Jeremiah

¹ "Watch this: I'm whipping up A death-dealing hurricane against Babylon—'Hurricane Persia'— against all who live in that perverse land.

² They'll clean the place out from top to bottom. When they get through there'll be nothing left of her worth taking or talking about. They won't miss a thing. A total and final Doomsday!

³ It's no holds barred. They will spare nothing and no one. It's final and wholesale destruction—the end!

⁴ streets piled with corpses.

⁵ are not widowed after all. As their God, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, I am still alive and well, committed to them even though They filled their land with sin against Israel's most Holy God.

⁶ Run for your lives! Save your necks! Don't linger and lose your lives to my vengeance on her as I pay her back for her sins.

⁷ held in my hand, Filled with the wine of my anger to make the whole world drunk. The nations drank the wine and they've all gone crazy.

⁸ senseless in a drunken stupor—tragic! Get anointing balm for her wound. Maybe she can be cured."

⁹ Babylon is past fixing. Give her up to her fate. Go home. The judgment on her will be vast, a skyscraper-memorial of vengeance.

¹⁰ Come! Let's tell the good news Back home in Zion. Let's tell what our God did to set things right.

¹¹ Fill the quivers! God has stirred up the kings of the Medes, infecting them with war fever: 'Destroy Babylon!' God's on the warpath. He's out to avenge his Temple.

¹² Station guards around the clock. Bring in reinforcements. Set men in ambush. God will do what he planned, what he said he'd do to the people of Babylon.

¹³ you have more money than you need— But your life is over, your lifeline cut."

¹⁴ "I'll fill this place with soldiers. They'll swarm through here like locusts chanting victory songs over you."

¹⁵ His wisdom gave shape to the world. He crafted the cosmos.

¹⁶ He sends the clouds soaring. He embellishes the storm with lightnings, launches the wind from his warehouse.

¹⁷ god-makers embarrassed by their handmade gods! Their gods are frauds, dead sticks— deadwood gods, tasteless jokes.

¹⁸ When the smoke clears, they're gone.

¹⁹ he put the whole universe together, With special attention to Israel. His name? God-of-the-Angel-Armies!

²⁰ my weapon of war. I'll use you to smash godless nations, use you to knock kingdoms to bits.

²¹ use you to smash chariot and driver.

²² use you to smash the old man and the boy. I'll use you to smash the young man and young woman,

²³ I'll use you to smash farmer and yoked oxen, use you to smash governors and senators.

²⁴ "Judeans, you'll see it with your own eyes. I'll pay Babylon and all the Chaldeans back for all the evil they did in Zion." God's Decree.

²⁵ you ravager of the whole earth. I'll reach out, I'll take you in my hand, and I'll crush you till there's no mountain left. I'll turn you into a gravel pit—

²⁶ No more foundation stones quarried from you! Nothing left of you but gravel." God's Decree.

²⁷ blow the shofar-trumpet for the nations. Consecrate the nations for holy work against her. Call kingdoms into service against her. Enlist Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a field marshal against her, and round up horses, locust hordes of horses!

²⁸ the king of the Medes, his leaders and people.

²⁹ terrorized by my plans against Babylon, Plans to turn the country of Babylon into a lifeless moonscape—a wasteland.

³⁰ They hide out in ruins and caves— Cowards who've given up without a fight, exposed as cowering milksops. Babylon's houses are going up in flames, the city gates torn off their hinges.

³¹ each on the heels of the last, Bringing reports to the king of Babylon that his city is a lost cause.

³² Wildfire rages through the swamp grass. Soldiers desert left and right.

³³ 'Daughter Babylon is a threshing floor at threshing time. Soon, oh very soon, her harvest will come and then the chaff will fly!'

³⁴ chewed up my people and spit out the bones. He wiped his dish clean, pushed back his chair, and belched—a huge gluttonous belch.

³⁵ 'The brutality done to me be done to Babylon!' And Jerusalem says, 'The blood spilled from me be charged to the Chaldeans!'

³⁶ 'I'm on your side, taking up your cause. I'm your Avenger. You'll get your revenge. I'll dry up her rivers, plug up her springs.

³⁷ scavenged by stray dogs and cats, A dumping ground for garbage, a godforsaken ghost town.'

³⁸ ravenous, roaring for food.

³⁹ They'll drink themselves falling-down drunk. Dead drunk, they'll sleep—and sleep, and sleep... and they'll never wake up." God's Decree.

⁴⁰ like the lambs, rams, and goats, never to be heard of again.

⁴¹ the pride of the whole earth is flat on her face. What a comedown for Babylon, to end up inglorious in the sewer!

⁴² battered by waves of enemy soldiers.

⁴³ the land empty and bare and sterile. No one lives in these towns anymore. Travelers give them a wide berth.

⁴⁴ I'll make him vomit up all he gulped down. No more visitors stream into this place, admiring and gawking at the wonders of Babylon. The wonders of Babylon are no more.

⁴⁵ Run, and don't look back! Get out of this place while you can, this place torched by God's raging anger.

⁴⁶ when the rumors pour in hot and heavy. One year it's this, the next year it's that— rumors of violence, rumors of war.

⁴⁷ when I'll put the no-gods of Babylon in their place. I'll show up the whole country as a sickening fraud, with dead bodies strewn all over the place.

⁴⁸ will throw a victory party over Babylon When the avenging armies from the north descend on her." God's Decree!

⁴⁹ compensation for the war dead in Israel. Babylonians will be killed because of all that Babylonian killing.

⁵⁰ get out! And fast! Remember God in your long and distant exile. Keep Jerusalem alive in your memory."

⁵¹ kicked around for so long that we hardly know who we are! And we hardly know what to think— our old Sanctuary, God's house, desecrated by strangers.

⁵² —God's Decree— "When I will bring doom on her no-god idols, and all over this land her wounded will groan.

⁵³ and pulled up the ladder so that no one could get to her, That wouldn't stop me. I'd make sure my avengers would reach her." God's Decree.

⁵⁴ An unearthly wail out of Chaldea!

⁵⁵ We'll be hearing the last of her noise— Death throes like the crashing of waves, death rattles like the roar of cataracts.

⁵⁶ Her soldiers are taken, her weapons are trashed. Indeed, God is a God who evens things out. All end up with their just deserts.

⁵⁷ princes, sages, governors, soldiers. Dead drunk, they'll sleep—and sleep and sleep... and never wake up." The King's Decree. His name? God-of-the-Angel-Armies!

⁵⁸ "The city walls of Babylon—those massive walls!— will be flattened. And those city gates—huge gates!— will be set on fire. The harder you work at this empty life, the less you are. Nothing comes of ambition like this but ashes."

⁵⁹ Jeremiah the prophet gave a job to Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when Seraiah went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon. It was in the fourth year of Zedekiah's reign. Seraiah was in charge of travel arrangements.

⁶⁰ Jeremiah had written down in a little booklet all the bad things that would come down on Babylon.

⁶¹ He told Seraiah, "When you get to Babylon, read this out in public.

⁶² Read, 'You, O God, said that you would destroy this place so that nothing could live here, neither human nor animal—a wasteland to top all wastelands, an eternal nothing.'

⁶³ "When you've finished reading the page, tie a stone to it, throw it into the River Euphrates, and watch it sink.

⁶⁴ Then say, 'That's how Babylon will sink to the bottom and stay there after the disaster I'm going to bring upon her.' "