Summon archers against Babylon, all those who bend [the] bow. Encamp all around her, there must not be for her an escape. Take revenge on her according to her deeds. According to all that she has done, [so] do to her. For against Yahweh she has behaved insolently, against the Holy One of Israel.

{Therefore} desert creatures will live [there] with jackals, and daughters of ostriches will inhabit her. And she will not be inhabited again {forever}, and she will not be dwelt in {for all generations}.

Suddenly Babylon has fallen and she is shattered. Wail over her! Take balm for her wounds, perhaps she may be healed.

We tried to heal Babylon, and she was not healed. Forsake her and let us go each one to his country, for her judgment has reached to the heavens, and it has been lifted up to [the] skies.

The sea has risen over Babylon, she has been covered by the roar of its waves.

Though Babylon goes up [to] the heavens, and though she fortifies the high place of her strength, from me destroyers will come to her," {declares} Yahweh.

And you must say, 'Babylon will sink, and she will not rise, {because of} the face of the disasters that I [am] bringing on her, and they will grow weary.'" {Thus far} the words of Jeremiah.

How desolate the city sits [that] was full of people! She has become like a widow, [once] great among the nations! Like a woman of nobility in the provinces, she has become a forced laborer.

She weeps bitterly in the night, her tears [are] on her cheeks; she has no comforter among all her lovers. All her friends have been unfaithful to her; they have become her enemies.

Judah has gone into exile with misery and under hard servitude; she lives among the nations, she has not found a resting place; all her pursuers have overtaken her amidst [her] distress.

The roads of Zion [are] mourning because no one comes to the festival. All her gates [are] desolate, her priests groan; her young women [are] worried, and she herself suffers bitterly.

Jerusalem sinned grievously, thus she became an objection of derision; all those who honored her despise her because they have seen her nakedness. She herself groans and turns away.

Her uncleanness [was] in her skirts; she did not remember her future, she has descended beyond understanding, there is no comforter for her. See, O Yahweh, my persecution! [My] enemy has been made great!

The enemy has stretched out his hand over all her treasures; for she has seen the nations, they entered her sanctuary, those whom you commanded not to enter in your assembly.

Because of the sins of her prophets, the guilt of her priests, who shed blood in her midst, of righteous people.

But she has rebelled against my regulations to the point of wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that [are] around her; for they rejected my regulations, and [as for] my statutes, they did not walk in them.

O, adulterous woman! In the place of her husband she received strangers.

And your elder sister, she [is] Samaria, and her daughters, [who are] dwelling on your north, and your younger sister [is] the one dwelling on your south; [she] [is] Sodom and her daughters.

Look! This was the iniquity of Sodom, your sister: Pride, abundance of food, and {prosperous ease} was to her and to her daughters, and {she did not sustain the needy and the poor}.

and you must say, 'What a lioness [was] your mother among [the] lions. She lay down in the midst of young lions, [and] she reared her lion cubs.

And she raised up one from her cubs; he became a fierce lion, and he learned to tear prey; he ate humans.

And she saw that she was waiting [in vain]; her hope was destroyed, and she took one from her cubs, [and] she made him a fierce lion.

And {she produced branches of strength} to scepters of rulers; its height became tall between thick foliage, and it was seen because of its tallness among the abundance of its branches.

Slanderous men are {among you} to shed blood, and they, {among you}, eat upon the mountains; they do wickedness in the midst of you.

They take a bribe among you in order to shed blood; and you take usury, and you make gain [from] your neighbors by extortion, and [so] you have forgotten me, {declares} the Lord Yahweh.

And Oholah prostituted [herself] {while she was still mine}, and she lusted for her lovers, for Assyria [who was] nearby,

And she bestowed her fornication on them, [on] the choice [ones] of the {Assyrians}, all of them, and with every one [after] which she lusted; with all of their idols she defiled herself.

And her whorings from [the time of] Egypt she [did] not abandon, for they slept with her in her childhood, and they caressed the bosoms of her virginity, and they poured out their fornication on her.

Therefore I gave her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the {Assyrians} {after whom she lusted}.

They uncovered her nakedness; they took her sons and her daughters, and they killed her with the sword. And she became a name for the women, and they executed judgments against her.

"And though Oholibah her sister saw, yet in her lust {she behaved more corruptly than her}, and her whoring [was] more than the prostitution of her sister.

She lusted after the {Assyrians}, governors and prefects, warriors clothed in perfection, {expert horsemen}, all of them {handsome young men}.

And I saw that she was defiled; {they had both taken the same path}!

And she increased her whorings, and she saw men carved on the wall, images of Chaldeans carved in red

And she lusted for them {when her eyes saw them}, and she sent messengers to them [at] Chaldea.

And so the {Babylonians} came to her [for the] bed of lovemaking; and they defiled her with their fornication, and she was defiled by them, and she turned from them.

And she revealed her whorings, and she revealed her nakedness, and so I turned from her {just as} I turned from her sister.

Yet she increased her whorings, {recalling} the days of her childhood when she was prostituted in the land of Egypt

And she lusted after her male lovers whose genitalia [were the] genitalia of male donkeys and [their] seminal emission [was the] seminal emission of horses.

For her blood was in the midst of her; {she put it on a bare rock}; she [did] not pour it on the ground to cover it [with] dust.

[Through] effort she has caused weariness; {its thick rust} went not [out of] it. Its rust! Into [the] fire [with] its rust!

And at [the] end of [some] years they will make an alliance, and the daughter of the king of the south will come to the king of the north to make a peace treaty, but {she will not retain her position of power}, and his offspring will not endure, and she will be given up, she and her attendants and her child supporting her, in those times.

And he will set his face to come with the authority of his whole kingdom and will form an agreement; and he will {act}, and the daughter of women he will give to him to destroy it, but [the ploy] will not succeed {and she will not support him}.

So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

And she conceived again and bore a daughter, and he said to him, "{Name her} Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or {forgive them}.

And when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived and bore a son.

Plead with your mother, plead-- because she [is] not my wife, and I [am] not her husband. Let her put away her whoring {from before her}, and her adultery from between her breasts.

Lest I strip her naked and expose her like the day when she was born; I will make her like the desert and turn her into parched land; I will kill her with thirst.

Because their mother was unfaithful; she who conceived them has acted shamefully, for she said: "I will go after my lovers, the ones who give [me] my bread, my water, my wool, and my flax, my oil, and my drink."

Therefore, Look! I [am] going to hedge her path {with thorns}, and I will build a stone wall, a stone wall [against] her, and she will not find her paths.

Then she will pursue {her lovers}, but she will not overtake them; she will seek them and not find [them]; and she will say, "I will go and return to my first husband because [it was] better for me then than now."

But she did not know that [it was] I who gave her grain, new wine, and oil, and who gave her silver in abundance, and gold which they made into a Baal.

and I will lay waste to her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, "They [are] my payment for prostitution, which my lovers gave to me." I will make them a forest, and the wild animals of the field will devour them.

{I will punish her} [for] the days of the Baals, to whom she burns incense, and she decked herself [with] her ornamental ring and jewelry, and she went after her lovers, and forgot me --a declaration of Yahweh.

From there I will give her her vineyards, and the Valley of Achor as a doorway of hope. And there she will respond, as [in] the days of her youth, just as [in] the day of her coming out of the land of Egypt.

Samaria will be guilty, because she has rebelled against her God; they will fall by [the] sword, their children will be dashed to pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open.

Egypt will become a desolation, and Edom will become a {desolate desert}, because of the violence [they did] against the children of Judah, in whose land they have shed innocent blood.

Virgin Israel has fallen and will not rise again. She is deserted on her land; there is no one to raise her up.

Then all her idols will be broken in pieces, and all her prostitution wages will be burned in the fire, and all her idols I will make a desolation, For from the wage of a prostitute she gathered [them], and to the wage of a prostitute they will return.

Therefore he will give them up until the time of she who is with child has given birth. And the rest of his brothers will return to the children of Israel.

Then my enemy will see, and shame will cover her who said to me, "Where [is] Yahweh your God?" My eyes will look upon her; now she will become a trampling place, like mud in the streets.

Nineveh [is] like a pool of water without its water. {As they flee}, [she cries,] "Stop! Stop!" But there is no one who turns back.

Woe to the city [that has shed] {much blood}! {She is a deceiver}, She is filled [with] plunder, {She has hoarded her spoils of war}.

"Because of the many idolatries of [the] prostitute, the beautiful charm [of] a mistress of witchcraft, she who enslaves nations by her harlotries, and peoples by her sorceries,

Are you better than Thebes? She who sits at the Nile, surrounded by her waters, her rampart [was the] sea and water [was] her wall.

Yet she went into captivity as an exile; her children were dashed to pieces at the head of [the] streets; they cast lots for all of her nobles; all of her dignitaries were bound with chains.

You have increased your merchants more than the stars of heaven; [like] the locust they will shed [their skin] and fly away.

This [is] the city of rejoicing that lived securely; the one saying in her heart, "{I am, and there is none besides me}." How she has become a desolation, a lair for wild animals! Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.

She listens to no voice; she does not accept correction. In Yahweh she does not trust; to her God she does not draw near.

I have said, 'Surely she will fear me; she will accept discipline. Then her dwelling place will not be cut down, [nor] all that I have brought upon her.' Surely they rise early; they make all their deeds corrupt.

But you ask, "{For what reason}?" Because Yahweh stands as a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have been unfaithful, even though she [is] your marriage partner and {your wife by covenant}.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ occurred in this way. His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, [but] before they came together, she was found {to be pregnant} by the Holy Spirit.

And she will give birth to a son, and you will call his name 'Jesus,' because he will save his people from their sins."

and {did not have sexual relations with} her until she gave birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

"A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping [for] her children, and she did not want to be comforted, because {they exist no longer}."

And he touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to serve him.

[As] he was saying these [things] to them, behold, one of the rulers came [and] knelt down before him, saying, "My daughter has just now died, but come, place your hand on her and she will live!"

for she said to herself, "If only I touch his cloak I will be healed."

The queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, [something] greater than Solomon [is] here!

Therefore he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked.

And coached by her mother, she said, "Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter!"

and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought [it] to her mother.

But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came up [and] asked him, saying, "Send her away, because she is crying out after us!"

But she came [and] knelt down before him, saying, "Lord, help me!"

So she said, "Yes, Lord, for even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table."

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, [and] kneeling down [she] asked something from him.

And he said to her, "What do you want?" She said to him, "Say that these two sons of mine may sit one at your right hand and one at your left in your kingdom."

In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife of the seven will she be? For they all had her [as wife]."

so that upon you will come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of righteous Abel up to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

But Jesus, knowing [this], said to them, "Why do you cause trouble for the woman? For she has done a good deed for me.

For [when] this woman poured this ointment on my body, she did [it] in order to prepare me for burial.

And he came [and] raised her up [by] taking hold of her hand, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

And he was imploring him many [times], saying, "My little daughter {is at the point of death}! Come, lay your hands on her, so that she will get well and will live."

And she had endured many [things] under many physicians, and had spent {all that she had} and had received no [help] at all, but instead {became worse}.

[When she] heard about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind [him] [and] touched his cloak,

for she was saying, "If I touch just his clothing, I will be healed!"

And immediately her {hemorrhage stopped} and she realized in her body that she was healed of her suffering.

and immediately the girl stood up and began walking around (for she was twelve years old). And {immediately they were utterly and completely astonished}.

And she went out [and] said to her mother, "What should I ask for?" And she said, "The head of John the baptizer."

And she came in immediately with haste to the king [and] asked, saying, "I want you to give me the head of John the Baptist on a platter immediately."