Jeremiah 51:30-58

30The warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting. They stay in their fortified cities. Their strength has failed. They have become women. Their buildings are set on fire. The bars across their gates are broken.

31Runners run to meet runners. Messengers follow messengers. They inform the king of Babylon that his entire city is captured.

32The river crossings have been taken. The enemy has burned its marshes, and its soldiers are terrified.

33This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: The people of Babylon are like a threshing floor at the time it is trampled. Their harvest time will come soon.

34King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has devoured us. He has thrown us into confusion. He has turned us into empty jars. He has swallowed us like a monster. He has filled his belly with our delicacies. Then he spit us out.

35The people who live in Zion say, “May the violence done to us be done to Babylon.” Jerusalem says, “May the people of Babylon be held responsible for our deaths.”

36This is what the Lord says: I am going to take up your cause and get revenge for you. I will dry up Babylon’s sea and make its springs dry.

37Babylon will become piles of rubble. It will become a dwelling place for jackals, something horrible, and an object of contempt, where no one lives.

38Its people are like roaring lions and growling lion cubs.

39When they are excited, I will prepare a feast for them and make them drunk so that they will shout and laugh. They will fall into a deep sleep and never wake up again, declares the Lord.

40I will take them to be slaughtered like lambs, rams, and male goats.

41“Sheshach has been captured. Babylon, the city that the whole world praised, has been taken captive.

42What a horrifying sight Babylon will be to the nations! The sea will rise over Babylon, and its roaring waves will cover it.

43Its cities will be ruined. It will become a desert, a land where no one lives and where no human travels.

44I will punish Bel in Babylon. I will make Bel spit out everything that it has swallowed. Nations will no longer stream to Babylon, and its walls will fall.

45“Leave it, my people! Run for your lives! Run from the burning anger of the Lord.

46Don’t lose courage or be afraid when rumors are heard in the land. One rumor comes one year; another rumor comes the next year. Rumors of violence are in the land. Rumors that one ruler will fight against another are in the land.

47That is why the days are coming when I will punish Babylon’s idols. The whole country will be put to shame, and all its soldiers will lie dead.

48Then heaven and earth and everything in them will rejoice over Babylon, because destroyers from the north will attack it,” declares the Lord.

49Because the people of Babylon have killed many Israelites and because they have killed many people throughout the earth, Babylon must fall.

50You people who escaped from the sword, leave! Don’t just stand there. Remember the Lord in a distant land, and think about Jerusalem.

51We have been put to shame, and we have been disgraced. Shame covers our faces, because foreigners have gone into the holy places of the Lord’s temple.

52“That is why the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish their idols, and those who are wounded will moan everywhere in the land.

53The people of Babylon might go up to heaven. They might fortify their strongholds. But destroyers will still come from me against them,” declares the Lord.

54Cries of agony are heard from Babylon. Sounds of terrible destruction are heard from the land of the Babylonians.

55The Lord will destroy Babylon. He will silence the loud noise coming from it. Waves of enemies will come roaring in like raging water. The noise will be heard everywhere.

56A destroyer will attack Babylon, its soldiers will be captured, and their bows and arrows will be broken. “I, the Lord, am a God who punishes evil. I will certainly punish them.

57I will make their officials and wise men drunk, along with their governors, officers, and soldiers. They will fall into a deep sleep and never wake up,” declares the king, whose name is the Lord of Armies.

58This is what the Lord of Armies says: The thick walls of Babylon will be leveled, and its high gates will be set on fire. People exhaust themselves for nothing. The nations wear themselves out only to have a fire.