The king of Babylon hath beard the report of them, And unnerved are his hands, - Anguish, hath seized him, Writhing pain, as a woman in child-birth.

The Lord has said: See, I will make a wind of destruction come up against Babylon and against those who are living in Chaldaea;

And I will send to Babylon winnowers, And they shall winnow her, And shall empty her land, - For they are against her round about in the day of calamity.

Thus the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and they that are thrust through in her streets.

For Israel and Judah are not left widowed
by their God, the Lord of Hosts,
though their land is full of guilt
against the Holy One of Israel.

Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD'S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.

We would have healed Babylon, but she was not to be healed.
Abandon her and let each [captive] return to his own country,
For her guilt and judgment have reached to heaven
And are lifted up to the very skies.

O you whose living-place is by the wide waters, whose stores are great, your end is come, your evil profit is ended.

At the voice He giveth forth, A multitude of waters are in the heavens, And He causeth vapours to come up from the end of the earth, Lightnings for rain He hath made, And He bringeth out wind from His treasures.

Every man has become stupid and brutelike, without knowledge [of God];
Every goldsmith is shamed by the cast images he has made;
For his molten idols are a lie,
And there is no breath [of life] or spirit in them.

They are vanity, the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

“You [Cyrus of Persia, soon to conquer Babylon] are My battle-axe and weapon of war—
For with you I shatter nations,
With you I destroy kingdoms.

The Lord says, "Beware! I am opposed to you, Babylon! You are like a destructive mountain that destroys all the earth. I will unleash my power against you; I will roll you off the cliffs and make you like a burned-out mountain.

Lift up a signal in the land [to spread the news]!
Blow the trumpet among the nations!
Dedicate the nations [for war] against her;
Call against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz.
Appoint a marshal against her;
Cause the horses to come up like bristly locusts [with their wings not yet released from their cases].

And the land is shaking and in pain: for the purposes of the Lord are fixed, to make the land of Babylon an unpeopled waste.

The mighty men of Babylon have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwellingplaces; her bars are broken.

And that the passages are stopped, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted.

For these are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a grain-floor when it is stamped down; before long, the time of her grain-cutting will come.

The Babylonians are all like lions roaring for prey. They are like lion cubs growling for something to eat.

When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith Jehovah.

Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.

Now {so that you are not fainthearted}, and you are afraid at the rumors that are heard in the land-- and in the year the rumor comes, and in the year after it the rumor, and violence [is] in the land, with ruler against ruler--

Therefore behold, days are coming when I will punish the graven images of Babylon; and her whole land shall be put to shame, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

Then shall shout over Babylon - heavens and earth and all who are therein, - For out of the North, shall come to her the spoilers Declareth Yahweh.

You who have got away safe from the sword, go, waiting for nothing; have the Lord in memory when you are far away, and keep Jerusalem in mind.

We are confounded, because we have heard reproach: shame hath covered our faces: for strangers are come into the sanctuaries of the LORD'S house.

Therefore, lo, days are coming, An affirmation of Jehovah, And I have seen after its graven images, And in all its land groan doth the wounded.

For the Lord is making Babylon waste, and putting an end to the great voice coming out of her; and her waves are thundering like great waters, their voice is sounding loud:

Because the spoiler is come upon her, even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, every one of their bows is broken: for the LORD God of recompences shall surely requite.

Thus said Jehovah of Hosts, the wall of Babylon -- The broad one -- is utterly made bare, And her high gates with fire are burnt, And peoples labour in vain, And nations in fire, and have been weary!

So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon.

And it will be that, when you have come to an end of reading this book, you are to have a stone fixed to it, and have it dropped into the Euphrates:

And thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

then is the city broken up, and all the men of war flee, and go forth from the city by night, the way of the gate between the two walls, that is by the king's garden -- and the Chaldeans are by the city round about -- and they go the way of the plain.

and all the walls of Jerusalem round about broken down have all the forces of the Chaldeans that are with the chief of the executioners.

And of the poor of the people, and the remnant of the people who are left in the city, and those who are falling away, who have fallen unto the king of Babylon, and the remnant of the multitude, hath Nebuzar-Adan chief of the executioners, removed;

And the pillars of brass that are to the house of Jehovah, and the bases, and the brasen sea that is in the house of Jehovah, have the Chaldeans broken, and they bear away all the brass of them to Babylon;

The two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve brazen oxen that are beneath the bases, that king Solomon made for the house of Jehovah, there was no weighing of the brass of all these vessels.

And the chapiter upon it is of brass, and the height of the one chapiter is five cubits, and net-work and pomegranates are on the chapiter round about, the whole is of brass; and like these have the second pillar, and pomegranates.

And the pomegranates are ninety and six on a side, all the pomegranates are a hundred on the net-work round about.

and out of the city he hath taken a certain eunuch, who hath been inspector over the men of war, and seven men of those seeing the king's face, who have been found in the city, and the head scribe of the host, who mustereth the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land, who are found in the midst of the city;

These are the people Nebuchadnezzar deported: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews;

in the three and twentieth year of Nebuchadrezzar, hath Nebuzar-Adan chief of the guard removed of Jewish souls, seven hundred forty and five; all the souls are four thousand and six hundred.

and speaketh with him good things, and setteth his throne above the throne of the kings who are with him in Babylon,

She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.

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

Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the LORD hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.

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

Great is the sin of Jerusalem; for this cause she has become an unclean thing: all those who gave her honour are looking down on her, because they have seen her shame: now truly, breathing out grief, she is turned back.

{Tet} Her skirts are defiled, she remembered not what would follow: therefore is her fall so great, and there is no man to comfort her. O LORD, consider my trouble, for my enemy hath the upper hand.

The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: For she hath seen that the nations are entered into her sanctuary, Concerning whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thine assembly.

All her people are sighing -- seeking bread, They have given their desirable things For food to refresh the body; See, O Jehovah, and behold attentively, For I have been lightly esteemed.

The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand: they are wreathed, and come up upon my neck: he hath made my strength to fall, the Lord hath delivered me into their hands, from whom I am not able to rise up.

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

The LORD is righteous; for I have rebelled against his commandment: hear, I pray you, all people, and behold my sorrow: my virgins and my young men are gone into captivity.

Behold, O LORD; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine 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 called, 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.

{Vav} Her tabernacle - which was like a garden of pleasure - hath he destroyed; her high solemn feasts hath he put down. The LORD hath brought it so to pass, that the high solemn feasts and Sabbaths in Zion are clean forgotten. In his heavy displeasure hath he made the king and priests to be despised.

Her gates are sunk into the ground; he hath destroyed and broken her bars: her king and her princes are among the Gentiles: the law is no more; her prophets also find no vision from the LORD.

They sit on the ground, the elders of the daughter of Zion are silent. They cast dust on their head, they have put on sackcloth; the young women of Jerusalem have bowed their head down to the ground.

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

To their mothers they say, 'Where are corn and wine?' In their becoming feeble as a pierced one In the broad places of the city, In their soul pouring itself out into the bosom of their mothers.

The visions which your prophets have seen for you are false and foolish; they have not made clear to you your sin so that your fate might be changed: but they have seen for you false words, driving you away.

All your haters are opening their mouths wide against you; making hisses and whistling through their teeth, they say, We have made a meal of her: certainly this is the day we have been looking for; it has come, we have seen it.

The Lord has done that which was his purpose; he has put into force the orders which he gave in the days which are past; pulling down without pity, he has made your hater glad over you, lifting up the horn of those who were against you.

Arise, cry aloud in the night, At the beginning of the watches. Pour out as water thy heart, Over against the face of the Lord, Lift up unto Him thy hands, for the soul of thine infants, Who are feeble with hunger at the head of all out-places.

See, O Jehovah, and behold to whom thou hast done thus! Shall the women eat their fruit, the children that are dandled in the hands? Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.

{Tav} My neighbours that are round about me hast thou called, as it were to a feast day: so that in the day of the LORD's wrath none escaped, neither was any left behind. Those that I had brought up and nourished, hath mine enemy destroyed.

He has forced me to live in darkness, like those who are long dead.

He walled up my ways with cut stone; my paths are crooked.

My soul has been cast far away from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.

And I said, My strength and my hope from Jehovah are gone.

It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.

They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

The Lord is good to those who are waiting for him, to the soul which is looking for him.

When any of the prisoners of the earth are crushed underfoot,

when a person's rights are perverted in defiance of the Most High.

The mouths of all our haters are open wide against us.

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

Rivers of water are running down from my eyes, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

My eyes are streaming without stopping, they have no rest,

They have chased me sore like a bird, they that are mine enemies without cause.

Thou hast well considered how they go about to do me harm, and that all their counsels are against me.

The lips and whispering of my assailants
Are against me all day long.

Take note of them when they are seated, and when they get up; I am their song.

How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top 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 wild animals nurse, suckling their young; but the women of my people are cruel, like ostriches in the wilderness.

The tongue of the child at the breast is fixed to the roof of his mouth for need of drink: the young children are crying out for bread, and no man gives it to them.

They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.

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.

They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.

{Yod} The women, which of nature are pitiful, have sodden their own children with their hands that they might be their meat, in the miserable destruction of the daughter of my people.

Because of the sins of her prophets, The iniquities of her priests, Who are shedding in her midst the blood of the righteous,

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

(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."

פ PeThe Lord Himself has scattered them;
He regards them no more.
The priests are not respected;
the elders find no favor.