Jeremiah 50

²⁶all the kings of the north, both near and far, one after another—all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. And after all of them, the king of Sheshach will drink it too.

²⁷“Then you are to tell them that this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: ‘Drink, get drunk, and vomit. Fall down and never get up again, because of the sword I will send among you.’

¹This is the burden against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz received:

²Raise a banner on a barren hilltop; call aloud to them. Wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles.

¹This is what the Lord says: “Behold, I will stir up against Babylon and against the people of Leb-kamai the spirit of a destroyer.

²I will send strangers to Babylon to winnow her and empty her land; for they will come against her from every side in her day of disaster.

²The Spirit of the Lord spoke through me; His word was on my tongue.

¹“Go down and sit in the dust, O Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, O Daughter of the Chaldeans! For you will no longer be called tender or delicate.

²Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams.

⁴you will sing this song of contempt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has ceased, and how his fury has ended!

¹Bel crouches; Nebo cowers. Their idols weigh down beasts and cattle. The images you carry are burdensome, a load to the weary animal.

⁹Look, here come the riders, horsemen in pairs.” And one answered, saying: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon! All the images of her gods lie shattered on the ground!”

⁴⁴I will punish Bel in Babylon. I will make him spew out what he swallowed. The nations will no longer stream to him; even the wall of Babylon will fall.

⁴⁷Therefore, behold, the days are coming when I will punish the idols of Babylon. Her entire land will suffer shame, and all her slain will lie fallen within her.

⁴and on that day you will say: “Give praise to the Lord; proclaim His name! Make His works known among the peoples; declare that His name is exalted.

¹⁴“Announce it in Egypt, and proclaim it in Migdol; proclaim it in Memphis and Tahpanhes: ‘Take your positions and prepare yourself, for the sword devours those around you.’

³“I will sweep away man and beast; I will sweep away the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, and the idols with their wicked worshipers. I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord.

¹¹Sharpen the arrows! Fill the quivers! The Lord has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because His plan is aimed at Babylon to destroy her, for it is the vengeance of the Lord—vengeance for His temple.

⁹For behold, I stir up and bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the land of the north. They will line up against her; from the north she will be captured. Their arrows will be like skilled warriors who do not return empty-handed.

⁶²and say, ‘O Lord, You have promised to cut off this place so that no one will remain—neither man nor beast. Indeed, it will be desolate forever.’

²²“I will rise up against them,” declares the Lord of Hosts. “I will cut off from Babylon her name and her remnant, her offspring and her posterity,” declares the Lord.

²³“I will make her a place for owls and for swamplands; I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord of Hosts.

²⁰Therefore this is what the Lord God says: Behold, My anger and My fury will be poured out on this place, on man and beast, on the trees of the field and the produce of the land, and it will burn and not be extinguished.

⁵Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days.

³¹Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

¹¹Then the people of Judah and of Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint for themselves one leader, and will go up out of the land. For great will be the day of Jezreel.

¹²He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; He will collect the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

¹³Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart, and the adversaries of Judah will be cut off. Ephraim will no longer envy Judah, nor will Judah harass Ephraim.

¹⁹I will return Israel to his pasture, and he will graze on Carmel and Bashan; his soul will be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and Gilead.

²⁰In those days and at that time, declares the Lord, a search will be made for Israel’s guilt, but there will be none, and for Judah’s sins, but they will not be found; for I will forgive the remnant I preserve.

¹⁶“In those days, when you multiply and increase in the land,” declares the Lord, “they will no longer discuss the ark of the covenant of the Lord. It will never come to mind, and no one will remember it or miss it, nor will another one be made.

¹⁷At that time they will call Jerusalem The Throne of the Lord, and all the nations will be gathered in Jerusalem to honor the name of the Lord. They will no longer follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts.

⁴⁰I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never turn away from doing good to them, and I will put My fear in their hearts, so that they will never turn away from Me.

⁸And there will be a highway called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not travel it—only those who walk in the Way—and fools will not stray onto it.

¹⁶This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths: ‘Where is the good way?’ Then walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it!’

⁶Now, however, Jesus has received a much more excellent ministry, just as the covenant He mediates is better and is founded on better promises.

⁷For if that first covenant had been without fault, no place would have been sought for a second.

³Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, so that your soul may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant—My loving devotion promised to David.

³And many peoples will come and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

⁴Then He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor train anymore for war.

⁶We all like sheep have gone astray, each one has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.

³⁶When He saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

⁶Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.

¹⁴I will feed them in good pasture, and the lofty mountains of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in a good grazing land; they will feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.

¹⁷Israel is a scattered flock, chased away by lions. The first to devour him was the king of Assyria; the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”

¹⁷⁶I have strayed like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, for I have not forgotten Your commandments.

³Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of His harvest. All who devoured her were found guilty; disaster came upon them,’” declares the Lord.

⁸O Hope of Israel, its Savior in times of distress, why are You like a stranger in the land, like a traveler who stays but a night?

⁵whose buyers slaughter them without remorse. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich!’ Even their own shepherds have no compassion on them.

²The captain of the guard found Jeremiah and said to him, “The Lord your God decreed this disaster on this place,

³and now the Lord has fulfilled it; He has done just as He said. Because you people have sinned against the Lord and have not obeyed His voice, this thing has happened to you.

²³This is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “When I restore them from captivity, they will once again speak this word in the land of Judah and in its cities: ‘May the Lord bless you, O righteous dwelling place, O holy mountain.’

¹⁷Israel is a scattered flock, chased away by lions. The first to devour him was the king of Assyria; the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”

²⁰Leave Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare it with a shout of joy, proclaim it, let it go out to the ends of the earth, saying, “The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob!”

⁶Flee from Babylon! Escape with your lives! Do not be destroyed in her punishment. For this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance; He will pay her what she deserves.

⁴Then I heard another voice from heaven say: “Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins or contract any of her plagues.

⁴⁵Come out of her, My people! Save your lives, each of you, from the fierce anger of the Lord.

³¹a strutting rooster; a he-goat; and a king with his army around him.

¹⁷“Therefore come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”

¹⁷Behold, I will stir up against them the Medes, who have no regard for silver and no desire for gold.

¹⁸Their bows will dash young men to pieces; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; they will not look with pity on the children.

²⁶Come against her from the farthest border. Break open her granaries; pile her up like mounds of grain. Devote her to destruction; leave her no survivors.

¹⁴Line up in formation around Babylon, all you who draw the bow! Shoot at her! Spare no arrows! For she has sinned against the Lord.

²⁷“Raise a banner in the land! Blow the ram’s horn among the nations! Prepare the nations against her. Summon the kingdoms against her—Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a captain against her; bring up horses like swarming locusts.

²⁸Prepare the nations for battle against her—the kings of the Medes, their governors and all their officials, and all the lands they rule.

¹¹Sharpen the arrows! Fill the quivers! The Lord has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because His plan is aimed at Babylon to destroy her, for it is the vengeance of the Lord—vengeance for His temple.

¹This is what the Lord says: “Behold, I will stir up against Babylon and against the people of Leb-kamai the spirit of a destroyer.

²I will send strangers to Babylon to winnow her and empty her land; for they will come against her from every side in her day of disaster.

¹²But when seventy years are complete, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their guilt, declares the Lord, and I will make it an everlasting desolation.

³I will give you the treasures of darkness and the riches hidden in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by name.

⁷All nations will serve him and his son and grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings will enslave him.

²³Your ropes are slack; they cannot secure the mast or spread the sail. Then an abundance of spoils will be divided, and even the lame will carry off plunder.

⁴Your spoil, O nations, is gathered as by locusts; like a swarm of locusts men sweep over it.

¹⁶And the ten horns and the beast that you saw will hate the prostitute. They will leave her desolate and naked, and they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.

⁶I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke.

¹⁵But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁷Israel is a scattered flock, chased away by lions. The first to devour him was the king of Assyria; the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”

⁸They are well-fed, lusty stallions, each neighing after his neighbor’s wife.

²¹Even the mercenaries among her are like fattened calves. They too will turn back; together they will flee, they will not stand their ground, for the day of calamity is coming upon them—the time of their punishment.

²¹People have heard my groaning, but there is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that You have caused it. May You bring the day You have announced, so that they may become like me.

⁴³Her cities have become a desolation, a dry and arid land, a land where no one lives, where no son of man passes through.

³⁵A sword is against the Chaldeans, declares the Lord, against those who live in Babylon, and against her officials and wise men.

³⁶A sword is against her false prophets, and they will become fools. A sword is against her warriors, and they will be filled with terror.

⁵And on her forehead a mysterious name was written: BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

²⁶But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

²Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will sound the battle cry against Rabbah of the Ammonites. It will become a heap of ruins, and its villages will be burned. Then Israel will drive out their dispossessors, says the Lord.

²⁵“Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, you who devastate the whole earth, declares the Lord. I will stretch out My hand against you; I will roll you over the cliffs and turn you into a charred mountain.

²⁶No one shall retrieve from you a cornerstone or a foundation stone, because you will become desolate forever,” declares the Lord.

¹⁶They have made their land a desolation, a perpetual object of scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and shake their heads.

¹⁷“Edom will become an object of horror. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.

⁶Will not all of these take up a taunt against him, speaking with mockery and derision: ‘Woe to him who amasses what is not his and makes himself rich with many loans! How long will this go on?’

⁷Will not your creditors suddenly arise and those who disturb you awaken? Then you will become their prey.

¹⁵All who pass by clap their hands at you in scorn. They hiss and shake their heads at the Daughter of Jerusalem: “Is this the city that was called the perfection of beauty, the joy of all the earth?”

¹⁶All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see it!”

²³It claps its hands at him and hisses him out of his place.

³⁷Babylon will become a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals, an object of horror and scorn, without inhabitant.

²⁹Summon the archers against Babylon, all who string the bow. Encamp all around her; let no one escape. Repay her according to her deeds; do to her as she has done. For she has defied the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁷For your violence against Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of animals will terrify you, because of your bloodshed against men and your violence against the land, the city, and all their dwellers.

⁹For behold, I stir up and bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the land of the north. They will line up against her; from the north she will be captured. Their arrows will be like skilled warriors who do not return empty-handed.

²⁰So David got up early in the morning, left the flock with a keeper, loaded up, and set out as Jesse had instructed him. He reached the camp as the army was marching out to its position and shouting the battle cry.

⁸Because you have plundered many nations, the remnant of the people will plunder you—because of your bloodshed against man and your violence against the land, the city, and all their dwellers.

⁷All who found them devoured them, and their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, for they have sinned against the Lord, their true pasture, the Lord, the hope of their fathers.’

⁵⁸This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “Babylon’s thick walls will be leveled, and her high gates consumed by fire. So the labor of the people will be for nothing; the nations will exhaust themselves to fuel the flames.”

⁶Give back to her as she has done to others; pay her back double for what she has done; mix her a double portion in her own cup.

⁶Flee from Babylon! Escape with your lives! Do not be destroyed in her punishment. For this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance; He will pay her what she deserves.

¹⁰For that day belongs to the Lord God of Hosts, a day of vengeance against His foes. The sword will devour until it is satisfied, until it is quenched with their blood. For the Lord God of Hosts will hold a sacrifice in the land of the north by the River Euphrates.

²⁴All the officials and mighty men, as well as all of King David’s sons, pledged their allegiance to King Solomon.

¹⁴The Lord of Hosts has sworn by Himself: “Surely I will fill you up with men as with locusts, and they will shout in triumph over you.”

⁹“We tried to heal Babylon, but she could not be healed. Abandon her! Let each of us go to his own land, for her judgment extends to the sky and reaches to the clouds.”

¹⁶They continue to stumble; indeed, they have fallen over one another. They say, ‘Get up! Let us return to our people and to the land of our birth, away from the sword of the oppressor.’

¹⁴Like a hunted gazelle, like a sheep without a shepherd, each will return to his own people, each will flee to his native land.

¹¹Be dismayed, O farmers, wail, O vinedressers, over the wheat and barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.

³⁸He has left His den like a lion, for their land has been made a desolation by the sword of the oppressor, and because of the fierce anger of the Lord.

²³With you I shatter the shepherd and his flock; with you I shatter the farmer and his oxen; with you I shatter the governors and officials.

¹⁵The young lions have roared at him; they have sounded their voices. They have laid waste his land; his cities lie in ruins, without inhabitant.

¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness.

¹¹I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

²I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning My people, My inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations as they divided up My land.

⁹In the fourth year of Hezekiah’s reign, which was the seventh year of the reign of Hoshea son of Elah over Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and besieged it.

¹⁰And at the end of three years, the Assyrians captured it. So Samaria was captured in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel.

²⁵For “you were like sheep going astray,” but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

⁶My people are lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray, causing them to roam the mountains. They have wandered from mountain to hill; they have forgotten their resting place.

¹This is the burden against Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite:

²The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and full of wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on His foes and reserves wrath for His enemies.

¹²So when the Lord has completed all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the fruit of his arrogant heart and the proud look in his eyes.

¹³And He will stretch out His hand against the north and destroy Assyria; He will make Nineveh a desolation, as dry as a desert.

¹⁴Herds will lie down in her midst, creatures of every kind. Both the desert owl and screech owl will roost atop her pillars. Their calls will sound from the window, but desolation will lie on the threshold, for He will expose the beams of cedar.

³⁶Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!

³⁷So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there.

³Look at Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon, with beautiful branches that shaded the forest. It towered on high; its top was among the clouds.

⁴The waters made it grow; the deep springs made it tall, directing their streams all around its base and sending their channels to all the trees of the field.

¹⁰As for you, O Jacob My servant, do not be afraid, declares the Lord, and do not be dismayed, O Israel. For I will surely save you out of a distant place, your descendants from the land of their captivity! Jacob will return to quiet and ease, with no one to make him afraid.

⁸Behold, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, including the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor. They will return as a great assembly!

⁹They will come with weeping, and by their supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk beside streams of waters, on a level path where they will not stumble. For I am Israel’s Father, and Ephraim is My firstborn.”

¹⁸This is what the Lord says: “I will restore the fortunes of Jacob’s tents and have compassion on his dwellings. And the city will be rebuilt on her own ruins, and the palace will stand in its rightful place.

¹⁴I will fill the souls of the priests abundantly, and will fill My people with My goodness,” declares the Lord.

³Then I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock from all the lands to which I have banished them, and I will return them to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and multiply.

¹³I will bring them out from the peoples, gather them from the countries, and bring them into their own land. I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines, and in all the settlements of the land.

¹⁴I will feed them in good pasture, and the lofty mountains of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in a good grazing land; they will feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.

¹⁹He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea.

³⁴No longer will each man teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”

²⁵I, yes I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake and remembers your sins no more.

⁹Unless the Lord of Hosts had left us a few survivors, we would have become like Sodom, we would have resembled Gomorrah.

¹⁷Then He adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”

¹⁸And where these have been forgiven, an offering for sin is no longer needed.

³³Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.

³⁴Who is there to condemn us? For Christ Jesus, who died, and more than that was raised to life, is at the right hand of God—and He is interceding for us.

²³the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, the men of Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them—all desirable young men, governors and commanders, officers and men of renown, mounted on horses.

¹¹Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “Behold, my own son, my own flesh and blood, seeks my life. How much more, then, this Benjamite! Leave him alone and let him curse me, for the Lord has told him so.

¹¹“I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned away from following Me and has not carried out My instructions.” And Samuel was distressed and cried out to the Lord all that night.

¹²Early in the morning Samuel got up to confront Saul, but he was told, “Saul has gone to Carmel, and behold, he has set up a monument for himself and has turned and gone down to Gilgal.”

¹⁰Cursed is the one who is remiss in doing the work of the Lord, and cursed is he who withholds his sword from bloodshed.

⁹For behold, I stir up and bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the land of the north. They will line up against her; from the north she will be captured. Their arrows will be like skilled warriors who do not return empty-handed.

²⁵So now, was it apart from the Lord that I have come up against this place to destroy it? The Lord Himself said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’”

¹⁹My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain! Oh, the pain in my chest! My heart pounds within me; I cannot be silent. For I have heard the sound of the horn, the alarm of battle.

²⁰Disaster after disaster is proclaimed, for the whole land is laid waste. My tents are destroyed in an instant, my curtains in a moment.

⁵⁴“The sound of a cry comes from Babylon, the sound of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

⁵⁵For the Lord will destroy Babylon; He will silence her mighty voice. The waves will roar like great waters; the tumult of their voices will resound.

²A dire vision is declared to me: “The traitor still betrays, and the destroyer still destroys. Go up, O Elam! Lay siege, O Media! I will put an end to all her groaning.”

³Therefore my body is filled with anguish. Pain grips me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am bewildered to hear, I am dismayed to see.

²⁰“You are My war club, My weapon for battle. With you I shatter nations; with you I bring kingdoms to ruin.

²¹With you I shatter the horse and rider; with you I shatter the chariot and driver.

¹⁶saying: “Woe, woe to the great city, clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls!

⁴you will sing this song of contempt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has ceased, and how his fury has ended!

⁵The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers.

¹²How you have fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the ground, O destroyer of nations.

¹³You said in your heart: “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the far reaches of the north.

³⁰That very night Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans was slain,

³¹and Darius the Mede received the kingdom at the age of sixty-two.

⁴God is wise in heart and mighty in strength. Who has resisted Him and prospered?

⁹Do you have an arm like God’s? Can you thunder with a voice like His?

²“Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who argues with God give an answer.”

⁹Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker—one clay pot among many. Does the clay ask the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘He has no hands’?

³Therefore my body is filled with anguish. Pain grips me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am bewildered to hear, I am dismayed to see.

⁴My heart falters; fear makes me tremble. The twilight I desired has turned to horror.

⁵⁵For the Lord will destroy Babylon; He will silence her mighty voice. The waves will roar like great waters; the tumult of their voices will resound.

²⁵“Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, you who devastate the whole earth, declares the Lord. I will stretch out My hand against you; I will roll you over the cliffs and turn you into a charred mountain.

⁶If a ram’s horn sounds in a city, do the people not tremble? If calamity comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?

¹⁵Raise a war cry against her on every side! She has thrown up her hands in surrender; her towers have fallen; her walls are torn down. Since this is the vengeance of the Lord, take out your vengeance upon her; as she has done, do the same to her.

²⁰“You are My war club, My weapon for battle. With you I shatter nations; with you I bring kingdoms to ruin.

³⁵A sword is against the Chaldeans, declares the Lord, against those who live in Babylon, and against her officials and wise men.

³⁶A sword is against her false prophets, and they will become fools. A sword is against her warriors, and they will be filled with terror.

²³“I will make her a place for owls and for swamplands; I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord of Hosts.

¹⁰Chaldea will be plundered; all who plunder her will have their fill,” declares the Lord.

³I will give you the treasures of darkness and the riches hidden in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by name.

²³How the hammer of the whole earth lies broken and shattered! What a horror Babylon has become among the nations!

¹³Because of the wrath of the Lord, she will not be inhabited; she will become completely desolate. All who pass through Babylon will be horrified and will hiss at all her wounds.

¹⁵And from His mouth proceeds a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.

²¹Even the mercenaries among her are like fattened calves. They too will turn back; together they will flee, they will not stand their ground, for the day of calamity is coming upon them—the time of their punishment.

⁷And the wild oxen will fall with them, the young bulls with the strong ones. Their land will be drenched with blood, and their soil will be soaked with fat.

¹³but the Lord laughs, seeing that their day is coming.

¹²Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

⁴⁴“Whoever flees the panic will fall into the pit, and whoever climbs from the pit will be caught in the snare. For I will bring upon Moab the year of their punishment,” declares the Lord.

¹⁰In fear of her torment, they will stand at a distance and cry out: “Woe, woe to the great city, the mighty city of Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.”

¹⁰The adversary has seized all her treasures. For she has seen the nations enter her sanctuary—those You had forbidden to enter Your assembly.

¹⁵Raise a war cry against her on every side! She has thrown up her hands in surrender; her towers have fallen; her walls are torn down. Since this is the vengeance of the Lord, take out your vengeance upon her; as she has done, do the same to her.

²⁰Leave Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare it with a shout of joy, proclaim it, let it go out to the ends of the earth, saying, “The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob!”

⁶He has laid waste His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His place of meeting. The Lord has made Zion forget her appointed feasts and Sabbaths. In His fierce anger He has despised both king and priest.

⁷The Lord has rejected His altar; He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the Lord as on the day of an appointed feast.

²³Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways.

⁶May the high praises of God be in their mouths, and a double-edged sword in their hands,

⁷to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples,

¹⁰You were secure in your wickedness; you said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray; you told yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’

⁵⁶For a destroyer is coming against her—against Babylon. Her warriors will be captured, and their bows will be broken, for the Lord is a God of retribution; He will repay in full.

¹⁴Line up in formation around Babylon, all you who draw the bow! Shoot at her! Spare no arrows! For she has sinned against the Lord.

¹⁵Raise a war cry against her on every side! She has thrown up her hands in surrender; her towers have fallen; her walls are torn down. Since this is the vengeance of the Lord, take out your vengeance upon her; as she has done, do the same to her.

³⁷Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, for all His works are true and all His ways are just. And He is able to humble those who walk in pride.

³So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and told him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, so that they may worship Me.

⁶Give back to her as she has done to others; pay her back double for what she has done; mix her a double portion in her own cup.

²⁶For her young men will fall in the streets, and all her warriors will be silenced in that day,” declares the Lord of Hosts.

²¹Therefore, hand their children over to famine; pour out the power of the sword upon them. Let their wives become childless and widowed; let their husbands be slain by disease, their young men struck down by the sword in battle.

²¹For death has climbed in through our windows; it has entered our fortresses to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the town squares.

¹⁵Whoever is caught will be stabbed, and whoever is captured will die by the sword.

¹⁶Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes, their houses will be looted, and their wives will be ravished.

³⁶A sword is against her false prophets, and they will become fools. A sword is against her warriors, and they will be filled with terror.

¹⁵Moab has been destroyed and its towns have been invaded; the best of its young men have gone down in the slaughter, declares the King, whose name is the Lord of Hosts.

¹³Behold, I am against you who dwell above the valley, atop the rocky plateau—declares the Lord—you who say, “Who can come against us? Who can enter our dwellings?”

²⁹Summon the archers against Babylon, all who string the bow. Encamp all around her; let no one escape. Repay her according to her deeds; do to her as she has done. For she has defied the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

¹³“Behold, I am against you,” declares the Lord of Hosts. “I will reduce your chariots to cinders, and the sword will devour your young lions. I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voices of your messengers will no longer be heard.”

⁴Look at the proud one; his soul is not upright—but the righteous will live by faith—

⁵and wealth indeed betrays him. He is an arrogant man never at rest. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and like Death, he is never satisfied. He gathers all the nations to himself and collects all the peoples as his own.

⁶But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

⁵Young men, in the same way, submit yourselves to your elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

¹⁴I will punish you as your deeds deserve, declares the Lord. I will kindle a fire in your forest that will consume everything around you.’”

²⁷“I will set fire to the walls of Damascus; it will consume the fortresses of Ben-hadad.”

¹²So when the Lord has completed all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the fruit of his arrogant heart and the proud look in his eyes.

¹³For he says: ‘By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, for I am clever. I have removed the boundaries of nations and plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their rulers.

⁵So I will send fire upon Judah to consume the citadels of Jerusalem.”

⁸Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and grief and famine—and she will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.”

¹⁰So I will send fire upon the walls of Tyre to consume its citadels.”

²But if you continue to restrain them and refuse to let them go,

³then the hand of the Lord will bring a severe plague on your livestock in the field—on your horses, donkeys, camels, herds, and flocks.

¹⁷who turned the world into a desert and destroyed its cities, who refused to let the captives return to their homes?”

⁶Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to break the chains of wickedness, to untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and tear off every yoke?

¹⁷Still, you lord it over My people and do not allow them to go.

¹⁸Behold, at this time tomorrow I will rain down the worst hail that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded until now.

¹⁷Israel is a scattered flock, chased away by lions. The first to devour him was the king of Assyria; the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”

¹⁸Therefore this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “I will punish the king of Babylon and his land as I punished the king of Assyria.

⁶I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke.

⁵For your husband is your Maker—the Lord of Hosts is His name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth.

²¹I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.”

⁴Our Redeemer—the Lord of Hosts is His name—is the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁴Do not fear, O Jacob, you worm, O few men of Israel. I will help you,” declares the Lord. “Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

³⁶Therefore this is what the Lord says: “Behold, I will plead your case and take vengeance on your behalf; I will dry up her sea and make her springs run dry.

⁹Because I have sinned against Him, I must endure the rage of the Lord, until He argues my case and executes justice for me. He will bring me into the light; I will see His righteousness.

⁶‘Alas, O sword of the Lord, how long until you rest? Return to your sheath; cease and be still!’

⁶A sword will flash through their cities; it will destroy the bars of their gates and consume them in their own plans.

³⁰That very night Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans was slain,

¹Later, King Belshazzar held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and he drank wine with them.

²Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold and silver vessels that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king could drink from them, along with his nobles, his wives, and his concubines.

⁵⁷I will make her princes and wise men drunk, along with her governors, officials, and warriors. Then they will fall asleep forever and not wake up,” declares the King, whose name is the Lord of Hosts.

⁷The king called out for the enchanters, astrologers, and diviners to be brought in, and he said to these wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this inscription and tells me its interpretation will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck, and he will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.”

⁸So all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the inscription or interpret it for him.

²²Look! An eagle will soar and swoop down, spreading its wings over Bozrah. In that day the hearts of Edom’s mighty men will be like the heart of a woman in labor.

²⁵who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who confounds the wise and turns their knowledge into nonsense,

¹³Look at your troops—they are like your women! The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire consumes their bars.

¹⁵But outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

⁹The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder,

¹⁰and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them.

¹⁶While he was still speaking, the king asked, “Have we made you the counselor to the king? Stop! Why be struck down?” So the prophet stopped, but he said, “I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this and have not heeded my advice.”

³⁰The warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting; they sit in their strongholds. Their strength is exhausted; they have become like women. Babylon’s homes have been set ablaze, the bars of her gates are broken.

¹³Look at your troops—they are like your women! The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire consumes their bars.

²⁰all the mixed tribes; all the kings of Uz; all the kings of the Philistines: Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod;

²¹With you I shatter the horse and rider; with you I shatter the chariot and driver.

⁴¹Kirioth has been taken, and the strongholds seized. In that day the heart of Moab’s warriors will be like the heart of a woman in labor.

¹⁶In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will tremble with fear beneath the uplifted hand of the Lord of Hosts, when He brandishes it against them.

²“Announce and declare to the nations; lift up a banner and proclaim it; hold nothing back when you say, ‘Babylon is captured; Bel is put to shame; Marduk is shattered, her images are disgraced, her idols are broken in pieces.’

²⁷who says to the depths of the sea, ‘Be dry, and I will dry up your currents,’

¹²And the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings of the East.

⁵²“Therefore, behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish her idols, and throughout her land the wounded will groan.

⁴⁷Therefore, behold, the days are coming when I will punish the idols of Babylon. Her entire land will suffer shame, and all her slain will lie fallen within her.

¹²your mother will be greatly ashamed; she who bore you will be disgraced. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

²⁰She will never be inhabited or settled from generation to generation; no nomad will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flock there.

²¹But desert creatures will lie down there, and howling creatures will fill her houses. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will leap about.

²And he cried out in a mighty voice: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a lair for demons and a haunt for every unclean spirit, every unclean bird, and every detestable beast.

¹²But when seventy years are complete, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their guilt, declares the Lord, and I will make it an everlasting desolation.

¹²your mother will be greatly ashamed; she who bore you will be disgraced. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

¹³Because of the wrath of the Lord, she will not be inhabited; she will become completely desolate. All who pass through Babylon will be horrified and will hiss at all her wounds.

⁶²and say, ‘O Lord, You have promised to cut off this place so that no one will remain—neither man nor beast. Indeed, it will be desolate forever.’

⁶³When you finish reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and cast it into the Euphrates.

²³“I will make her a place for owls and for swamplands; I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord of Hosts.

²⁴Then the Lord rained down sulfur and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the Lord out of the heavens.

²⁵Thus He destroyed these cities and the entire plain, including all the inhabitants of the cities and everything that grew on the ground.

²⁸It was the same in the days of Lot: People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.

²⁹But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

¹⁸As Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown along with their neighbors,” says the Lord, “no one will dwell there; no man will abide there.

⁶if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction, reducing them to ashes as an example of what is coming on the ungodly;

¹⁹And Babylon, the jewel of the kingdoms, the glory of the pride of the Chaldeans, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.

²⁰She will never be inhabited or settled from generation to generation; no nomad will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flock there.

⁷In like manner, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are on display as an example of those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire.

²⁷“Raise a banner in the land! Blow the ram’s horn among the nations! Prepare the nations against her. Summon the kingdoms against her—Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a captain against her; bring up horses like swarming locusts.

²⁸Prepare the nations for battle against her—the kings of the Medes, their governors and all their officials, and all the lands they rule.

²Raise a banner on a barren hilltop; call aloud to them. Wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles.

³I have commanded My sanctified ones; I have even summoned My warriors to execute My wrath and exult in My triumph.

⁹For behold, I stir up and bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the land of the north. They will line up against her; from the north she will be captured. Their arrows will be like skilled warriors who do not return empty-handed.

²²This is what the Lord says: “Behold, an army is coming from the land of the north; a great nation is stirred up from the ends of the earth.

²³They grasp the bow and spear; they are cruel and merciless. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride upon horses, lined up like men in formation against you, O Daughter of Zion.”

¹⁶And the ten horns and the beast that you saw will hate the prostitute. They will leave her desolate and naked, and they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.

¹⁷Behold, I will stir up against them the Medes, who have no regard for silver and no desire for gold.

¹⁸Their bows will dash young men to pieces; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; they will not look with pity on the children.

³⁰In that day they will roar over it, like the roaring of the sea. If one looks over the land, he will see darkness and distress; even the light will be obscured by clouds.

¹⁷Behold, I will stir up against them the Medes, who have no regard for silver and no desire for gold.

¹⁸Their bows will dash young men to pieces; they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb; they will not look with pity on the children.

⁶I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even on the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke.

³at the sound of the galloping hooves of stallions, the rumbling of chariots, and the clatter of their wheels. The fathers will not turn back for their sons; their hands will hang limp.

¹⁶The snorting of enemy horses is heard from Dan. At the sound of the neighing of mighty steeds, the whole land quakes. They come to devour the land and everything in it, the city and all who dwell in it.

⁶It struck the peoples in anger with unceasing blows; it subdued the nations in rage with relentless persecution.

²⁴Damascus has become feeble; she has turned to flee. Panic has gripped her; anguish and pain have seized her like a woman in labor.

³¹One courier races to meet another, and messenger follows messenger, to announce to the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end.

⁵At that moment the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. As the king watched the hand that was writing,

⁶his face grew pale and his thoughts so alarmed him that his hips gave way and his knees knocked together.

⁶Wail, for the Day of the Lord is near; it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

⁷Therefore all hands will fall limp, and every man’s heart will melt.

³Therefore my body is filled with anguish. Pain grips me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am bewildered to hear, I am dismayed to see.

⁴My heart falters; fear makes me tremble. The twilight I desired has turned to horror.

²²Look! An eagle will soar and swoop down, spreading its wings over Bozrah. In that day the hearts of Edom’s mighty men will be like the heart of a woman in labor.

¹⁹Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan to the watered pasture. For in an instant I will chase Edom from her land. Who is the chosen one I will appoint for this? For who is like Me, and who can challenge Me? What shepherd can stand against Me?”

²⁰Therefore hear the plans that the Lord has drawn up against Edom and the strategies He has devised against the people of Teman: Surely the little ones of the flock will be dragged away; certainly their pasture will be made desolate because of them.

¹¹Who among the gods is like You, O Lord? Who is like You—majestic in holiness, revered with praises, performing wonders?

¹¹I summon a bird of prey from the east, a man for My purpose from a far-off land. Truly I have spoken, and truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, and I will surely do it.

⁹Remember what happened long ago, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me.

²⁵I have raised up one from the north, and he has come—one from the east who calls on My name. He will march over rulers as if they were mortar, like a potter who treads the clay.

²⁵“To whom will you liken Me, or who is My equal?” asks the Holy One.

²⁰Therefore hear the plans that the Lord has drawn up against Edom and the strategies He has devised against the people of Teman: Surely the little ones of the flock will be dragged away; certainly their pasture will be made desolate because of them.

¹⁰“The Lord has brought forth our vindication; come, let us tell in Zion what the Lord our God has accomplished.”

¹¹Sharpen the arrows! Fill the quivers! The Lord has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because His plan is aimed at Babylon to destroy her, for it is the vengeance of the Lord—vengeance for His temple.

¹¹In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will,

¹⁶And the ten horns and the beast that you saw will hate the prostitute. They will leave her desolate and naked, and they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.

¹⁷For God has put it into their hearts to carry out His purpose by uniting to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.

²⁴The Lord of Hosts has sworn: “Surely, as I have planned, so will it be; as I have purposed, so will it stand.

²⁵I will break Assyria in My land; I will trample him on My mountain. His yoke will be taken off My people, and his burden removed from their shoulders.”

¹⁰Indeed, if you were to strike down the entire army of the Chaldeans that is fighting against you, and only wounded men remained in their tents, they would still get up and burn this city down.”

²¹At the sound of their fall the earth will quake; their cry will resound to the Red Sea.

⁹Then the kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her will weep and wail at the sight of the smoke rising from the fire that consumes her.

¹⁰In fear of her torment, they will stand at a distance and cry out: “Woe, woe to the great city, the mighty city of Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.”

¹⁸Now the coastlands tremble on the day of your downfall; the islands in the sea are dismayed by your demise.”’

¹⁶I made the nations quake at the sound of its downfall, when I cast it down to Sheol with those who descend to the Pit. Then all the trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon, all the well-watered trees, were consoled in the earth below.

⁹Sheol beneath is eager to meet you upon your arrival. It stirs the spirits of the dead to greet you—all the rulers of the earth. It makes all the kings of the nations rise from their thrones.

¹⁰They will all respond to you, saying, “You too have become weak, as we are; you have become like us!”

¹⁰I will cause many peoples to be appalled over you, and their kings will shudder in horror because of you when I brandish My sword before them. On the day of your downfall each of them will tremble every moment for his life.’