Jeremiah 50:1-10

This is the message the LORD spoke to Babylon and the Babylonian people through Jeremiah the prophet. “Announce this to the nations. Lift up a banner and tell them. Speak the whole message and say: ‘Babylon will be captured. The god Bel will be put to shame, and the god Marduk will be afraid. Babylon’s gods will be put to shame, and her idols will be afraid!’ A nation from the north will attack Babylon and make it like an empty desert. No one will live there; both people and animals will run away.” The LORD says, “At that time the people of Israel and Judah will come together. They will cry and look for the LORD their God. Those people will ask how to go to Jerusalem and will start in that direction. They will come and join themselves to the LORD. They will make an agreement with him that will last forever, an agreement that will never be forgotten. “My people have been like lost sheep. Their leaders have led them in the wrong way and made them wander around in the mountains and hills. They forgot where their resting place was. Whoever saw my people hurt them. And those enemies said, ‘We did nothing wrong. Those people sinned against the LORD, their true resting place, the God their fathers trusted.’ “Run away from Babylon, and leave the land of the Babylonians. Be like the goats that lead the flock. I will soon bring against Babylon many great nations from the north. They will take their places for war against it, and it will be captured by people from the north. Their arrows are like trained soldiers who do not return from war with empty hands. The enemy will take all the wealth from the Babylonians. Those enemy soldiers will get all they want,” says the LORD.