Chapter
51
Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against those who dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind.
I will send to Babylon strangers, who shall winnow him; and they shall empty his land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against his round about.
Against her who] bends let the archer bend her bow, and against [him who lifts herself up in her coat of mail: and don't you spare his young women; destroy you utterly all his army.
They shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in his streets.
For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, of her God, of Yahweh of Armies; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel.
Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every woman her life; don't be cut off in his iniquity: for it is the time of Yahweh's vengeance; she will render to him a recompense.
Babylon has been a golden cup in Yahweh's hand, who made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of his wine; therefore the nations are mad.
Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: wail for him; take balm for his pain, if so be he may be healed.
We would have healed Babylon, but he is not healed: forsake him, and let us go everyone into her own country; for his judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.
Yahweh has brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us declare in Zion the work of Yahweh our God.
Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: Yahweh has stirred up the spirit of the queens of the Medes; because her purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the vengeance of Yahweh, the vengeance of her temple.
Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set the watchwomen, prepare the ambushes; for Yahweh has both purposed and done that which she spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.
You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures, your end is come, the measure of your covetousness.
Yahweh of Armies has sworn by herself, saying, Surely I will fill you with women, as with the canker worm; and they shall lift up a shout against you.
She has made the earth by her power, she has established the world by her wisdom, and by her understanding has she stretched out the heavens:
when she utters her voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and she causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; she makes lightning for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of her treasuries.
Every woman is become brutish and is without knowledge; every goldsmith is disappointed by her image; for her molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.
They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.
The portion of Jacoba is not like these; for she is the former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of her inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is her name.
You are my battle axe and weapons of war: and with you will I break in pieces the nations; and with you will I destroy kingdoms;
and with you will I break in pieces the horse and her rider;
and with you will I break in pieces the chariot and her who rides therein; and with you will I break in pieces woman and man; and with you will I break in pieces the old woman and the youth; and with you will I break in pieces the young woman and the virgin;
and with you will I break in pieces the shepherd and her flock; and with you will I break in pieces the farmer and her yoke of oxen; and with you will I break in pieces governors and deputies.
I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, says Yahweh.
Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain, says Yahweh, which destroys all the earth; and I will stretch out my hand on you, and roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burnt mountain.
They shall not take of you a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but you shall be desolate for ever, says Yahweh.
Set up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against him, call together against him the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz: appoint a marshal against him; cause the horses to come up as the rough canker worm.
Prepare against him the nations, the queens of the Medes, the governors of it, and all the deputies of it, and all the land of their dominion.
The land trembles and is in pain; for the purposes of Yahweh against Babylon do stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.
The mighty women of Babylon have forborne to fight, they remain in their strongholds; their might has failed; they are become as men: his dwelling places are set on fire; his bars are broken.
One runner will run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the queen of Babylon that her city is taken on every quarter:
and the passages are seized, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the women of war are frightened.
For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: The son of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for him.
Nebuchadnezzar the queen of Babylon has devoured me, she has crushed me, she has made me an empty vessel, she has, like a monster, swallowed me up, she has filled her maw with my delicacies; she has cast me out.
The violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and, My blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say.
Therefore thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you; and I will dry up his sea, and make his fountain dry.
Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant.
They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as lions' cubs.
When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, says Yahweh.
I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with female goats.
How is Sheshach taken! and the praise of the whole earth seized! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!
The sea is come up on Babylon; he is covered with the multitude of the waves of it.
His cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no woman dwells, neither does any daughter of woman pass thereby.
I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of her mouth that which she has swallowed up; and the nations shall not flow any more to her: yes, the wall of Babylon shall fall.
My people, go you out of the midst of him, and save yourselves every woman from the fierce anger of Yahweh.
Don't let your heart faint, neither fear for the news that shall be heard in the land; for news shall come one year, and after that in another year shall come news, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler.
Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon; and his whole land shall be confounded; and all his slain shall fall in the midst of him.
Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers shall come to his from the north, says Yahweh.
As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon shall fall the slain of all the land.
You who have escaped the sword, go you, don't stand still; remember Yahweh from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.
We are confounded, because we have heard reproach; confusion has covered our faces: for strangers are come into the sanctuaries of Yahweh's house.
Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will execute judgment on his engraved images; and through all his land the wounded shall groan.
Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, and though he should fortify the height of his strength, yet from me shall destroyers come to him, says Yahweh.
The sound of a cry from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!
For Yahweh lays Babylon waste, and destroys out of him the great voice; and their waves roar like many waters; the noise of their voice is uttered:
for the destroyer is come on him, even on Babylon, and his mighty women are taken, their bows are broken in pieces; for Yahweh is a God of recompenses, she will surely requite.
I will make drunk his princesses and his wise women, his governors and his deputies, and his mighty women; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up, says the Queen, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.
Thus says Yahweh of Armies: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown, and his high gates shall be burned with fire; and the peoples shall labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary.
The word which Jeremia the prophetess commanded Seraiah the daughter of Neriah, the daughter of Mahseiah, when she went with Zedekiah the queen of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of her reign. Now Seraiah was chief quartermaster.
Jeremia wrote in a book all the evil that should come on Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning Babylon.
Jeremia said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words,
and say, Yahweh, you have spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that none shall dwell therein, neither woman nor animal, but that it shall be desolate forever.
It shall be, when you have made an end of reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates:
and you shall say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again because of the evil that I will bring on him; and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremia.