1For thus says the LORD: I shall raise a destructive wind against Babylon and the inhabitants of Leb-kamai.
2I shall send winnowers to Babylon who will winnow her land empty; for they will assail her from all sides on the day of disaster.
3How will the archer then string his bow or put on his coat of mail? Spare none of her young men, but utterly destroy her whole army
4and let them fall dead in the land of the Chaldaeans, slain in her streets.
5Israel and Judah are not left widowed by their God, by the LORD of Hosts; but their land is full of guilt, condemned by the Holy One of Israel.
6Flee out of Babylon, each one for himself, or you will perish for her sin; for this is the LORD's day of vengeance, and he is paying her full recompense.
7Babylon has been a golden cup in the LORD's hand to make all the earth drunk; the nations have drunk of her wine, and that has made them mad.
8Suddenly Babylon falls and is broken. Wail for her! Fetch balm for her wound; perhaps she may be healed.
9We tried to heal Babylon, but she is past healing. Leave her and let us be off, each to his own country; for her doom reaches to heaven and mounts up to the skies.
10The LORD has made our victory plain to see; come, let us proclaim in Zion what the LORD our God has done.
11Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers. The LORD has roused the spirit of the king of the Medes; for the LORD's purpose against Babylon is to destroy it, and his vengeance is vengeance for his temple.
12Raise the standard against Babylon's walls, mount a strong blockade, post sentries, set an ambush; for the LORD has both planned and carried out his threat against the inhabitants of Babylon.
13You opulent city, standing beside great waters, your end has come, your destiny is certain.
14The LORD of Hosts has sworn by himself: Surely I shall fill you with enemies who will swarm like locusts, and they will raise a shout of triumph over you.
15God made the earth by his power, fixed the world in place by his wisdom, and by his knowledge unfurled the skies.
16When he speaks in the thunder the waters in the heavens are in tumult; he brings up the mist from the ends of the earth, he opens rifts for the rain, and brings the wind out of his storehouses.
17Everyone is brutish and ignorant, every goldsmith is discredited through his idols; for the figures he casts are a sham, there is no breath in them.
18They are worthless, mere objects of mockery, which perish when their day of reckoning comes.
19Jacob's chosen God is not like these, for he is the creator of the universe. Israel is the people he claims as his own; the LORD of Hosts is his name.
20You are my battleaxe, my weapon of war; with you I shall break nations in pieces, and with you I shall destroy kingdoms.
21With you I shall break horse and rider, with you I shall break chariot and charioteer,
22with you I shall break man and wife, with you I shall break old and young, with you I shall break youth and maiden,
23with you I shall break shepherd and his flock, with you I shall break ploughman and his team, with you I shall break viceroys and governors.
24So shall I repay Babylon and the people of Chaldaea for all the wrong which they did in Zion in your sight. This is the word of the LORD.
25I am against you, a destructive mountain destroying the whole earth, says the LORD. I shall stretch out my hand against you and send you tumbling headlong from the rocks and make you a burnt-out mountain.
26No stone taken from you will be used as a corner-stone, no stone for a foundation; but you will be for ever desolate. This is the word of the LORD.
27Raise a standard on the earth, blow a trumpet among the nations, consecrate the nations for war against her, summon the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz, appoint a commander against her, bring up horses like a dark swarm of locusts.
28For war against her consecrate the nations, the king of the Medes, his viceroys and governors, and all the lands under his sway.
29The earth quakes and writhes; for the LORD's designs against Babylon are fulfilled: to make the land of Babylon an unpeopled waste.
30Babylon's warriors have given up the fight; they skulk in the forts, their courage has failed, they have become like women. The buildings are set on fire, the bars of the gates broken.
31Runner speeds to meet runner, messenger to meet messenger, reporting to the king of Babylon that every quarter of his city is taken,
32the river-crossings are seized, the guard-towers set on fire, and the garrison stricken with panic.
33For these are the words of the LORD of Hosts the God of Israel: Babylon is like a threshing-floor when it is trodden; very soon harvest time will come for her.
34“King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon has devoured me and sucked me dry; he has set me aside like an empty jar. Like a dragon he has gulped me down; he filled his maw with my delicate flesh and spewed me up.”
35Every citizen of Zion will say, “On Babylon be the violence done to me, the vengeance taken on me!” Jerusalem will say, “My blood be on the Chaldaeans!”
36Therefore the LORD says: I shall plead your cause, I shall avenge you; I shall dry up her river and make her waters fail.
37Babylon will become a heap of ruins, a haunt of wolves, an object of horror and astonishment, with no inhabitant.
38Together they roar like young lions, they growl like the whelps of a lioness.
39I shall cause their drinking bouts to end in fever and make them so drunk that they will writhe and toss, then sink into unending sleep, never to wake again. This is the word of the LORD.
40I shall bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and he-goats together.
41Sheshak is captured, the pride of the whole world taken. How Babylon has become a thing of horror among the nations!
42The sea has surged over Babylon, she is covered by its roaring waves.
43Her towns have become waste places, a land parched and barren, a land where no one lives, through which no human being travels.
44I shall punish Bel in Babylon and make him disgorge what he has swallowed; nations will never again come streaming to him. Babylon's wall has fallen.
45My people, come out from her, and let every one save himself from the fierce anger of the LORD.
46Then beware of losing heart; fear no rumours spread abroad in the land, as rumour follows rumour, a new one every year: of violence on earth, of ruler against ruler.
47Therefore a time is coming when I shall punish Babylon's idols; her whole land will be put to shame, and all her slain will lie fallen in her midst.
48The heavens and the earth and all that is in them will sing in triumph over Babylon; for marauders from the north will overrun her. This is the word of the LORD.
49Babylon in her turn must fall because of Israel's slain, as the slain of all the world have fallen because of Babylon.
50You that have escaped the sword, go, do not linger. Remember the LORD from afar and let Jerusalem come to your minds.
51By the reproaches we have heard we are put to shame and our faces are covered with confusion, because foreigners have entered the sacred courts of the LORD's house.
52A time is coming therefore, says the LORD, when I shall punish her idols, and throughout her land the wounded will groan.
53Were Babylon to reach the skies and make strong her towers in the heights, I should still send marauders against her. This is the word of the LORD.
54Cries of agony are heard from Babylon, sounds of great destruction from Chaldaea.
55The advancing wave booms and roars like mighty waters, for the LORD is despoiling Babylon and will silence the noise of the city.
56Marauders march on Babylon herself, her warriors are captured and their bows broken; for the LORD, a God of retribution, will repay in full.
57I shall make her princes and her wise men drunk, her viceroys and governors and warriors, and they will sink into unending sleep, never to wake again. This is the word of the King, whose name is the LORD of Hosts.
58The LORD of Hosts says: The walls of broad Babylon will be razed to the ground, her lofty gates set on fire. Worthless now is the thing for which peoples toiled; nations wore themselves out for a mere nothing.
59The instructions given by the prophet Jeremiah to the quartermaster Seraiah son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon with King Zedekiah of Judah in the fourth year of his reign.
60Jeremiah, having written on a scroll a full description of the disaster which would befall Babylon,
61said to Seraiah, “When you come to Babylon, see that you read all these words aloud;
62then say, ‘LORD, you have declared your purpose to destroy this place and leave it with nothing living in it, man or beast; it will be desolate, for ever waste.’
63When you have finished reading the scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates
64with the words, ‘So will Babylon sink, never to rise again after the disaster which I am going to bring on her.’” Thus far are the collected sayings of Jeremiah.