Jeremiah 51:30-58

30Babylon’s warriors have stopped fighting; they sit in their strongholds. Their might is exhausted; they have become like women. Babylon’s homes have been set ablaze, her gate bars are shattered.

31Messenger races to meet messenger, and herald to meet herald, to announce to the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end.

32The fords have been seized, the marshes set on fire, and the fighting men are terrified.

33For this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Daughter Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is trampled. In just a little while her harvest time will come.

34“King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me. He has set me aside like an empty dish; he has swallowed me like a sea monster; he filled his belly with my delicacies; he has vomited me out.

35Let the violence done to me and my family be done to Babylon,” says the inhabitant of Zion. “Let my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea,” says Jerusalem.

36Therefore, this is what the Lord says: I am about to champion your cause and take vengeance on your behalf; I will dry up her sea and make her fountain run dry.

37Babylon will become a heap of rubble, a jackals’ den, a desolation and an object of scorn, without inhabitant.

38They will roar together like young lions; they will growl like lion cubs.

39While they are flushed with heat, I will serve them a feast, and I will make them drunk so that they celebrate. Then they will fall asleep forever and never wake up. This is the Lord’s declaration.

40I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams together with male goats.

41How Sheshak has been captured, the praise of the whole earth seized. What a horror Babylon has become among the nations!

42The sea has risen over Babylon; she is covered with its tumultuous waves.

43Her cities have become a desolation, an arid desert, a land where no one lives, where no human being even passes through.

44I will punish Bel in Babylon. I will make him vomit what he swallowed. The nations will no longer stream to him; even Babylon’s wall will fall.

45Come out from among her, my people! Save your lives, each of you, from the Lord’s burning anger.

46May you not become cowardly and fearful when the report is proclaimed in the land, for the report will come one year, and then another the next year. There will be violence in the land with ruler against ruler.

47Therefore, look, the days are coming when I will punish Babylon’s carved images. Her entire land will suffer shame, and all her slain will lie fallen within her.

48Heaven and earth and everything in them will shout for joy over Babylon because the destroyers from the north will come against her. This is the Lord’s declaration.

49Babylon must fall because of the slain of Israel, even as the slain of the whole earth fell because of Babylon.

50You who have escaped the sword, go and do not stand still! Remember the Lord from far away, and let Jerusalem come to your mind.

51We are ashamed because we have heard insults. Humiliation covers our faces because foreigners have entered the holy places of the Lord’s temple.

52Therefore, look, the days are coming — this is the Lord’s declaration — when I will punish her carved images, and the wounded will groan throughout her land.

53Even if Babylon should ascend to the heavens and fortify her tall fortresses, destroyers will come against her from me. This is the Lord’s declaration.

54The sound of a cry from Babylon! The sound of terrible destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

55For the Lord is going to devastate Babylon; he will silence her mighty voice. Their waves roar like a huge torrent; the tumult of their voice resounds,

56for a destroyer is coming against her, against Babylon. Her warriors will be captured, their bows shattered, for the Lord is a God of retribution; he will certainly repay.

57I will make her princes and sages drunk, along with her governors, officials, and warriors. Then they will fall asleep forever and never wake up. This is the King’s declaration; the Lord of Armies is his name.

58This is what the Lord of Armies says: Babylon’s thick walls will be totally demolished, and her high gates set ablaze. The peoples will have labored for nothing; the nations will weary themselves only to feed the fire.