“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.
Make Babylon suffer as she made us suffer,”
say the people of Zion.
“Make the people of Babylonia pay for spilling our blood,”
says Jerusalem.
LORD
This 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,
and 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.
Her people will roar together like strong lions.
They will growl like lion cubs.
And 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.
“I will bring them down
like lambs to the slaughter,
like rams and goats to be sacrificed.
“How Babylon is fallen—
great Babylon, praised throughout the earth!
Now she has become an object of horror
among the nations.
The sea has risen over Babylon;
she is covered by its crashing waves.
Her cities now lie in ruins;
she is a dry wasteland
where no one lives or even passes by.
And 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!
“Come out, my people, flee from Babylon.
Save yourselves! Run from the LORD’s fierce anger.
But 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.
For 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.
Then the heavens and earth will rejoice,
for out of the north will come destroying armies
against Babylon,” says the LORD.
“Just as Babylon killed the people of Israel
and others throughout the world,
so must her people be killed.
Get 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.”
“We are ashamed,” the people say.
“We are insulted and disgraced
because the LORD’s Temple
has been defiled by foreigners.”
“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.
Though 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!
“Listen! Hear the cry of Babylon,
the sound of great destruction from the land of the Babylonians.
For 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.
Destroying 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.
I 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.
This 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!”
The prophet Jeremiah gave this message to Seraiah son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah, a staff officer, when Seraiah went to Babylon with King Zedekiah of Judah. This was during the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign. Jeremiah had recorded on a scroll all the terrible disasters that would soon come upon Babylon—all the words written here. He said to Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, read aloud everything on this scroll. Then say, ‘LORD, you have said that you will destroy Babylon so that neither people nor animals will remain here. She will lie empty and abandoned forever.’ When you have finished reading the scroll, tie it to a stone and throw it into the Euphrates River. Then say, ‘In this same way Babylon and her people will sink, never again to rise, because of the disasters I will bring upon her.’”
This is the end of Jeremiah’s messages.
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