Jeremiah 51
51
The Destruction of Babylon
1Thus says the Lord:
Behold, I will raise up against Babylon,
and against those who dwell in Leb Kamai, # Jer 25:26; 51:41
the spirit of a destroyer. # Jer 4:11–12; Hos 13:15
2And I will send foreigners to Babylon
that they may winnow her and empty her land. # Jer 15:7; Mt 3:12
For in the day of trouble
they will be against her all around.
3Let not him who bends his bow bend it, # Jer 50:14
and let him not rise up in his scale-armor, # Jer 46:4
and do not spare her young men;
utterly destroy all her host.
4Thus the slain will fall in the land of the Chaldeans,
and those who are thrust through in her streets. # Isa 13:15; Jer 49:26
5For Israel has not been forsaken, nor Judah, # Jer 33:24–26
by his God, the Lord of Hosts,
though their land was filled with sin # Hos 4:1
against the Holy One of Israel.
6Flee out of the midst of Babylon, # Jer 50:8
and each of you deliver his soul!
Do not be cut off in her punishment,
for this is the time of the vengeance of the Lord; # Jer 50:15, 28
He will render to her a recompense.
7Babylon has been a golden cup # Rev 17:4 in the hand of the Lord,
that made all the earth drunk.
The nations have drunk of her wine; # Rev 14:8; 17:2
therefore the nations are mad.
8Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed. # Isa 21:9
Howl for her.
Take balm for her pain; # Jer 46:11
perhaps she may be healed.
9We applied healing to Babylon,
but she is not healed.
Forsake her, and let us each go into his own country; # Isa 13:14; Jer 50:16
for her judgment reaches to heaven
and is lifted up even to the skies.
10The Lord has brought forth our righteousness. # Ps 37:6
Come, and let us declare in Zion # Jer 50:28
the work of the Lord our God.
11Sharpen the arrows.
Gather the shields. # Jer 46:4
The Lord has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes.
For His device is against Babylon, to destroy it; # Jer 50:45
because it is the vengeance of the Lord,
the vengeance of His temple.
12Set up the standard # Isa 13:2 against the walls of Babylon,
make the watch strong,
set up the watchmen,
prepare the ambushes.
For the Lord has both devised and done
that which He spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon.
13O you who dwell by many waters, # Rev 17:1
abundant in treasures, # Isa 45:3
your end has come,
and the measure of your end.
14The Lord of Hosts has sworn by Himself, # Jer 49:13
saying: Surely I will fill you with men, as with locusts,
and they will lift up shouts of victory against you. # Jer 50:15
15He has made the earth by His power;
He has established the world by His wisdom,
and has stretched out the heaven by His understanding. # Job 9:8; Jer 10:12–16
16When He utters His voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens,
and He causes the clouds to ascend from the remote parts of the earth;
He makes lightning with rain,
and brings out the wind from His storehouses. # Ps 18:13; 135:7; Jon 1:4
17Every man is ignorant by His knowledge;
every founder is humiliated by the graven image,
for his molded image is falsehood,
and there is no breath in them. # Jer 10:14; Hab 2:18–19
18They are vanity, the work of errors;
in the time of their punishment they will perish.
19The portion of Jacob # Ps 73:26 is not like them,
for He is the former of all things,
and Israel is the rod of His inheritance.
The Lord of Hosts is His name. # Jer 10:16
20He says: You are My battle-ax # Isa 10:5; 41:15–16
and weapon of war:
for with you I will break in pieces the nations,
and with you I will destroy kingdoms;
21and with you I will break in pieces the horse and his rider;
and with you I will break in pieces the chariot and his rider. # Ex 15:1
22With you also I will break in pieces man and woman;
and with you I will break in pieces old and young; # 2Ch 36:17; Isa 13:18
and with you I will break in pieces the young man and the young woman.
23I will also break in pieces with you the shepherd and his flock;
and with you I will break in pieces the farmer and his yoke of oxen;
and with you I will break in pieces captains and rulers.
24I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, # Jer 50:15 says the Lord.
25Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, # Isa 13:2; Zec 4:7
says the Lord,
who destroys all the earth.
And I will stretch out My hand against you,
and roll you down from the rocks,
and will make you a burned mountain. # Rev 8:8
26They will not take of you a stone for a corner,
or a stone for foundations,
but you will be desolate forever, # Isa 13:19–22; Jer 50:12–13
says the Lord.
27Set up a standard in the land,
blow the trumpet among the nations,
prepare the nations against her,
call together against her the kingdoms
of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz; # Ge 8:4; 10:3
appoint a captain against her.
Cause the horses to come up as the rough locusts.
28Prepare against her the nations,
the kings of the Medes, # Jer 51:11
the captains, and all the rulers,
and every land of their dominion.
29So the land trembles and sorrows,
for the purposes of the Lord will be performed against Babylon,
to make the land of Babylon a desolation
without an inhabitant. # Jer 8:16; 51:43
30The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting;
they have remained in their strongholds.
Their might has failed;
they became as women. # Na 3:13
They have burned her dwelling places;
the bars of her gates are broken. # La 2:9
31One courier will run to meet another,
and one messenger to meet another, # 2Sa 18:19–31; 2Ch 30:6
to show the king of Babylon
that his city has been captured from end to end,
32and the passages have been seized,
and they have burned the reeds with fire,
and the men of war are terrified.
33For thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel:
The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor, # Isa 21:10
it is time to thresh her;
yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come. # Hos 6:11
34“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon
has devoured me and crushed me; # Jer 50:17
he has made me an empty vessel.
He has swallowed me up like a dragon; # Jer 51:44
he has filled his belly with my delicacies,
he has cast me out.
35May the violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon,”
the inhabitant of Zion will say;
and, “May my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
Jerusalem will say.
36Therefore thus says the Lord:
Behold, I will plead your cause, # Ps 140:12
and take vengeance for you.
And I will dry up her sea, # Jer 50:38
and make her springs dry.
37Babylon will become heaps,
a dwelling place for jackals, # Rev 18:2
an astonishment, and a hissing, # Jer 18:16
without an inhabitant.
38They will roar together like young lions; # Jer 2:15
they will growl as lions’ whelps.
39When they become heated up,
I will make their feasts,
and I will make them drunk, # Jer 25:27
that they may rejoice,
and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake, # Jer 51:57
says the Lord.
40I will bring them down
like lambs to the slaughter, # Jer 50:27
like rams with male goats.
41How Sheshak has been captured! # Jer 25:26
And how the praise of the whole earth has been seized! # Isa 13:19
How Babylon has become an astonishment
among the nations!
42The sea has come up over Babylon;
she has been covered with the multitude of the waves. # Isa 8:7–8
43Her cities have become a desolation,
a dry land and a wilderness,
a land in which no man dwells,
through which no son of man passes. # Isa 13:20; Jer 2:6
44I will punish Bel in Babylon,
and I will bring forth from his mouth what he has swallowed up; # Jer 51:34
and the nations will not flow together any more to him.
Indeed, the wall of Babylon will fall. # Jer 51:58
45My people, come forth from her midst!
Let every man deliver his soul # Isa 48:20; Jer 51:6
from the fierce anger of the Lord!
46Let not your heart grow faint, and be not afraid
at the report that will be heard in the land, # 2Ki 19:7
when the report comes in one year, and after that a report in another year,
and violence is in the land,
ruler against ruler.
47Therefore behold, the days are coming
when I will punish the graven images of Babylon; # Isa 46:1–2; Jer 50:2
and her whole land will be humiliated,
and all her slain will fall in the midst of her.
48Then the heaven and the earth, and all that is in it,
shall sing for joy over Babylon; # Isa 44:23; Rev 18:20
for the destroyers will come to her
from the north,
says the Lord.
49As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall,
so at Babylon the slain of all the earth will fall. # Jer 50:29; 51:24
50You who have escaped the sword, # Jer 44:28
go away, do not stand still.
Remember the Lord afar off,
and let Jerusalem come into your mind.
51We are humiliated
because we have heard reproach.
Shame has covered our faces, # Ps 44:13–16
for strangers have come into
the holy places of the house of the Lord. # La 1:10
52Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord,
when I will punish her graven images, # Jer 50:38; 51:47
and the mortally wounded shall groan
through all her land.
53Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, # Ge 11:4
and though she should fortify the height of her strength,
yet from Me will destroyers come to her, # Jer 49:16
says the Lord.
54A sound of an outcry comes from Babylon,
and great destruction # Jer 48:3–5; 50:22
from the land of the Chaldeans,
55because the Lord has devastated Babylon,
and destroyed the great voice out of her.
When her waves roar like great waters,
a noise of their voice is uttered.
56Because the destroyer is coming against her, even upon Babylon,
and her mighty men will be captured,
every one of their bows are broken. # Ps 46:9
For the Lord is a God of recompense;
He will completely repay. # Ps 94:1–2
57I will make her officials drunk, # Jer 25:27 and her wise men,
her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men;
and they will sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake,
says the King whose name is the Lord of Hosts. # Jer 46:18
58Thus says the Lord of Hosts:
The broad wall of Babylon will be utterly broken,
and her high gates will be burned with fire;
and the peoples will labor in vain,
and the nations become exhausted only for fire. # Jer 51:64; Hab 2:13
Jeremiah’s Command to Seraiah
59The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, # Jer 32:12; 36:4 the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah into Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was a quartermaster. 60So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll # Isa 30:8; Jer 30:2–3 all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon. 61Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you come to Babylon, then see that you read aloud all these words, 62and say, ‘O Lord, You have spoken against this place to cut it off, that no one will remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate forever.’ # Jer 50:3, 13 63It will be that when you have made an end of reading this scroll that you will bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates, # Rev 18:21 64and say, ‘Thus Babylon will sink and not rise from the disaster that I will bring upon her, and they will become weary.’ ”
Thus far are the words of Jeremiah. # Job 31:40
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Jeremiah 51: MEV
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The Holy Bible, Modern English Version
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