When He utters His voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, And He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain And brings forth the wind from His storehouses.
They are worthless, a work of mockery; In the time of their punishment they will perish.
The portion of Jacob is not like these; For the Maker of all is He, And of the tribe of His inheritance; The LORD of hosts is His name.
“With you I shatter the horse and his rider, And with you I shatter the chariot and its rider,
And with you I shatter the shepherd and his flock, And with you I shatter the farmer and his team, And with you I shatter governors and prefects.
“But I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil that they have done in Zion before your eyes,” declares the LORD.
“Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, Who destroys the whole earth,” declares the LORD, “And I will stretch out My hand against you, And roll you down from the crags, And I will make you a burnt out mountain.
“They will not take from you even a stone for a corner Nor a stone for foundations, But you will be desolate forever,” declares the LORD.
Lift up a signal in the land, Blow a trumpet among the nations! Consecrate the nations against her, Summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz; Appoint a marshal against her, Bring up the horses like bristly locusts.
Consecrate the nations against her, The kings of the Medes, Their governors and all their prefects, And every land of their dominion.
So the land quakes and writhes, For the purposes of the LORD against Babylon stand, To make the land of Babylon A desolation without inhabitants.
The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting, They stay in the strongholds; Their strength is exhausted, They are becoming like women; Their dwelling places are set on fire, The bars of her gates are broken.
One courier runs to meet another, And one messenger to meet another, To tell the king of Babylon That his city has been captured from end to end;
The fords also have been seized, And they have burned the marshes with fire, And the men of war are terrified.
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 stamped firm; Yet in a little while the time of harvest will come for her.”
“May 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.
Therefore thus says the LORD, “Behold, I am going to plead your case And exact full vengeance for you; And I will dry up her sea And make her fountain dry.
“When they become heated up, I will serve them their banquet And make them drunk, that they may become jubilant 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 has been captured, And the praise of the whole earth been seized! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations!
“The sea has come up over Babylon; She has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves.
“I will punish Bel in Babylon, And I will make what he has swallowed come out of his mouth; And the nations will no longer stream to him. Even the wall of Babylon has fallen down!
“Come forth from her midst, My people, And each of you save yourselves From the fierce anger of the LORD.
“Now so that your heart does not grow faint, And you are not afraid at the report that will be heard in the land-- For the report will come one year, And after that another report in another year, And violence will be in the land With ruler against ruler--
Therefore behold, days are coming When I will punish the idols of Babylon; And her whole land will be put to shame And all her slain will fall in her midst.
“Then heaven and earth and all that is in them Will shout for joy over Babylon, For the destroyers will come to her from the north,” Declares the LORD.
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, Depart! Do not stay! Remember the LORD from afar, And let Jerusalem come to your mind.
We are ashamed because we have heard reproach; Disgrace has covered our faces, For aliens have entered The holy places of the LORD’S house.
“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “When I will punish her idols, And the mortally wounded will groan throughout her land.
“Though Babylon should ascend to the heavens, And though she should fortify her lofty stronghold, From Me destroyers will come to her,” declares the LORD.
The sound of an outcry from Babylon, And of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!
For the LORD is going to destroy Babylon, And He will make her loud noise vanish from her. And their waves will roar like many waters; The tumult of their voices sounds forth.
For the destroyer is coming against her, against Babylon, And her mighty men will be captured, Their bows are shattered; For the LORD is a God of recompense, He will fully repay.
“I will make her princes and her wise men drunk, Her governors, her prefects and her mighty men, That they may sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake up,” Declares the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.
Thus says the LORD of hosts, “The broad wall of Babylon will be completely razed And her high gates will be set on fire; So the peoples will toil for nothing, And the nations become exhausted only for fire.”
The message which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the grandson of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. (Now Seraiah was quartermaster.)
So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll all the calamity which would come upon Babylon, that is, all these words which have been written concerning Babylon.
And as soon as you finish reading this scroll, you will tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates,
and say, ‘Just so shall Babylon sink down and not rise again because of the calamity that I am going to bring upon her; and they will become exhausted.’” Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
He did evil in the sight of the LORD like all that Jehoiakim had done.
For through the anger of the LORD this came about in Jerusalem and Judah until He cast them out from His presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
Now it came about in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it and built a siege wall all around it.
So the city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
On the ninth day of the fourth month the famine was so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land.
Then the city was broken into, and all the men of war fled and went forth from the city at night by way of the gate between the two walls which was by the king’s garden, though the Chaldeans were all around the city. And they went by way of the Arabah.
But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and all his army was scattered from him.
Then they captured the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him.
The king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he also slaughtered all the princes of Judah in Riblah.
New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995
For Permission to Quote information visit http://www.lockman.org by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif.
All rights reserved.