Jeremiah 50:1-8

1The Lord gave Jeremiah the prophet this message concerning Babylon and the land of the Babylonians.

2This is what the Lord says: “Tell the whole world, and keep nothing back. Raise a signal flag to tell everyone that Babylon will fall! Her images and idols will be shattered. Her gods Bel and Marduk will be utterly disgraced.

3For a nation will attack her from the north and bring such destruction that no one will live there again. Everything will be gone; both people and animals will flee.

4“In those coming days,” says the Lord, “the people of Israel will return home together with the people of Judah. They will come weeping and seeking the Lord their God.

5They will ask the way to Jerusalem and will start back home again. They will bind themselves to the Lord with an eternal covenant that will never be forgotten.

6“My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray and turned them loose in the mountains. They have lost their way and can’t remember how to get back to the sheepfold.

7All who found them devoured them. Their enemies said, ‘We did nothing wrong in attacking them, for they sinned against the Lord, their true place of rest, and the hope of their ancestors.’

8“But now, flee from Babylon! Leave the land of the Babylonians. Like male goats at the head of the flock, lead my people home again.