"A lion coming up from the thick undergrowth along the Jordan scatters the sheep in the pastureland around it. So too I will chase the Babylonians off of their land. Then I will appoint over it whomever I choose. For there is no one like me. There is no one who can call me to account. There is no ruler that can stand up against 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.

Babylonia had been a gold cup in the Lord's hand. She had made the whole world drunk. The nations had drunk from the wine of her wrath. So they have all gone mad.

Foreigners living there will say, 'We tried to heal her, but she could not be healed. Let's leave Babylonia and each go back to his own country. For judgment on her will be vast in its proportions. It will be like it is piled up to heaven, stacked up into the clouds.'

The exiles from Judah will say, 'The Lord has brought about a great deliverance for us! Come on, let's go and proclaim in Zion what the Lord our God has done!'

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.

Therefore the Lord says, "I will stand up for your cause. I will pay the Babylonians back for what they have done to you. I will dry up their sea. I will make their springs run dry.

When their appetites are all stirred up, I will set out a banquet for them. I will make them drunk so that they will pass out, they will fall asleep forever, they will never wake up," says the Lord.

"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.

"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.

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

We are ashamed because we have been insulted. Our faces show our disgrace. For foreigners have invaded the holy rooms in the Lord's temple.'

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."

Then say, 'O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!'

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.

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother's name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah, from Libnah.

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.

The city remained under siege until Zedekiah's eleventh year.

By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine in the city was so severe the residents had no food.

They broke through the city walls, and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king's garden. (The Babylonians had the city surrounded.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley.

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.

He burned down the Lord's temple, the royal palace, and all the houses in Jerusalem, including every large house.

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.

The bronze of the items that King Solomon made for the Lord's temple (including the two pillars, the large bronze basin called "The Sea," the twelve bronze bulls under "The Sea," and the movable stands) was too heavy to be weighed.

From the city he took an official who was in charge of the soldiers, seven of the king's advisers who were discovered in the city, an official army secretary who drafted citizens for military service, and sixty citizens who were discovered in the middle of the city.

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.

in Nebuchadnezzar's eighteenth year, 832 people from Jerusalem;

in Nebuchadnezzar's twenty-third year, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, carried into exile 745 Judeans. In all 4,600 people went into exile.

Jehoiachin took off his prison clothes and ate daily in the king's presence for the rest of his life.

(Vav) All of Daughter Zion's splendor has departed. Her leaders became like deer; they found no pasture, so they were too exhausted to escape from the hunter.

(Zayin) Jerusalem remembers, when she became a poor homeless person, all her treasures that she owned in days of old. When her people fell into an enemy's grip, none of her allies came to her rescue. Her enemies gloated over her; they sneered at her downfall.

(Lamed) Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by on the road? Look and see! Is there any pain like mine? The Lord has afflicted me, he has inflicted it on me when he burned with anger.

(Mem) He sent down fire into my bones, and it overcame them. He spread out a trapper's net for my feet; he made me turn back. He has made me desolate; I am faint all day long.

(Sin/Shin) They have heard that I groan, yet there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that you have brought it about. Bring about the day of judgment that you promised so that they may end up like me!

(Bet) The Lord destroyed mercilessly all the homes of Jacob's descendants. In his anger he tore down the fortified cities of Daughter Judah. He knocked to the ground and humiliated the kingdom and its rulers.

(Zayin) The Lord rejected his altar and abhorred his temple. He handed over to the enemy her palace walls; the enemy shouted in the Lord's temple as if it were a feast day.

(Khet) The Lord was determined to tear down Daughter Zion's wall. He prepared to knock it down; he did not withdraw his hand from destroying. He made the ramparts and fortified walls lament; together they mourned their ruin.

(Yod) The elders of Daughter Zion sit on the ground in silence. They have thrown dirt on their heads; They have dressed in sackcloth. Jerusalem's young women stare down at the ground.

(Lamed) Children say to their mothers, "Where are food and drink?" They faint like a wounded warrior in the city squares. They die slowly in their mothers' arms.

(Mem) With what can I equate you? To what can I compare you, O Daughter Jerusalem? To what can I liken you so that I might comfort you, O Virgin Daughter Zion? Your wound is as deep as the sea. Who can heal you?

(Nun) Your prophets saw visions for you that were worthless lies. They failed to expose your sin so as to restore your fortunes. They saw oracles for you that were worthless lies.

(Pe) All your enemies gloated over you. They sneered and gnashed their teeth; they said, "We have destroyed her! Ha! We have waited a long time for this day. We have lived to see it!"

(Qof) Get up! Cry out in the night when the night watches start! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord! Lift up your hands to him for your children's lives; they are fainting at every street corner.

(Resh) Look, O Lord! Consider! Whom have you ever afflicted like this? Should women eat their offspring, their healthy infants? Should priest and prophet be killed in the Lord's sanctuary?

(Tav) As if it were a feast day, you call enemies to terrify me on every side. On the day of the Lord's anger no one escaped or survived. My enemy has finished off those healthy infants whom I bore and raised.

(Gimel) He has walled me in so that I cannot get out; he has weighted me down with heavy prison chains.

So I said, "My endurance has expired; I have lost all hope of deliverance from the Lord."

(Khet) The Lord's loyal kindness never ceases; his compassions never end.

"My portion is the Lord," I have said to myself, so I will put my hope in him.

(Lamed) To crush underfoot all the earth's prisoners,

You shrouded yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can get through.

What my eyes see grieves me -- all the suffering of the daughters in my city.

Pursue them in anger and eradicate them from under the Lord's heaven.

(Dalet) The infant's tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth due to thirst; little children beg for bread, but no one gives them even a morsel.

(Samek) People cry to them, "Turn away! You are unclean! Turn away! Turn away! Don't touch us!" So they have fled and wander about; but the nations say, "They may not stay here any longer."

(Tsade) Our enemies hunted us down at every step so that we could not walk about in our streets. Our end drew near, our days were numbered, for our end had come!

(Resh) Our very life breath -- the Lord's anointed king -- was caught in their traps, of whom we thought, "Under his protection we will survive among the nations."

Because of this, our hearts are sick; because of these things, we can hardly see through our tears.

Why do you keep on forgetting us? Why do you forsake us so long?

Bring us back to yourself, O Lord, so that we may return to you; renew our life as in days before,

In the thirtieth year, on the fifth day of the fourth month, while I was among the exiles at the Kebar River, the heavens opened and I saw a divine vision.

(On the fifth day of the month -- it was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin's exile --

Then I looked, and I saw one wheel on the ground beside each of the four beings.

I saw an amber glow like a fire enclosed all around from his waist up. From his waist down I saw something that looked like fire. There was a brilliant light around it,

like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds after the rain. This was the appearance of the surrounding brilliant light; it looked like the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I threw myself face down, and I heard a voice speaking.

The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and hard-hearted, and you must say to them, 'This is what the sovereign Lord says.'

He said to me, "Son of man, eat what you see in front of you -- eat this scroll -- and then go and speak to the house of Israel."

So I opened my mouth and he fed me the scroll.

He said to me, "Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your belly with this scroll I am giving to you." So I ate it, and it was sweet like honey in my mouth.

Go to the exiles, to your fellow countrymen, and speak to them -- say to them, 'This is what the sovereign Lord says,' whether they pay attention or not."

When I say to the wicked, "You will certainly die," and you do not warn him -- you do not speak out to warn the wicked to turn from his wicked deed and wicked lifestyle so that he may live -- that wicked person will die for his iniquity, but I will hold you accountable for his death.

So I got up and went out to the valley, and the glory of the Lord was standing there, just like the glory I had seen by the Kebar River, and I threw myself face down.

As for you, son of man, they will put ropes on you and tie you up with them, so you cannot go out among them.

I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be silent and unable to reprove them, for they are a rebellious house.

But when I speak with you, I will loosen your tongue and you must say to them, 'This is what the sovereign Lord says.' Those who listen will listen, but the indifferent will refuse, for they are a rebellious house.

I have determined that the number of the years of their iniquity are to be the number of days for you -- 390 days. So bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

Look here, I will tie you up with ropes, so you cannot turn from one side to the other until you complete the days of your siege.