God’s Judgment Against Babylon

¹ The Lord spoke concerning Babylon and the land of Babylonia through the prophet Jeremiah.

² “Announce the news among the nations! Proclaim it! Signal for people to pay attention. Declare the news! Do not hide it! Say: ‘Babylon will be captured. Bel will be put to shame. Marduk will be dismayed. Babylon’s idols will be put to shame; her disgusting images will be dismayed.

³ For a nation from the north will attack Babylon; it will lay her land waste. People and animals will flee out of it. No one will inhabit it.’

⁴ “When that time comes,” says the Lord, “the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together. They will come back with tears of repentance as they seek the Lord their God.

⁵ They will ask the way to Zion; they will turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to the Lord in a lasting covenant that will never be forgotten.

⁶ “My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have allowed them to go astray. They have wandered around in the mountains. They have roamed from one mountain and hill to another. They have forgotten their resting place.

⁷ All who encountered them devoured them. Their enemies who did this said, ‘We are not liable for punishment! For those people have sinned against the Lord, their true pasture. They have sinned against the Lord in whom their ancestors trusted.’

⁸ “People of Judah, get out of Babylon quickly! Leave the land of Babylonia! Be the first to depart. Be like the male goats that lead the herd.

⁹ For I will rouse into action and bring against Babylon a host of mighty nations from the land of the north. They will set up their battle lines against her. They will come from the north and capture her. Their arrows will be like a skilled soldier who does not return from the battle empty-handed.

¹⁰ Babylonia will be plundered. Those who plunder it will take all they want,” says the Lord.

¹¹ “People of Babylonia, you plundered my people. That made you happy and glad. You frolic about like calves in a pasture. Your joyous sounds are like the neighs of a stallion.

¹² But Babylonia will be put to great shame. The land where you were born will be disgraced. Indeed, Babylonia will become the least important of all nations. It will become a dry and barren desert.

¹³ After I vent my wrath on it, Babylon will be uninhabited. It will be totally desolate. All who pass by will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn because of all the disasters that have happened to it.

¹⁴ “Take up your battle positions all around Babylon, all you soldiers who are armed with bows. Shoot all your arrows at her! Do not hold any back! For she has sinned against the Lord.

¹⁵ Shout the battle cry from all around the city. She will throw up her hands in surrender; her towers will fall. Her walls will be torn down. Because I, the Lord, am wreaking revenge, take out your vengeance on her! Do to her as she has done!

¹⁶ Kill all the farmers who sow the seed in the land of Babylon; kill all those who wield the sickle at harvest time. Let all the foreigners return to their own people. Let them hurry back to their own lands to escape destruction by that enemy army.

¹⁷ “The people of Israel are like scattered sheep that lions have chased away. First the king of Assyria devoured them. Now, last of all, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has gnawed their bones.

¹⁸ So I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, say: ‘I will punish the king of Babylon and his land just as I punished the king of Assyria.

¹⁹ But I will restore the flock of Israel to their own pasture. They will graze on Mount Carmel and the land of Bashan. They will eat until they are full on the hills of Ephraim and the land of Gilead.

²⁰ When that time comes, no guilt will be found in Israel. No sin will be found in Judah. For I will forgive those of them I have allowed to survive. I, the Lord, affirm it!’”