“All who came upon them have devoured them;
And their adversaries have said, ‘We are not guilty,
Inasmuch as they have sinned against the Lord who is the habitation of righteousness,
Even the Lord, the hope of their fathers.’

“Raise your battle cry against her on every side!
She has given herself up, her pillars have fallen,
Her walls have been torn down.
For this is the vengeance of the Lord:
Take vengeance on her;
As she has done to others, so do to her.

“Israel is a scattered flock, the lions have driven them away. The first one who devoured him was the king of Assyria, and this last one who has broken his bones is Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.

Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I am going to punish the king of Babylon and his land, just as I punished the king of Assyria.

In those days and at that time,’ declares the Lord, ‘search will be made for the iniquity of Israel, but there will be none; and for the sins of Judah, but they will not be found; for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant.’

“The noise of battle is in the land,
And great destruction.

The Lord has opened His armory
And has brought forth the weapons of His indignation,
For it is a work of the Lord God of hosts
In the land of the Chaldeans.

There is a sound of fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon,
To declare in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God,
Vengeance for His temple.

Thus says the Lord of hosts,
“The sons of Israel are oppressed,
And the sons of Judah as well;
And all who took them captive have held them fast,
They have refused to let them go.

“Their Redeemer is strong, the Lord of hosts is His name;
He will vigorously plead their case
So that He may bring rest to the earth,
But turmoil to the inhabitants of Babylon.

“A sword against the Chaldeans,” declares the Lord,
“And against the inhabitants of Babylon
And against her officials and her wise men!

“A drought on her waters, and they will be dried up!
For it is a land of idols,
And they are mad over fearsome idols.

“As when God overthrew Sodom
And Gomorrah with its neighbors,” declares the Lord,
“No man will live there,
Nor will any son of man reside in it.

“Behold, a people is coming from the north,
And a great nation and many kings
Will be aroused from the remote parts of the earth.

“Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thicket of the Jordan to a perennially watered pasture; for in an instant I will make them run away from it, and whoever is chosen I will appoint over it. For who is like Me, and who will summon Me into court? And who then is the shepherd who can stand before Me?”

At the shout, “Babylon has been seized!” the earth is shaken, and an outcry is heard among the nations.

For neither Israel nor Judah has been forsaken
By his God, the Lord of hosts,
Although their land is full of guilt
Before the Holy One of Israel.

Flee from the midst of Babylon,
And each of you save his life!
Do not be destroyed in her punishment,
For this is the Lord’s time of vengeance;
He is going to render recompense to her.

We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed;
Forsake her and let us each go to his own country,
For her judgment has reached to heaven
And towers up to the very skies.

The Lord has brought about our vindication;
Come and let us recount in Zion
The work of the Lord our God!

Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers!
The Lord has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes,
Because His purpose is against Babylon to destroy it;
For it is the vengeance of the Lord, vengeance for His temple.

It is He who made the earth by His power,
Who established the world by His wisdom,
And by His understanding He stretched out the heavens.

When He utters His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
And He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth;
He makes lightning for the rain
And brings forth the wind from His storehouses.

All mankind is stupid, devoid of knowledge;
Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols,
For his molten images are deceitful,
And there is no breath in them.

The portion of Jacob is not like these;
For the Maker of all is He,
And of the tribe of His inheritance;
The Lord of hosts is His name.

The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting,
They stay in the strongholds;
Their strength is exhausted,
They are becoming like women;
Their dwelling places are set on fire,
The bars of her gates are broken.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:
“The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor
At the time it is stamped firm;
Yet in a little while the time of harvest will come for her.”

“Then heaven and earth and all that is in them
Will shout for joy over Babylon,
For the destroyers will come to her from the north,”
Declares the Lord.

Indeed Babylon is to fall for the slain of Israel,
As also for Babylon the slain of all the earth have fallen.

For the Lord is going to destroy Babylon,
And He will make her loud noise vanish from her.
And their waves will roar like many waters;
The tumult of their voices sounds forth.

For the destroyer is coming against her, against Babylon,
And her mighty men will be captured,
Their bows are shattered;
For the Lord is a God of recompense,
He will fully repay.

“I will make her princes and her wise men drunk,
Her governors, her prefects and her mighty men,
That they may sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake up,”
Declares the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts.

So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll all the calamity which would come upon Babylon, that is, all these words which have been written concerning Babylon.

Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “As soon as you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words aloud,

And as soon as you finish reading this scroll, you will tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates,

As for the pillars, the height of each pillar was eighteen cubits, and it was twelve cubits in circumference and four fingers in thickness, and hollow.

The roads of Zion are in mourning
Because no one comes to the appointed feasts.
All her gates are desolate;
Her priests are groaning,
Her virgins are afflicted,
And she herself is bitter.

Her adversaries have become her masters,
Her enemies prosper;
For the Lord has caused her grief
Because of the multitude of her transgressions;
Her little ones have gone away
As captives before the adversary.

“Is it nothing to all you who pass this way?
Look and see if there is any pain like my pain
Which was severely dealt out to me,
Which the Lord inflicted on the day of His fierce anger.

“The yoke of my transgressions is bound;
By His hand they are knit together.
They have come upon my neck;
He has made my strength fail.
The Lord has given me into the hands
Of those against whom I am not able to stand.

“The Lord has rejected all my strong men
In my midst;
He has called an appointed time against me
To crush my young men;
The Lord has trodden as in a wine press
The virgin daughter of Judah.

“For these things I weep;
My eyes run down with water;
Because far from me is a comforter,
One who restores my soul.
My children are desolate
Because the enemy has prevailed.”

Zion stretches out her hands;
There is no one to comfort her;
The Lord has commanded concerning Jacob
That the ones round about him should be his adversaries;
Jerusalem has become an unclean thing among them.

“The Lord is righteous;
For I have rebelled against His command;
Hear now, all peoples,
And behold my pain;
My virgins and my young men
Have gone into captivity.

“See, O Lord, for I am in distress;
My spirit is greatly troubled;
My heart is overturned within me,
For I have been very rebellious.
In the street the sword slays;
In the house it is like death.

“They have heard that I groan;
There is no one to comfort me;
All my enemies have heard of my calamity;
They are glad that You have done it.
Oh, that You would bring the day which You have proclaimed,
That they may become like me.

“Let all their wickedness come before You;
And deal with them as You have dealt with me
For all my transgressions;
For my groans are many and my heart is faint.”

The Lord has rejected His altar,
He has abandoned His sanctuary;
He has delivered into the hand of the enemy
The walls of her palaces.
They have made a noise in the house of the Lord
As in the day of an appointed feast.

Her gates have sunk into the ground,
He has destroyed and broken her bars.
Her king and her princes are among the nations;
The law is no more.
Also, her prophets find
No vision from the Lord.

My eyes fail because of tears,
My spirit is greatly troubled;
My heart is poured out on the earth
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people,
When little ones and infants faint
In the streets of the city.

They say to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
As they faint like a wounded man
In the streets of the city,
As their life is poured out
On their mothers’ bosom.

How shall I admonish you?
To what shall I compare you,
O daughter of Jerusalem?
To what shall I liken you as I comfort you,
O virgin daughter of Zion?
For your ruin is as vast as the sea;
Who can heal you?

Your prophets have seen for you
False and foolish visions;
And they have not exposed your iniquity
So as to restore you from captivity,
But they have seen for you false and misleading oracles.

All who pass along the way
Clap their hands in derision at you;
They hiss and shake their heads
At the daughter of Jerusalem,
“Is this the city of which they said,
‘The perfection of beauty,
A joy to all the earth’?”

All your enemies
Have opened their mouths wide against you;
They hiss and gnash their teeth.
They say, “We have swallowed her up!
Surely this is the day for which we waited;
We have reached it, we have seen it.”

You called as in the day of an appointed feast
My terrors on every side;
And there was no one who escaped or survived
In the day of the Lord’s anger.
Those whom I bore and reared,
My enemy annihilated them.

He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in secret places.

He bent His bow
And set me as a target for the arrow.

Surely my soul remembers
And is bowed down within me.

They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.

It is good that he waits silently
For the salvation of the Lord.

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

Let him put his mouth in the dust,
Perhaps there is hope.

Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass,
Unless the Lord has commanded it?

Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That both good and ill go forth?

Let us examine and probe our ways,
And let us return to the Lord.

You have covered Yourself with anger
And pursued us;
You have slain and have not spared.

You have made us mere offscouring and refuse
In the midst of the peoples.

All our enemies have opened their mouths against us.

Panic and pitfall have befallen us,
Devastation and destruction;

The precious sons of Zion,
Weighed against fine gold,
How they are regarded as earthen jars,
The work of a potter’s hands!

For the iniquity of the daughter of my people
Is greater than the sin of Sodom,
Which was overthrown as in a moment,
And no hands were turned toward her.

Their appearance is blacker than soot,
They are not recognized in the streets;
Their skin is shriveled on their bones,
It is withered, it has become like wood.

“Depart! Unclean!” they cried of themselves.
“Depart, depart, do not touch!”
So they fled and wandered;
Men among the nations said,
“They shall not continue to dwell with us.”

Our pursuers were swifter
Than the eagles of the sky;
They chased us on the mountains,
They waited in ambush for us in the wilderness.

Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom,
Who dwells in the land of Uz;
But the cup will come around to you as well,
You will become drunk and make yourself naked.

Remember, O Lord, what has befallen us;
Look, and see our reproach!

We have to pay for our drinking water,
Our wood comes to us at a price.

Our pursuers are at our necks;
We are worn out, there is no rest for us.

Our fathers sinned, and are no more;
It is we who have borne their iniquities.

Slaves rule over us;
There is no one to deliver us from their hand.

Our skin has become as hot as an oven,
Because of the burning heat of famine.

The crown has fallen from our head;
Woe to us, for we have sinned!

Because of this our heart is faint,
Because of these things our eyes are dim;

You, O Lord, rule forever;
Your throne is from generation to generation.

Why do You forget us forever?
Why do You forsake us so long?

Restore us to You, O Lord, that we may be restored;
Renew our days as of old,

Unless You have utterly rejected us
And are exceedingly angry with us.

As I looked, behold, a storm wind was coming from the north, a great cloud with fire flashing forth continually and a bright light around it, and in its midst something like glowing metal in the midst of the fire.

Under their wings on their four sides were human hands. As for the faces and wings of the four of them,

As for the form of their faces, each had the face of a man; all four had the face of a lion on the right and the face of a bull on the left, and all four had the face of an eagle.

And each went straight forward; wherever the spirit was about to go, they would go, without turning as they went.

Now as I looked at the living beings, behold, there was one wheel on the earth beside the living beings, for each of the four of them.

The appearance of the wheels and their workmanship was like sparkling beryl, and all four of them had the same form, their appearance and workmanship being as if one wheel were within another.

Whenever they moved, they moved in any of their four directions without turning as they moved.

As for their rims they were lofty and awesome, and the rims of all four of them were full of eyes round about.

I also heard the sound of their wings like the sound of abundant waters as they went, like the voice of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of an army camp; whenever they stood still, they dropped their wings.

As the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking.