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is what the Lord says:
“Behold, I will raise up a destructive wind against Babylon,
and against the inhabitants of Leb-kamai.
2 I will send winnowers to Babylon,
they will winnow her and strip bare her land;
they will come against her from every side
in the day of her disaster.
3 Let not the archer bend his bow,
do not let him on his armour.
Spare not her young men,
but totally destroy all her armies!
4 The slain will fall down in the land of the Chaldeans,
and those who are thrust through, in her streets.
5 For Israel is not forsaken, neither is Judah,
by his God, the Lord of Hosts,
though their land is full of guilt
before the Holy One of Israel.
6 “Flee from the midst of Babylon!
Save your lives, each of you!
Do not be destroyed because of her iniquity,
for this is the time for the Lord’s vengeance
He will render to what she deserves.
7 Babylon has been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand;
she has made the whole earth drunk.
The nations have drank of her wine;
therefore the nations were maddened.
8 Babylon will suddenly fall and be shattered.
Wail over her!
Apply balm to her wound—
perhaps she can be healed.
9 “‘We would have healed Babylon,
but she cannot be healed.
Abandon her!
Let each of us go to his own land;
for her judgment reaches to heaven,
and is lifted up even to the skies’.
10 “‘The Lord has brought about our vindication;
come, let us declare in Zion
the works of the Lord our God’.
11 “Sharpen the arrows!
Fill the quivers!
The Lord has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes,
for His purpose is against Babylon to destroy it.
It is the vengeance of the Lord,
vengeance for His temple.
12 Raise up a banner against the walls of Babylon!
Reinforce the guard;
station watchmen;
prepare an ambush!
For the Lord has both planned and performed
that which He has declared
against the inhabitants of Babylon.
13 O you who live by many waters,
and are rich in treasures,
your end has come;
the thread of your life will be cut.
14 “The Lord of Hosts has sworn by Himself:
‘I will surely fill you with men as with locusts,
and they will raise a shout of triumph against you’.
15 “He made the earth by His power;
He established the world by His wisdom,
and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.
16 When He utters His voice with thunder,
the waters in the heavens are in uproar;
He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth.
He makes lightning for the rain,
and brings out the winds from His storehouses.
17 Every man is senseless and without knowledge;
every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols.
His cast images are a falsehood;
there is no breath in them.
18 They are worthless, a work of delusion;
at the time of their judgment, they will perish.
19 The Portion of Jacob is not like these,
for He is the Maker of all things.
Israel is the tribe of His inheritance—
the Lord of Hosts is His name!
20 “You are my war club,
My weapon for battle—
with you I shatter the nations;
with you I destroy kingdoms;
21 with you I shatter the horse and its rider;
with you I shatter the chariot and its rider;
22 with you I shatter man and woman;
with you I shatter old and young;
with you I shatter the young man and the maiden;
23 with you I shatter the shepherd and his flock;
with you I break in the farmer and his yoke of oxen;
with you I shatter governors and rulers.
24 “I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil that they have done in Zion before your very eyes,” declares the Lord.
25 “Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain,
you destroy the whole earth,”
declares the Lord.
“I will stretch out My hand against you,
roll you down from the cliffs,
and make you a burnt-out mountain.
26 No one will take a rock for a cornerstone off you,
nor a stone for a foundation,
for you will be desolate forever,”
declares the Lord.
27 “Lift up a banner in the land!
Blow the trumpet among the nations!
Prepare the nations for battle against her;
summon kingdoms against her—
Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz.
Appoint a commander against her;
bring up horses like bristling locusts.
28 Prepare the nations for battle against her—
the kings of the Medes,
their governors and all their officials,
and all the lands under their dominion.
29 “The land trembles and writhes,
for the Lord’s purposes against Babylon stand—
to make the land of Babylon
an desolation without inhabitant.
30 The warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting;
they sit in their strongholds.
Their strength has failed;
they have become like women.
They have set their buildings on fire,
the bars of their gates are broken.
31 One runner runs to meet another,
and one messenger to meet another,
to announce to the king of Babylon
that his city has been captured from end to end.
32 The river fords have been seized,
the marshes set on fire,
and the soldiers are terrified.”
33 For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says:
“The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor
at the time when it is trampled;
yet a little while
and the time of her harvest will come.”
34 “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me;
he has crushed me;
he has made me like an empty jar;
he has swallowed me up like a dragon,
he has filled his stomach with my delicacies,
then he has spewed me out.
35 Let the violence done against me and my family
be upon Babylon,”
say the people of Zion.
“Let my blood be avenged
on the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
says Jerusalem.
36 Therefore, this is what the Lord says:
“Behold, I will defend your cause,
and take vengeance for you;
I will dry up her sea,
and make her springs run dry.
37 Babylon will become a heap of rubble,
a haven for serpents,
an object of horror and a hissing,
without an inhabitant.
38 They will roar together like young lions,
they will growl like lion cubs.
39 But when they are inflamed,
I will set out a feast for them.
I will make them drunk, until they revel,
then they will sleep a perpetual sleep,
and never awaken,”
declares the Lord.
“I will bring them down
like lambs to the slaughter,
like rams together with male goats.
41 “How Sheshach is captured,
the pride of the whole earth is seized!
What a horror Babylon has become among the nations!
42 The sea has risen up over Babylon;
she has been covered by its roaring waves.
43 Her cities have become a desolation,
a dry and parched land,
a land where no one lives,
through which no man travels.
44 I will punish Bel in Babylon;
I will make him spew forth from his mouth
what he has swallowed.
The nations will no longer flow together to him;
and Babylon’s walls will fall.
45 “Come out of her, My people!
every man must save his own life
from the fierce anger of the Lord.
46 Do not lose heart and become fearful
when rumours are heard in the land;
for one rumour will come one year,
and then the next year another;
rumours of violence in the land,
and of ruler against ruler.
47 Therefore, behold, the days are coming,
when I will bring judgment upon the idols of Babylon;
her whole land will be put to shame,
and all her slain will fall in her midst.
48 Then heaven and earth and all that is in them
will shout for joy over Babylon;
for the destroyers from the north will attack her,”
declares the Lord.
49 “Babylon must fall because of Israel’s slain,
just as the slain of the earth have fallen
because of Babylon.
50 You who have escaped the sword,
get away, and do not linger!
Remember the Lord from far away,
and let Jerusalem come into your mind.
51 “We are ashamed, for we have been insulted,
shame has covered our faces,
for foreignors have entered
the sanctuaries of the Lord’s temple.”
52 “Therefore, behold, the days are coming,”
declares the Lord,
“when I will bring judgment against her carved idols,
and throughout her land
the wounded will groan.
53 Even if Babylon were to ascend to the heavens,
and fortify her elevated strongholds,
yet destroyers would come against her from Me,”
declares the Lord.
54 The sound of a cry comes from Babylon,
the sound of great destruction
from the land of the Chaldeans!
55 For the Lord is laying waste to Babylon,
and silencing her powerful voice.
Though her waves roar like mighty waters;
the noise of their voice resounds,
56 for a destroyer has come against her,
against Babylon.
Her warriors are captured,
and all of their bows are broken;
for the Lord is a God of retribution;
He will repay in full.
57 “I will make her officials and her wise men drunk,
her governors, her officers, and her warriors as well.
They will sleep a perpetual sleep,
and never awaken,”
declares the King,
whose name is the Lord of Hosts.
58 This is what the Lord of Hosts says:
“The thick walls of Babylon will be completely demolished,
and her high gates will be burned with fire;
the people in it labour in vain,
the nations weary themselves, only to feed the fire.”
59 The instructions that Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon with Zedekiah king of Judah in the fourth year of his reign. Seraiah was the quartermaster. 60 Jeremiah wrote on a scroll all the evil that would come upon Babylon; all these words that are written against Babylon.
61 Jeremiah told Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, see that you read all these words out aloud. 62 Then you must say, ‘O Lord, You have spoken against this place to destroy it, so that neither man nor beast will live in it, but it will remain desolate forever’. 63 When you have finished reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it out into the midst of the Euphrates. 64 Then you must say, ‘In the same way, Babylon will sink, and rise no more from the disaster that I will bring upon her, and they will grow weary’.”
The words of Jeremiah end here.