Therefore hear the plan of the Lord which He has devised against Babylon, and hear what He has purposed against [the inhabitants of the land of] the Chaldeans: surely they will be dragged away, [even] the little ones of the flock; surely He will make their habitation desolate because of them.

The mighty warriors of Babylon have ceased to fight;
They remain in their strongholds.
Their strength and power have failed;
They are becoming [weak and helpless] like women.
Their dwelling places are set on fire;
The bars on her gates are broken.

Concerning the pillars, the height of each pillar was eighteen cubits (twenty-seven feet), and a line [an ornamental molding] of twelve cubits (eighteen feet) went around its circumference; it was four fingers thick, and [the pillar was] hollow.

A capital of bronze was on [top of] it. The height of each capital was five cubits (seven and one-half feet), with a lattice-work and pomegranates around it, all of bronze. The second pillar also, with its pomegranates, was similar to these.

All her people groan, seeking bread;
They have exchanged their desirable and precious things for food
To restore their lives.
“See, O Lord, and consider
How despised and repulsive I have become!”

“From on high He sent fire into my bones,
And it prevailed over them.
He has spread a net for my feet;
He has turned me back.
He has made me desolate and hopelessly miserable,
Faint all the day long.

“I [Jerusalem] called to my lovers (political allies), but they deceived me.
My priests and my elders perished in the city
While they looked for food to restore their strength.

They cry to their mothers,
“Where is grain and wine?”
As they faint like a wounded man
In the streets of the city,
As their life [slips away and] is poured out
In their mothers’ arms.

My eyes [see things that] bring pain to my soul
Because of all the daughters of my city.

The tongue of the infant clings
To the roof of its mouth because of thirst;
The little ones ask for food,
But no one gives it to them.

The hands of compassionate women
Boiled their own children;
They became food for them
Because of the destruction of the daughter of my people [Judah].

We have given the hand [as a pledge of fidelity and submission] to Egypt and Assyria to get enough bread.

Their legs were straight and the soles of their feet were like a calf’s hoof, and they sparkled and gleamed like shiny bronze.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet and I will speak to you.”

Then as He spoke to me the Spirit entered me and set me on my feet; and I heard Him speaking to me.

Then the Spirit entered me and made me stand on my feet; He spoke and said to me, “Go, shut yourself up in your house.

The food you eat each day shall be [measured] by weight, twenty shekels, to be eaten daily at a set time.

You shall eat your food as barley cakes, having baked it in their sight over human dung.”

Then He said to me, “See, I will let you use cow’s dung instead of human dung over which you shall prepare your food.”

“Thus says the Lord God, ‘Strike with your fist, stamp with your foot and say, “Alas, because of all the evil atrocities of the house of Israel, which will fall by sword, by famine, and by virulent disease!

Also My bread which I gave you, [made from the] fine flour and oil and honey with which I fed you, you even offered it before idols [no better than cow dung] as a sweet and soothing aroma; so it happened,” says the Lord God.

Behold now [listen very carefully], I have stretched out My hand against you, reduced your portion, and handed you over to the desire of those who hate you, the daughters of the Philistines, who are ashamed of your infamous behavior.

Behold, this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters (outlying cities) had arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy.

They were haughty and committed repulsive acts before Me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

(though the father did not do any of these things), that is, the son even eats [the food set before idols] at the mountain shrines, and defiles his neighbor’s wife,

He does not eat [food set before idols] at the mountain shrines or raise his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, or defile his neighbor’s wife,

It will seem like a false divination in their eyes, those who have sworn solemn oaths [of allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar]. But he will remind them of their guilt [by rebelling and violating their oath], that they may be caught.

In you are men who slander for the purpose of shedding blood, and in your presence they have eaten [food offered to idols] at the mountain shrines; in your midst they have committed acts of lewdness.

For they have committed adultery, and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery [against Me] with their idols and have even forced their sons, whom they bore to Me, to pass through the fire as [an offering of] food to them (idols).

Sigh and groan in silence; do not mourn for the dead. Bind on your turban and put your sandals on your feet, and do not cover your mustache or eat the bread of [mourners furnished by other] men.”

Your turbans will be on your heads and your sandals on your feet. You will not mourn or weep, but you will rot away in your sins and you will groan to one another.

For thus says the Lord God, “Because you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet and rejoiced with all the contempt, and malice, and spite of your soul against the land of Israel,

“I will abandon you to the wilderness, you and all the fish of your rivers;
You will fall on the open field; and you will not be gathered up or buried.
I have given you as food to the [wild] animals of the earth and the birds of the sky.

No man’s foot will pass through it, no animal’s foot will pass through it, and it will not be inhabited for forty years.

“Son of man, take up a dirge (funeral poem to be sung) over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him,

‘You have compared yourself to a young lion among the nations,
But you are like a monster in the seas;
You burst into your rivers
And disturbed and muddied the waters with your feet
And fouled their rivers [the source of their prosperity].’”

“I will also destroy all its cattle from beside its great waters;
And the foot of man will not muddy them anymore
Nor will the hoofs of the animals muddy them.

“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to them, the [spiritual] shepherds, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Woe (judgment is coming) to the [spiritual] shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flock?

You eat the fat [the choicest of meat], and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the best of the livestock, but you do not feed the flock.

They were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the predators of the field.

“As I live,” says the Lord God, “certainly because My flock has become prey, My flock has even become food for every predator of the field for lack of a shepherd, and My shepherds did not search for My flock, but rather the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed My flock;

‘Thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will demand My flock from them and make them stop tending the flock, so that the shepherds cannot feed themselves anymore. I will rescue My flock from their mouth, so that they will not be food for them.”’”

I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land.

I will feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.

I will feed My flock and I will let them lie down [to rest],” says the Lord God.

“I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bandage the crippled, and strengthen the weak and the sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong [who have become hard-hearted and perverse]. I will feed them with judgment and punishment.

Is it too little a thing for you that you [unrighteous ones who are well-fed] feed in the best pasture, yet you must trample down with your feet [of wickedness] the rest of your pastures? Or that you drink clear [still] water, yet you must muddy with your feet [of wickedness] the rest [of the water]?

As for My flock (the righteous), they must feed on what you trample with your feet and drink what you muddy with your feet!’”

Therefore thus says the Lord God to them, “Behold, I Myself will judge between the [well-fed] fat sheep and the lean sheep.

“Then I will appoint over them one shepherd and he will feed them, [a ruler like] My servant David; he will feed them and be their shepherd.

So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood up on their feet, an exceedingly great army.

So you will eat fat until you are filled and drink blood till you are drunk, at the sacrificial feast which I have prepared for you.

And He [the Lord] said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the sons (descendants) of Israel forever. And the house of Israel will not again defile My holy name, neither they nor their kings, by their [idolatrous] prostitution and by the corpses and monuments of their kings in their graves,

In that you brought in foreigners, uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in My sanctuary to pollute and profane it—My house—when you offered My bread, the fat, and the blood; and they made My covenant void —this in addition to all your other repulsive acts.

“But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who performed the duty of My sanctuary when the children (descendants) of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer to Me the fat and the blood,” declares the Lord God.

By the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither and their fruit will not fail. They shall bear every month because their water flows from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.”

The remainder of the length alongside the holy allotment shall be 10,000 cubits to the east and 10,000 to the west; and it shall be beside the holy allotment. The produce from it shall be food for the workers of the city.

The king assigned a daily ration for them from his finest food and from the wine which he drank. They were to be educated and nourished this way for three years so that at the end of that time they were [prepared] to enter the king’s service.

But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile (taint, dishonor) himself with the king’s finest food or with the wine which the king drank; so he asked the commander of the officials that he might [be excused so that he would] not defile himself.

and the commander of the officials said to Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has prearranged your food and your drink; for why should he see your faces looking more haggard than the young men who are your own age? Then you would make me forfeit my head to the king.”

its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay [pottery].

As you were looking, a stone was cut out without [human] hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and crushed them.

And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but there will be in it some of the durability and strength of iron, just as you saw the iron mixed with common clay.

As the [ten] toes of the feet were partly of iron and partly of clay, so some of the kingdom will be strong, and another part of it will be brittle.

Nebuchadnezzar the king made a gold [-plated] image, whose height [including the pedestal] was sixty cubits (ninety feet) and its width six cubits (nine feet). He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

‘Its leaves were beautiful and its fruit abundant,
And in it was food for all.
The beasts of the field found shade under it,
And the birds of the sky nested in its branches,
And all living creatures fed themselves from it.

whose foliage was beautiful and its fruit abundant, and on which was food for all, under which the beasts of the field lived, and in whose branches the birds of the sky nested—

He was also driven from mankind, and his mind was made like that of an animal, and his dwelling place was with the wild donkeys. He was given grass to eat like cattle, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven until he came to know [without any doubt] that the Most High God rules over the kingdom of mankind and He appoints it to whomever He wills.

The first (the Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar) was like a lion and had the wings of an eagle. I kept looking until its wings were plucked, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man; a human mind was given to it.

After this I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, [I saw] a fourth beast (the Roman Empire), terrible and extremely strong; and it had huge iron teeth. It devoured and crushed and trampled down what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that came before it, and it had ten horns (ten kings).

“Then I wished to know the exact meaning of the fourth beast, which was different from all the others, extremely dreadful, with teeth of iron and claws of bronze, which devoured, crushed and trampled down what was left with its feet,

I ate no tasty food, nor did any meat or wine enter my mouth; and I did not anoint (refresh, groom) myself at all for the full three weeks.

His body also was like beryl [with a golden luster], his face had the appearance of lightning, his eyes were like flaming torches, his arms and his feet like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words was like the noise of a multitude [of people or the roaring of the sea].

Then he said, “Do you understand [fully] why I came to you? Now I shall return to fight against the [hostile] prince of Persia; and when I have gone, behold, the prince of Greece is about to come.

The king of the South (Ptolemy IV Philopator of Egypt) will be enraged and go out and fight with the king of the North (Antiochus III the Great); and the Syrian king will raise a great multitude (army), but the multitude shall be given into the hand of the Egyptian king.

Yes, those who eat his fine food will betray and destroy him (Ptolemy VI), and his army will be swept away, and many will fall down slain.

“For their mother has played the prostitute;
She who conceived them has acted shamefully,
For she said, ‘I will pursue my lovers
Who give me my food and my water,
My wool and my flax, my oil and my [refreshing] drinks.’

They (the priests) feed on the sin offering of My people
And set their heart on their wickedness.

For Israel is stubborn,
Like a stubborn heifer.
Can the Lord now pasture them
Like a lamb in a large field?

The threshing floor and the wine press will no longer feed them,
And the new wine will fail them [because they failed to honor the God who provides].

They will not remain in the land of the Lord,
But Ephraim will return to [another] Egypt [in bondage]
And they will eat [ceremonially] unclean food in Assyria.

I led them gently with cords of a man, with bonds of love [guiding them],
And I was to them as one who lifts up and eases the yoke [of the law] over their jaws;
And I bent down to them and fed them.

When they had their pasture, they became satisfied,
And being satisfied, their heart became proud (self-centered);
Therefore they forgot Me.

Has not the food been cut off before our eyes,
Joy and gladness from the house of our God?

“But I will remove the northern army far away from you,
And I will drive it into a parched and desolate land,
With its forward guard into the eastern sea (Dead Sea)
And with its rear guard into the western sea (Mediterranean Sea).
And its stench will arise and its foul odor of decay will come up [this is the fate of the northern army in the final day of the Lord],
For He has done great things.”

“He who handles the bow will not stand his ground,
The one who is swift of foot will not escape,
Nor will he who rides the horse save his life [from the invading army].

For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel,

“Seek Me [search diligently for Me and regard Me as more essential than food] so that you may live.

“People shall stagger from sea to sea [to the very ends of the earth]
And from the north even to the east;
They will roam here and there to seek the word of the Lord [longing for it as essential for life],
But they will not find it.

He issued a proclamation and it said, “In Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles: No man, animal, herd, or flock is to taste anything. They are not to eat or drink water.

And He shall stand and shepherd and guide His flock
In the strength of the Lord,
In the majesty of the name of the Lord His God;
And they shall dwell [secure in undisturbed peace],
Because at that time He shall be great [extending His authority]
[Even] to the ends of the earth.

Shepherd and rule Your people with Your scepter [of blessing],
The flock of Your inheritance and Your possession
Which dwells alone [separate and secure from attack] in the forest,
In the midst of a garden land.
Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead
As in the days of old [the days of Moses and Elijah].

The Lord is slow to anger and great in power
And He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.
The Lord has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm,
And the clouds are the dust beneath His feet.

Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good news [telling of Assyria’s destruction],
Who announces peace and prosperity!
Celebrate your feasts, O Judah;
Perform your vows.
For the wicked one [the king of Assyria] will never again pass through you;
He is completely cut off.

Therefore, they offer sacrifices to their net
And burn incense to their fishing net;
Because through these things their catch is large and they live luxuriously,
And their food is plentiful.

Before Him goes the pestilence [of judgment as in Egypt],
And [the burning] plague [of condemnation] follows at His feet [as in Sennacherib’s army].

I heard and my whole inner self trembled;
My lips quivered at the sound.
Decay and rottenness enter my bones,
And I tremble in my place.
Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress,
For the people to arise who will invade and attack us.

Though the fig tree does not blossom
And there is no fruit on the vines,
Though the yield of the olive fails
And the fields produce no food,
Though the flock is cut off from the fold
And there are no cattle in the stalls,

The Lord God is my strength [my source of courage, my invincible army];
He has made my feet [steady and sure] like hinds’ feet
And makes me walk [forward with spiritual confidence] on my high places [of challenge and responsibility].

For the choir director, on my stringed instruments.

The great [judgment] day of the Lord is near,
Near and coming very quickly.
Listen! The [voice of the] day of the Lord!
The warrior cries out bitterly [unable to fight or to flee].

For [this is the fate of the Philistines:] Gaza will be abandoned
And Ashkelon a desolation;
[The people of] Ashdod will be driven out at noon [in broad daylight]
And Ekron will be uprooted and destroyed.

“The remnant of Israel will do no wrong
Nor speak lies,
Nor will a deceitful tongue
Be found in their mouths;
For they will eat and lie down
With no one to make them tremble and feel afraid.”