10 Bible Verses about The Prophecy Towards Babylon

The [mournful, inspired] oracle (a burden to be carried) concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw [in a prophetic vision]:
Lift up a signal banner on the bare mountain,
Summon them [the Medes and Persians] with a loud voice,
Wave the [beckoning] hand so that they may enter the doorways of the [Babylonian] nobles.

I [the Lord] have commanded My consecrated ones,
I have even called My great warriors,
My proudly exulting ones [the Medes and the Persians who triumph for My honor]—
To execute My anger.
read more.

A sound of tumult on the mountains,
Like that of many people!
A sound of the uproar of the kingdoms,
Of nations gathered together!
The Lord of hosts is mustering an army for battle.

They are coming from a distant country,
From the end of heaven [the farthest horizon]—
The Lord and the weapons of His indignation—
To destroy the whole land.
Wail, for the day of the Lord is at hand!
It will come as destruction from the Almighty (All Sufficient One—Invincible God)!

Therefore all hands will fall limp,
And every man’s heart will melt.

They [of Babylon] will be shocked and terrified,
Pains and anguish will grip them;
They will be in pain like a woman in childbirth.
They will stare aghast and horrified at one another,
Their faces aflame [from the effects of the unprecedented warfare].

Listen carefully, the day of the Lord is coming,
Cruel, with wrath and raging anger,
To make the land a horror [of devastation];
And He shall exterminate its sinners from it.

For the stars of heaven and their constellations
Will not flash with their light;
The sun will be dark when it rises,
And the moon will not shed its light.

In this way I will punish the world for its evil
And the wicked for their wickedness [their sin, their injustice, their wrongdoing];
I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud
And will abase the arrogance of the tyrant.

I will make mortal man more rare than fine gold,
And mankind [scarcer] than the pure gold of Ophir.

Therefore I will make the heavens tremble;
And the earth will be shaken from its place
At the wrath of the Lord of hosts
In the day of His burning anger.

And like the hunted gazelle,
Or like sheep that no man gathers,
Each [foreign resident] will turn [and go back] to his own people,
And each one flee to his own land.

Anyone who is found will be pierced through,
And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword.

Their children also will be smashed to pieces
Before their eyes;
Their houses will be looted
And their wives ravished.
Listen carefully, I will put the Medes [in motion] against them,
Who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold [and therefore cannot be bribed].

Their bows will cut down the young men [of Babylon];
They will take no pity on the fruit of the womb,
Their eyes will not look with compassion on the children.

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride,
Will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them.

Babylon will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation;
Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there,
Nor will the shepherds let their sheep lie down there.

But desert creatures will lie down there,
And their houses will be full of owls;
Ostriches also will live there, and wild goats will dance there.

Hyenas will howl in their castles,
And jackals in their luxurious palaces.
Babylon’s time has nearly come,
And her days will not be prolonged.

that you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon, and say,

“How the oppressor has ceased [his insolence],
And how the fury has ceased!

“The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked,
The scepter of the [tyrant] rulers

Which used to strike the peoples in anger with incessant blows,
Which subdued and ruled the nations in wrath with unrelenting persecution.
read more.

“The whole earth is at rest and is quiet;
They break into shouts of joy.

“Even the cypress trees rejoice over you [kings of Babylon], even the cedars of Lebanon, saying,
‘Since you were laid low, no woodcutter comes up against us.’

“Sheol below is excited about you to meet you when you come [you tyrant of Babylon];
It stirs up the spirits of the dead [to greet you], all the leaders of the earth;
It raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones [in astonishment at your fall].

“All of them will respond [tauntingly] and say to you,
‘You have become as weak as we are.
You have become like us.

‘Your pomp and magnificence have been brought down to Sheol,
Along with the music of your harps;
The maggots [which prey on the dead] are spread out under you [as a bed]
And worms are your covering [Babylonian rulers].’

“How you have fallen from heaven,
O star of the morning [light-bringer], son of the dawn!
You have been cut down to the ground,
You who have weakened the nations [king of Babylon]!

“But you said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the remote parts of the north.

‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’

“But [in fact] you will be brought down to Sheol,
To the remote recesses of the pit (the region of the dead).

“Those who see you will gaze at you,
They will consider you, saying,
‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
Who shook kingdoms,

Who made the world like a wilderness
And overthrew its cities,
Who did not permit his prisoners to return home?’

“All the kings of the nations, all of them lie [dead] in glorious array,
Each one in his own sepulcher.

“But you [king of Babylon] have been cast out of your tomb (denied burial)
Like a rejected branch,
Clothed with the slain who are pierced by the sword,
Who go down to the stones of the pit [into which carcasses are thrown],
Like a dead body trampled [underfoot].

“You will not be united with them in burial,
Because you have destroyed your land,
You have slain your people.
May the descendants of evildoers never be named!

“Prepare a slaughtering place for his sons
Because of the wickedness [the sin, the injustice, the wrongdoing] of their fathers.
They must not rise and take possession of the earth,
And fill the face of the world with cities.” “I will rise up against them,” says the Lord of hosts, “and will cut off from Babylon name and survivors, and son and grandson,” declares the Lord. “I will also make Babylon a possession of the hedgehog and of swamps of water, and I will sweep it away with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord of hosts. The Lord of hosts has sworn [an oath], saying, “Just as I have intended, so it has certainly happened, and just as I have planned, so it will stand— to break the Assyrian in My land, and on My mountains I will trample him underfoot. Then the Assyrian’s yoke will be removed from them (the people of Judah) and his burden removed from their shoulder. This is the plan [of God] decided for the whole earth [regarded as conquered and put under tribute by Assyria]; and this is the hand [of God] that is stretched out over all the nations. For the Lord of hosts has decided and planned, and who can annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?”

“Now look! Here comes a troop of riders, horsemen in pairs.”
And one said, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon;
And all the carved images of her gods are shattered on the ground.”

Now look at the land of the Chaldeans (Babylonia)—this is the people which was not; the Assyrians allocated Tyre for desert creatures—they set up their siege towers, they stripped its palaces, they made it a ruin.

“Now, then, hear this, you who live a luxuriant life,
You who dwell safely and securely,
Who say in your heart (mind),
‘I am [the queen], and there is no one besides me.
I shall not sit as a widow,
Nor know the loss of children.’

“But these two things shall come to you abruptly, in one day:
Loss of children and widowhood.
They will come on you in full measure
In spite of your many [claims of power through your] sorceries,
In spite of the great power of your enchantments.

This whole land will be a waste and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. ‘Then when seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans (Babylonia),’ says the Lord, ‘for their wickedness, and will make the land [of the Chaldeans] a perpetual waste.

The word that the Lord spoke concerning Babylon and concerning the land of the Chaldeans through Jeremiah the prophet:
“Declare among the nations.
Lift up a signal [to spread the news]—publish and proclaim it,
Do not conceal it; say,
‘Babylon has been taken,
Bel [the patron god] has been shamed, Marduk (Bel) has been shattered.
Babylon’s images have been shamed, her [worthless] idols have been thrown down.’ For out of the north a nation (Media) has come against her which will make her land desolate, and no one will live there. They have fled, they have gone away—both man and animal.

“How the hammer of the whole earth
Is crushed and broken!
How Babylon has become
A horror [of desolation] among the nations!

“I set a trap for you and you also were caught, O Babylon,
And you did not know it;
You have been found and also seized
Because you have struggled against the Lord.”

The Lord has opened His armory
And has brought out [the nations who unknowingly are] the weapons of His indignation (wrath),
For it is a work of the Lord God of hosts
In the land of the Chaldeans.
read more.

Come against her from the farthest border.
Open her storehouses;
Pile it up like heaps of rubbish.
Burn and destroy her completely;
Let nothing be left of her.

Thus says the Lord:

“Behold, I am going to stir up and put into action [a fury] against Babylon
And against the [rebellious] people of Leb-kamai (Chaldea)
A destroying wind and hostile spirit;

“And I will send foreigners to Babylon that they may winnow her
And may devastate and empty her land;
For in the day of destruction
They will be against her on every side.

“Do not let him (the Chaldean defender) who bends his bow bend it,
Nor let him rise up in his coat of armor.
So do not spare her young men;
Devote her entire army to destruction.
read more.

“They shall fall down dead in the land of the Chaldeans,
And wounded in her streets.”
For neither Israel nor Judah has been abandoned
By his God, the Lord of hosts,
Though their land is full of sin and guilt
Before the Holy One of Israel.

Flee out of Babylon,
Let every one of you save his life!
Do not be destroyed in her punishment,
For this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance;
He is going to pay her what she has earned.

Babylon has been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand,
Intoxicating all the earth.
The nations drank her wine;
Therefore the nations have gone mad.

Babylon has suddenly fallen and is shattered!
Wail for her [if you care to]!
Get balm for her [incurable] pain;
Perhaps she may be healed.

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.

The Lord has brought about our vindication and has revealed the righteousness of our cause;
Come and let us proclaim in Zion
The work of the Lord our God!
Sharpen the arrows, take up the shields [and cover yourselves]!
The Lord has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes,
Because His purpose concerning Babylon is to destroy it;
For that is the vengeance of the Lord, vengeance [on Babylon] for [plundering and destroying] His temple.

Set up a signal on the walls of Babylon [to spread the news];
Post a strong blockade,
Station the guards,
Prepare the men for ambush!
For the Lord has both purposed and done
That which He spoke against the people of Babylon.

[O Babylon] you who live by many waters,
Rich in treasures,
Your end has come,
And the line measuring your life is cut.

The Lord of hosts has sworn [an oath] by Himself, saying,
“Surely I will fill you with men, as with [a swarm of] locusts [who strip the land clean],
And they will lift up a song and shout of victory over you.”
He made the earth by His power;
He established the world by His wisdom
And stretched out the heavens by His understanding.

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

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 worthless (empty, false, futile), a work of delusion and worthy of derision;
In the time of their inspection and punishment they will perish.

The Portion of Jacob [the true God of Israel] is not like these [handmade gods];
For He is the Maker of all and the One who formed and fashioned all things,
And Israel is the tribe of His inheritance—
The Lord of hosts is His name.

“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.

“With you I shatter the horse and his rider,
With you I shatter the chariot and its driver,

With you I shatter man and woman,
With you I shatter old man and youth,
With you I shatter young man and virgin,

With you I shatter the shepherd and his flock,
With you I shatter the farmer and his yoke of oxen,
And with you I shatter governors and commanders. “And I will [completely] repay Babylon and all the people of Chaldea for all the evil that they have done in Zion—before your very eyes [I will do it],” says the Lord.
“Behold, I am against you,
O destroying mountain [conqueror of nations],
Who destroys the whole earth,” declares the Lord,
“I will stretch out My hand against you,
And roll you down from the [rugged] cliffs,
And will make you a burnt mountain (extinct volcano).

“They will not take from you [even] a stone for a cornerstone
Nor any rock for a foundation,
But you will be desolate forever,” says the Lord.
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].

Prepare and dedicate the nations for war against her—
The kings of Media,
With their governors and commanders,
And every land of their dominion.

The land trembles and writhes [in pain and sorrow],
For the purposes of the Lord against Babylon stand,
To make the land of Babylon
A desolation without inhabitants.

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.

One courier runs to meet another,
And one messenger to meet another,
To tell the king of Babylon
That his city has been captured from end to end;

And that the fords [across the Euphrates] have been blocked and [the ferries] seized,
And they have set the [great] marshes on fire,
And the men of war are terrified. 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 being trampled and prepared;
Yet in a little while the time of harvest will come for her.”
“Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me,
He has set me down like an empty vessel.
Like a monster he has swallowed me up,
He has filled his belly with my delicacies;
He has spit me out and washed me away.

“May the violence done to me and to my flesh and blood be upon Babylon,”
The inhabitant of Zion will say;
And, “May my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
Jerusalem will say. Therefore thus says the Lord,

“Behold, I will plead your case
And take full vengeance for you;
I will dry up her sea and great reservoir
And make her fountain dry.

“Babylon will become a heap [of ruins], a haunt and dwelling place of jackals,
An object of horror (an astonishing desolation) and a hissing [of scorn and amazement], without inhabitants.

“They (the Chaldean lords) will be roaring together [before their sudden capture] like young lions [roaring over their prey],
They (the princes) will be growling like lions’ cubs.

“When they are inflamed [with wine and lust during their drinking bouts], I will prepare them a feast [of My wrath]
And make them drunk, that they may rejoice
And may sleep a perpetual sleep
And not wake up,” declares the Lord.

“I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
Like rams together with male goats.
“How Sheshak (Babylon) has been captured,
And the praise of the whole earth been seized!
How Babylon has become an astonishing desolation and an object of horror among the nations!

“The sea has come up over Babylon;
She has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves.

“Her cities have become an astonishing desolation and an object of horror,
A parched land and a desert,
A land in which no one lives,
And through which no son of man passes.

“I will punish and judge Bel [the handmade god] in Babylon
And take out of his mouth what he has swallowed up [the stolen sacred articles and the captives of Judah and elsewhere].
The nations will no longer flow to him.
Yes, the wall of Babylon has fallen down!
“Come out of her midst, My people,
And each of you [escape and] save yourself
From the fierce anger of the Lord.

“Now beware so that you do not lose heart,
And so that you are not afraid at the rumor that will be heard in the land—
For the rumor shall come one year,
And after that another rumor in another year,
And violence shall be in the land,
Ruler against ruler—

“Therefore behold (listen carefully), the days are coming
When I will judge and punish the idols of Babylon;
Her whole land will be perplexed and shamed,
And all her slain will fall in her midst.

“Then heaven and earth and all that is in them
Will shout and sing for joy over Babylon,
For the destroyers will come against her from the north,”
Says the Lord.
Indeed Babylon is to fall for the slain of Israel,
As also for Babylon the slain of all the earth have fallen.

You who have escaped the sword,
Go away! Do not stay!
Remember the Lord from far away,
And let [desolate] Jerusalem come into your mind.

We are perplexed and ashamed, for we have heard reproach;
Disgrace has covered our faces,
For foreigners [from Babylon] have come
Into the [most] sacred parts of the sanctuary of the Lord [even those places forbidden to all but the appointed priest].
“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord,
“When I will judge and punish the idols [of Babylon],
And throughout her land the mortally wounded will groan.”

“Though Babylon should ascend to the heavens,
And though she should fortify her lofty stronghold,
Yet destroyers will come on her from Me,” says the Lord.
The sound of an outcry [comes] from Babylon,
And [the sound] of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

For the Lord is going to destroy Babylon and make her a ruin,
And He will still her great voice [that hums with city life].
And the waves [of her conquerors] roar like great waters,
The noise of their voices is raised up [like the marching of an army].

For the destroyer is coming against her, against Babylon;
And her mighty warriors will be captured,
Their bows are shattered;
For the Lord is a God of [just] restitution;
He will fully repay.

“I will make her princes and her wise men drunk,
Her governors and her commanders and her mighty warriors;
They will sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake up,”
Says the King—the Lord of hosts is His name. Thus says the Lord of hosts,

“The broad wall of Babylon will be completely overthrown and the foundations razed
And her high gates will be set on fire;
The peoples will labor in vain,
And the nations become exhausted [only] for fire [that will destroy their work].” The message which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the grandson of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now this Seraiah was chief chamberlain or quartermaster [and brother of Baruch]. So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll all the disaster which would come on Babylon, [that is] all these words which have been written concerning Babylon. Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you come to Babylon, see to it that you read all these words aloud, and say, ‘You, O Lord, have promised concerning this place to cut it off and destroy it, so that there shall be nothing living in it, neither man nor animal, but it will be perpetually desolate.’ And as soon as you finish reading this scroll, you shall tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates. Then say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink down and not rise because of the disaster that I will bring on her; and the Babylonians will become [hopelessly] exhausted.’” Thus the words of Jeremiah are completed.

“This was the dream; now we will tell the king its interpretation. You, O king, are the king of [earthly] kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength and the glory; and wherever the sons of men dwell, and the beasts of the field, and the birds of the heavens, He has given them into your hand and has made you ruler over them all. You [king of Babylon] are the head of gold. read more.
After you will arise another kingdom (Medo-Persia) inferior to you, and then a third kingdom of bronze (Greece under Alexander the Great), which will rule over all the earth. Then a fourth kingdom (Rome) will be strong as iron, for iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things; and like iron which crushes things in pieces, it will break and crush all these [others]. 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. And as you saw the iron mixed with common clay, so they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not merge [for such diverse things or ideologies cannot unite], even as iron does not mix with clay. In the days of those [final ten] kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will its sovereignty be left for another people; but it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, and it will stand forever. Just as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, the great God has revealed to the king what will take place in the future; so the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.”