Jeremiah

¹ Thus says Yahweh:“Behold, I am going to arouse against Babylon And against the inhabitants of Leb‑kamai The spirit of a destroyer.

² And may empty her land to destruction; For on every side they will be against her In the day of her calamity.

³ Nor let him rise up in his scale‑armor; So do not spare her young men; Devote all her army to destruction.

⁴ And pierced through in their streets.”

⁵ By his God, by Yahweh of hosts, Although their land is full of guilt Before the Holy One of Israel.

⁶ And each of you escape with his life! Do not be silenced in her iniquity, For this is Yahweh’s time of vengeance; He is going to render recompense to her.

⁷ Intoxicating all the earth. The nations have drunk of her wine; Therefore the nations are going mad.

⁸ Wail over her! Take balm for her pain; Perhaps she may be healed.

⁹ Forsake her and let us each go to his own country, For her judgment has touched heaven And lifts up to the very skies.

¹⁰ Come and let us recount in Zion The work of Yahweh our God!

¹¹ Yahweh has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes Because His purpose is against Babylon to destroy it; For it is the vengeance of Yahweh, vengeance for His temple.

¹² Make strong the watch; Raise up watchmen; Establish men in ambush! For Yahweh has both purposed and performed What He spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.

¹³ Abundant in treasures, Your end has come, The measure of your end.

¹⁴ “Surely I will fill you with a population like locusts, And they will cry out with shouts of victory over you.”

¹⁵ Who established the world by His wisdom, And by His understanding He stretched out the heavens.

¹⁶ And He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain And brings forth the wind from His storehouses.

¹⁷ Every goldsmith is put to shame by his graven image, For his molten images are a lie, And there is no breath in them.

¹⁸ In the time of their punishment they will perish.

¹⁹ For the Maker of all is He, And of the tribe of His inheritance; Yahweh of hosts is His name.

²⁰ And with you I shatter nations, And with you I destroy kingdoms.

²¹ And with you I shatter the chariot and its rider,

²² And with you I shatter old man and youth, And with you I shatter choice man and virgin,

²³ And with you I shatter the farmer and his pair of oxen, And with you I shatter governors and prefects.

²⁴ “But I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil that they have done in Zion before your eyes,” declares Yahweh.

²⁵ Who destroys the whole earth,” declares Yahweh, “And I will stretch out My hand against you And roll you down from the crags, And I will make you a burnt out mountain.

²⁶ Nor a stone for foundations, But you will be a perpetual desolation,” declares Yahweh.

²⁷ Blow a trumpet among the nations! Set apart the nations against her; Summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz; Appoint a marshal against her; Bring up the horses like bristly locusts.

²⁸ The kings of the Medes, Their governors and all their prefects And every land of their rule.

²⁹ For the purposes of Yahweh against Babylon stand, To make the land of Babylon A desolation without inhabitants.

³⁰ They inhabit the strongholds; Their might is dried up; They are becoming like women; Their dwelling places are set on fire; The bars of her gates are broken.

³¹ And one messenger to meet another, To give a message to the king of Babylon That his city has been captured from end to end;

³² And they have burned the marshes with fire, And the men of war are terrified.

³³ At the time it is stamped firm; Yet in a little while the time of harvest will come for her.”

³⁴ He has set me down like an empty vessel; He has swallowed me like a sea monster; He has filled his stomach with my delicacies; He has rinsed me away.

³⁵ The inhabitant of Zion will say; And, “May my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,” Jerusalem will say.

³⁶ And exact full vengeance for you; And I will dry up her sea And make her fountain dry.

³⁷ An object of horror and hissing, without inhabitants.

³⁸ They will growl like lions’ cubs.

³⁹ And make them drunk, that they may exult And may sleep a perpetual sleep And not wake up,” declares Yahweh.

⁴⁰ Like rams together with male goats.

⁴¹ And the praise of the whole earth been seized! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations!

⁴² She has been covered with its tumultuous waves.

⁴³ A parched land, and a desert, A land in which no man lives And through which no son of man passes.

⁴⁴ And I will make what he has swallowed come out of his mouth; And the nations will no longer stream to him. Even the wall of Babylon has fallen down!

⁴⁵ And each of you escape with his life From the burning anger of Yahweh.

⁴⁶ And you fear the report that will be heard in the land— For the report will come one year, And after that another report in another year, And violence will be in the land With ruler against ruler—

⁴⁷ When I will punish the graven images of Babylon; And her whole land will be put to shame, And all her slain will fall in her midst.

⁴⁸ Will shout for joy over Babylon, For the destroyers will come to her from the north,” Declares Yahweh.

⁴⁹ As also for Babylon the slain of all the earth have fallen.

⁵⁰ Go! Do not stand around! Remember Yahweh from afar, And let Jerusalem come upon your heart.

⁵¹ Dishonor has covered our faces, For strangers have entered The holy places of the house of Yahweh.

⁵² “When I will punish her graven images, And the mortally wounded will groan throughout her land.

⁵³ And though she should fortify her lofty stronghold, From Me destroyers will come to her,” declares Yahweh.

⁵⁴ And of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

⁵⁵ And He will make her loud noise vanish from her. And their waves will roar like many waters; The rumbling of their voices sounds forth.

⁵⁶ And her mighty men will be captured; Their bows are shattered; For Yahweh is a God of recompense, He will fully repay.

⁵⁷ Her governors, her prefects, and her mighty men, That they may sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake up,” Declares the King, whose name is Yahweh of hosts.

⁵⁸ And her high gates will be set on fire; So the peoples will toil for nothing, And the nations become weary only for fire.”

⁵⁹ 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 Seraiah was quartermaster.)

⁶⁰ So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll all the calamity which would come upon Babylon, that is, all these words which have been written concerning Babylon.

⁶¹ Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “As soon as you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words aloud,

⁶² and then you will say, ‘You, O Yahweh, have promised concerning this place to cut it off, so that there will be nothing inhabiting it, whether man or beast, but it will be a perpetual desolation.’

⁶³ And as soon as you finish reading this scroll, you will tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates,

⁶⁴ and then you will say, ‘Just so shall Babylon sink down and not rise again because of the calamity that I am going to bring upon her; and they will become utterly weary.’” Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.