For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:
“The Daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor
At the time it is being trampled and prepared;
Yet in a little while the time of harvest will come for her.”
¶“Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me,
He has set me down like an empty vessel.
Like a monster he has swallowed me up,
He has filled his belly with my delicacies;
He has spit me out and washed me away.
“May the violence done to me and to my flesh and blood be upon Babylon,”
The inhabitant of Zion will say;
And, “May my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
Jerusalem will say.
Therefore thus says the LORD,
“Behold, I will plead your case
And take full vengeance for you;
I will dry up her sea and great reservoir
And make her fountain dry.
“Babylon will become a heap [of ruins], a haunt and dwelling place of jackals,
An object of horror (an astonishing desolation) and a hissing [of scorn and amazement], without inhabitants.
“They (the Chaldean lords) will be roaring together [before their sudden capture] like young lions [roaring over their prey],
They (the princes) will be growling like lions’ cubs.
“When they are inflamed [with wine and lust during their drinking bouts], I will prepare them a feast [of My wrath]
And make them drunk, that they may rejoice
And may sleep a perpetual sleep
And not wake up,” declares the LORD.
“I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
Like rams together with male goats.
¶“How Sheshak (Babylon) has been captured,
And the praise of the whole earth been seized!
How Babylon has become an astonishing desolation and an object of horror among the nations!
“The sea has come up over Babylon;
She has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves.
“Her cities have become an astonishing desolation and an object of horror,
A parched land and a desert,
A land in which no one lives,
And through which no son of man passes.
“I will punish and judge Bel [the handmade god] in Babylon
And take out of his mouth what he has swallowed up [the stolen sacred articles and the captives of Judah and elsewhere].
The nations will no longer flow to him.
Yes, the wall of Babylon has fallen down!
¶“Come out of her midst, My people,
And each of you [escape and] save yourself
From the fierce anger of the LORD. [Jer 50:8; 2 Cor 6:17; Rev 18:4]
“Now beware so that you do not lose heart,
And so that you are not afraid at the rumor that will be heard in the land—
For the rumor shall come one year,
And after that another rumor in another year,
And violence shall be in the land,
Ruler against ruler—
Therefore behold (listen carefully), the days are coming
When I will judge and punish the idols of Babylon;
Her whole land will be perplexed and shamed,
And all her slain will fall in her midst.
“Then heaven and earth and all that is in them
Will shout and sing for joy over Babylon,
For the destroyers will come against her from the north,”
Says the LORD. [Is 44:23; Jer 51:11; Rev 12:12; 18:20]
¶Indeed Babylon is to fall for the slain of Israel,
As also for Babylon the slain of all the earth have fallen.
You who have escaped the sword,
Go away! Do not stay!
Remember the LORD from far away,
And let [desolate] Jerusalem come into your mind.
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