Jeremiah 51:30-58

30Her mightiest warriors no longer fight. They stay in their barracks, their courage gone. They have become like women. The invaders have burned the houses and broken down the city gates.

31The news is passed from one runner to the next as the messengers hurry to tell the king that his city has been captured.

32All the escape routes are blocked. The marshes have been set aflame, and the army is in a panic.

33This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Babylon is like wheat on a threshing floor, about to be trampled. In just a little while her harvest will begin.”

34“King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has eaten and crushed us and drained us of strength. He has swallowed us like a great monster and filled his belly with our riches. He has thrown us out of our own country.

35Make Babylon suffer as she made us suffer,” say the people of Zion. “Make the people of Babylonia pay for spilling our blood,” says Jerusalem.

36This is what the Lord says to Jerusalem: “I will be your lawyer to plead your case, and I will avenge you. I will dry up her river, as well as her springs,

37and Babylon will become a heap of ruins, haunted by jackals. She will be an object of horror and contempt, a place where no one lives.

38Her people will roar together like strong lions. They will growl like lion cubs.

39And while they lie inflamed with all their wine, I will prepare a different kind of feast for them. I will make them drink until they fall asleep, and they will never wake up again,” says the Lord.

40“I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and goats to be sacrificed.

41“How Babylon is fallen— great Babylon, praised throughout the earth! Now she has become an object of horror among the nations.

42The sea has risen over Babylon; she is covered by its crashing waves.

43Her cities now lie in ruins; she is a dry wasteland where no one lives or even passes by.

44And I will punish Bel, the god of Babylon, and make him vomit up all he has eaten. The nations will no longer come and worship him. The wall of Babylon has fallen!

45“Come out, my people, flee from Babylon. Save yourselves! Run from the Lord’s fierce anger.

46But do not panic; don’t be afraid when you hear the first rumor of approaching forces. For rumors will keep coming year by year. Violence will erupt in the land as the leaders fight against each other.

47For the time is surely coming when I will punish this great city and all her idols. Her whole land will be disgraced, and her dead will lie in the streets.

48Then the heavens and earth will rejoice, for out of the north will come destroying armies against Babylon,” says the Lord.

49“Just as Babylon killed the people of Israel and others throughout the world, so must her people be killed.

50Get out, all you who have escaped the sword! Do not stand and watch—flee while you can! Remember the Lord, though you are in a far-off land, and think about your home in Jerusalem.”

51“We are ashamed,” the people say. “We are insulted and disgraced because the Lord’s Temple has been defiled by foreigners.”

52“Yes,” says the Lord, “but the time is coming when I will destroy Babylon’s idols. The groans of her wounded people will be heard throughout the land.

53Though Babylon reaches as high as the heavens and makes her fortifications incredibly strong, I will still send enemies to plunder her. I, the Lord, have spoken!

54“Listen! Hear the cry of Babylon, the sound of great destruction from the land of the Babylonians.

55For the Lord is destroying Babylon. He will silence her loud voice. Waves of enemies pound against her; the noise of battle rings through the city.

56Destroying armies come against Babylon. Her mighty men are captured, and their weapons break in their hands. For the Lord is a God who gives just punishment; he always repays in full.

57I will make her officials and wise men drunk, along with her captains, officers, and warriors. They will fall asleep and never wake up again!” says the King, whose name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

58This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: “The thick walls of Babylon will be leveled to the ground, and her massive gates will be burned. The builders from many lands have worked in vain, for their work will be destroyed by fire!”