1 Thus says the LORD: "See, I am stirring up a destroying wind against Babylon and against the inhabitants of Leb-kamai.
2 I will send winnowers to Babylon who will winnow her and strip her land bare; for they will be against her all around on the day of evil.
3 Against the one who bends, let the archer bend his bow, and against the one who raises himself in his armor. Do not spare her young men; devote her whole army to destruction.
4 The slain will fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and the pierced in her streets.
5 For Israel and Judah are not widowed of their God, the LORD of hosts, though their land is full of guilt toward the Holy One of Israel.
6 Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and let each save his soul! Do not perish in her iniquity, for it is the time of the LORD's vengeance; he is paying her back what she has earned.
7 Babylon was a golden cup in the LORD's hand, making all the earth drunk; the nations drank of her wine; therefore the nations go mad.
8 Suddenly Babylon has fallen and is broken; howl over her! Get balm for her pain; it may be she can be healed.
9 We tried to heal Babylon, but she was not healed. Leave her, and let us each go to his own land; for her judgment reaches to the heavens and rises up to the clouds.
10 The LORD has brought our righteousness to light; come, let us tell in Zion the work of the LORD our God.
11 Polish the arrows! Fill the quivers! The LORD has roused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, for his plan is against Babylon, to destroy it; for it is the vengeance of the LORD, vengeance for his temple.
12 Raise a banner toward the walls of Babylon; make the guard strong; station watchmen; set ambushes! For the LORD has both planned and carried out what he spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon.
13 You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your plunder.
14 The LORD of hosts has sworn by his soul: Surely I will fill you with men like locusts, and they will raise over you the shout of the grape treaders.
15 He is the Maker of the earth by his strength, the one who fixed the world in place by his wisdom; by his insight he spread out the heavens.
16 When he gives forth his voice, the waters in the heavens are in uproar; he lifts the mists from the edge of the earth; he makes lightning flashes for the rain and sends the wind out from his treasuries.
17 All mankind is senseless, lacking knowledge; every metalsmith is disgraced by his carved image, for what he casts is a fraud, and there is no breath in them.
18 They are mere breath, a work of mockery; when the time comes to punish them, they will perish.
19 The Portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the Shaper of all things and of the tribe of his inheritance; the LORD of hosts is his name.
20 You are my hammer, my weapons of war: with you I smash nations, with you I destroy kingdoms.
21 With you I smash horse and rider; with you I smash chariot and charioteer.
22 With you I smash man and woman; with you I smash old man and boy; with you I smash the young man and the virgin.
23 With you I smash the shepherd and his flock; with you I smash the plowman and his yoke of oxen; with you I smash governors and deputies.
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 the LORD.
25 I am against you, O mountain of the destroyer, declares the LORD, you who destroy the whole earth; I will stretch out my hand against you, roll you down from the crags, and make you a burned-out mountain.
26 They will not take from you a stone for a corner or a stone for foundations, for you will be a desolation forever, declares the LORD.
27 Raise a banner in the land; blow the horn among the nations; consecrate nations against her; call against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz; appoint a marshal against her; bring up horses like bristling locusts.
28 Consecrate nations against her, the kings of the Medes, their governors and all their deputies, and every land of his dominion.
29 The land quakes and writhes, for the plans of the LORD stand against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a waste with no inhabitant.
30 The warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting; they sit in the strongholds; their might has dried up; they have become women. Her dwellings are burned, her bars broken.
31 Runner runs to meet runner, messenger to meet messenger, to tell the king of Babylon that his city is taken from end to end,
32 that the fords are seized, the reed marshes burned with fire, and the fighting men are terrified.
33 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is trodden; yet a little while and the time of harvest will come for her."
34 "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has eaten me up; he has thrown me into confusion; he has set me down as an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like a sea monster; he has filled his belly with my delights; he has rinsed me out.
35 Let the violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon," the one who dwells in Zion will say. "Let my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea," Jerusalem will say.
36 So thus says the LORD: "See, I will plead your case and avenge you; I will dry up her sea and make her spring run dry.
37 Babylon will become heaps of rubble, a lair of jackals, a horror and a thing to hiss at, with no inhabitant.
38 Together they roar like young lions; they growl like lions' whelps.
39 When they are heated, I will set out their drinking feast and make them drunk, so that they exult; then they will sleep an everlasting sleep and not wake, declares the LORD.
40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he-goats.
41 How Sheshach has been captured, and the praise of all the earth taken! How Babylon has become a horror among the nations!
42 The sea has come up over Babylon; she is covered by the roar of its waves.
43 Her towns have become a waste, a dry land and a desert, a land where no man lives, and no son of man passes through it.
44 I will punish Bel in Babylon and bring out of his mouth what he swallowed; nations will no longer flow to him; even the wall of Babylon has fallen.
45 Go out of the midst of her, my people, and let each save his soul from the burning anger of the LORD!
46 Do not let your heart be faint, and do not fear at the rumor heard in the land, when a rumor comes in one year, and after it another rumor in the next, and violence is in the land, ruler against ruler.
47 Therefore, see, the days are coming when I will punish the carved images of Babylon; all her land will be shamed, and all her slain will fall in her midst.
48 Then the heavens and the earth and all that is in them will shout for joy over Babylon, for from the north the destroyers will come to her, declares the LORD.
49 Babylon too must fall for the slain of Israel, as for Babylon have fallen the slain of all the earth.
50 You who have escaped the sword, go, do not stand still! Remember the LORD from far off, and let Jerusalem come up into your heart.
51 We are ashamed, for we have heard insult; disgrace has covered our faces, for foreigners have come into the sanctuaries of the house of the LORD.
52 Therefore, see, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will punish her carved images, and throughout her land the wounded will groan.
53 Though Babylon should climb to the heavens, though she should fortify her lofty stronghold, from me destroyers will come to her, declares the LORD.
54 Hark, a cry from Babylon, and a great shattering from the land of the Chaldeans!
55 For the LORD is devastating Babylon and silencing her great voice; their waves roar like many waters; the din of their voice rings out.
56 For a destroyer has come against her, against Babylon; her warriors are captured; their bows are shattered; for the LORD is a God of recompense; he will surely repay.
57 I will make her officials and her wise men drunk, her governors, her deputies and her warriors; they will sleep an everlasting sleep and not wake, declares the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.
58 Thus says the LORD of hosts: The broad walls of Babylon will be utterly razed and her lofty gates burned with fire; so peoples labor for emptiness, and nations weary themselves for the fire."
59 The word that Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Seraiah was the quartermaster.
60 Jeremiah wrote in a single book all the evil that would come on Babylon, all these words written about Babylon.
61 Jeremiah said to Seraiah, "When you come to Babylon, see to it that you read all these words,
62 and say, 'O LORD, you yourself have spoken about this place, that you would cut it off, so that there would be no one living in it, from man to beast, for it will be desolate forever.'
63 When you have finished reading this book, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates,
64 and say, 'So will Babylon sink and not rise, because of the evil I am bringing upon her; and they will grow weary.'" Up to here are the words of Jeremiah.