For thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for her.

They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as lions whelps.

How is Sheshach taken! and the praise of the whole earth seized! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!

The sea is come up upon Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers shall come unto her from the north, saith Jehovah.

As Babylon hath caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon shall fall the slain of all the land.

For Jehovah layeth Babylon waste, and destroyeth out of her the great voice; and their waves roar like many waters; the noise of their voice is uttered:

for the destroyer is come upon her, even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows are broken in pieces; for Jehovah is a God of recompenses, he will surely requite.

And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is Jehovah of hosts.

And as for the pillars, the height of the one pillar was eighteen cubits; and a line of twelve cubits did compass it; and the thickness thereof was four fingers: it was hollow.

This is the people whom Nebuchadrezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year three thousand Jews and three and twenty;

How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! She is become as a widow, that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces is become tributary!

Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude; She dwelleth among the nations, she findeth no rest: All her persecutors overtook her within the straits.

The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn assembly; All her gates are desolate, her priests do sigh: Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.

And from the daughter of Zion all her majesty is departed: Her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, And they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is become as an unclean thing; All that honored her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: Yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

Her filthiness was in her skirts; she remembered not her latter end; Therefore is she come down wonderfully; she hath no comforter: Behold, O Jehovah, my affliction; for the enemy hath magnified himself.

Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is brought upon me, Wherewith Jehovah hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand; They are knit together, they are come up upon my neck; he hath made my strength to fail: The Lord hath delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able to stand.

The Lord hath set at nought all my mighty men in the midst of me; He hath called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men: The Lord hath trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah.

For these things I weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water; Because the comforter that should refresh my soul is far from me: My children are desolate, because the enemy hath prevailed.

Zion spreadeth forth her hands; there is none to comfort her; Jehovah hath commanded concerning Jacob, that they that are round about him should be his adversaries: Jerusalem is among them as an unclean thing.

Jehovah is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: Hear, I pray you, all ye peoples, and behold my sorrow: My virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.

Behold, O Jehovah; for I am in distress; my heart is troubled; My heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: Abroad the sword bereaveth, at home there is as death.

They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me; All mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: Thou wilt bring the day that thou hast proclaimed, and they shall be like unto me.

Let all their wickedness come before thee; And do unto them, as thou hast done unto me for all my transgressions: For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

He hath bent his bow like an enemy, he hath stood with his right hand as an adversary, And hath slain all that were pleasant to the eye: In the tent of the daughter of Zion he hath poured out his wrath like fire.

The Lord is become as an enemy, he hath swallowed up Israel; He hath swallowed up all her palaces, he hath destroyed his strongholds; And he hath multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.

And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly: Jehovah hath caused solemn assembly and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest.

The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary; He hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: They have made a noise in the house of Jehovah, as in the day of a solemn assembly.

Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: Her king and her princes are among the nations where the law is not; Yea, her prophets find no vision from Jehovah.

Mine eyes do fail with tears, my heart is troubled; My liver is poured upon the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, Because the young children and the sucklings swoon in the streets of the city.

They say to their mothers, Where is grain and wine? When they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, When their soul is poured out into their mothers bosom.

What shall I testify unto thee? what shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? For thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?

All that pass by clap their hands at thee; They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem,'saying , Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee; They hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; Certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

Thou hast called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side; And there was none that escaped or remained in the day of Jehovah's anger: Those that I have dandled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.

He hath made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead.

He is unto me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in secret places.

He hath bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

And I said, My strength is perished, and mine expectation from Jehovah.

My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is bowed down within me.

It is of Jehovah's lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness.

Jehovah is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.

Jehovah is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him.

It is good that a man should hope and quietly wait for the salvation of Jehovah.

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?

Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to Jehovah.

Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.

Thou hast covered with anger and pursued us; thou hast slain, thou hast not pitied.

Thou hast made us an off-scouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.

All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.

Fear and the pit are come upon us, devastation and destruction.

How is the gold become dim! how is the most pure gold changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, How are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

Even the jackals draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were laid upon her.

Her nobles were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk; They were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was as of sapphire.

Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: Their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.

It is because of the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.

They wander as blind men in the streets, they are polluted with blood, So that men cannot touch their garments.

They hunt our steps, so that we cannot go in our streets: Our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.

Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the heavens: They chased us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz: The cup shall pass through unto thee also; thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.

The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: He will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will uncover thy sins.

Remember, O Jehovah, what is come upon us: Behold, and see our reproach.

Our inheritance is turned unto strangers, Our houses unto aliens.

We are orphans and fatherless; Our mothers are as widows.

We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold unto us.

Servants rule over us: There is none to deliver us out of their hand.

Our skin is black like an oven, Because of the burning heat of famine.

The joy of our heart is ceased; Our dance is turned into mourning.

The crown is fallen from our head: Woe unto us! for we have sinned.

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

For the mountain of Zion, which is desolate: The foxes walk upon it.

Thou, O Jehovah, abidest for ever; Thy throne is from generation to generation.

Wherefore dost thou forget us for ever, And forsake us so long time?

Turn thou us unto thee, O Jehovah, and we shall be turned; Renew our days as of old.

But thou hast utterly rejected us; Thou art very wroth against us.

Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month , in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.

And I looked, and, behold, a stormy wind came out of the north, a great cloud, with a fire infolding itself, and a brightness round about it, and out of the midst thereof as it were glowing metal, out of the midst of the fire.

As for the likeness of their faces, they had the face of a man; and they four had the face of a lion on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four had also the face of an eagle.

As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches: the fire went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.

And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.

Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold, one wheel upon the earth beside the living creatures, for each of the four faces thereof.

The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto a beryl: and they four had one likeness; and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel within a wheel.

As for their rims, they were high and dreadful; and they four had their rims full of eyes round about.

And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone; and upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man upon it above.

And I saw as it were glowing metal, as the appearance of fire within it round about, from the appearance of his loins and upward; and from the appearance of his loins and downward I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness round about him.

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

And he said unto 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.

not to many peoples of a strange speech and of a hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, if I sent thee to them, they would hearken unto thee.

As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead: fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they are a rebellious house.

And I heard the noise of the wings of the living creatures as they touched one another, and the noise of the wheels beside them, even the noise of a great rushing.

Then I arose, and went forth into the plain: and, behold, the glory of Jehovah stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river Chebar; and I fell on my face.

And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it in their sight with dung that cometh out of man.

Then said I, Ah Lord Jehovah! behold, my soul hath not been polluted; for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn of beasts; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.

And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp sword; as a barber's razor shalt thou take it unto thee, and shalt cause it to pass upon thy head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair.