Jeremiah 51

1The LORD says this: I am stirring up against Babylon and against the people who live in Leb-qamai a wind that destroys. 2I will send foreigners to Babylon to winnow her and to strip her land bare, for they will come against her from every side on the day of disaster. 3Let the archer bend his bow against her archer, against the one who stands up in his armor. Do not spare her young men; destroy her whole army completely. 4They will fall dead in the land of the Chaldeans, run through in her streets. 5For Israel and Judah have not been left widowed by their God, by the LORD of Armies, though their land is filled with guilt against the Holy One of Israel. 6Flee from Babylon! Every one of you, run for your life! Do not be destroyed when she is punished for her guilt, for this is the time of the LORD’s vengeance; he is paying her back what she deserves. 7Babylon was a golden cup in the LORD’s hand, making the whole earth drunk; the nations drank her wine, and so the nations have gone mad. 8Suddenly Babylon has fallen and is shattered. Wail over her! Bring balm for her wound; perhaps she can be healed. 9“We tried to heal Babylon, but she could not be healed. Leave her; let us go, each of us to our own land, for her judgment reaches up to the heavens; it rises as high as the clouds.” 10“The LORD has brought our vindication to light. Come, let us make known in Zion the work of the LORD our God.” 11Sharpen the arrows! Fill the quivers! The LORD has roused the spirit of the Median kings, because his plan is to destroy Babylon. This is the LORD’s vengeance, vengeance for his temple. 12Raise a signal flag against the walls of Babylon! Strengthen the guard, post the watchmen, set the ambushes! For the LORD has planned it, and he has done it: what he said against the people of Babylon. 13You who live beside many waters, you with your wealth of treasures, your end has come; the thread of your life is measured to be cut. 14The LORD of Armies has sworn by himself: I will fill you with men, as many as locusts, and they will shout in triumph over you.

15It is he who made the earth by his power, who set the world firm by his wisdom, and by his understanding spread out the heavens. 16When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he raises the clouds from the far edges of the earth. He makes lightning flash with the rain and brings the wind out of his storehouses. 17Everyone proves senseless and ignorant; every goldsmith is shamed by his idol, for the images he casts are a fraud, with no breath in them. 18They are empty breath, a work to be laughed at; when the time comes to punish them, they will perish. 19The God who is Jacob’s portion is not like these, for he is the one who formed all things, including the tribe he holds as his own; the LORD of Armies is his name.

20You are my war club, my weapon of war: with you I shatter nations; with you I destroy kingdoms. 21with you I shatter horse and rider; with you I shatter chariot and driver; 22with you I shatter man and woman; with you I shatter old and young; with you I shatter young man and young woman; 23with you I shatter shepherd and flock; with you I shatter farmer and team of oxen; with you I shatter governors and officials. 24But I will repay Babylon and all who live in Chaldea for all the evil they have done in Zion before your eyes, declares the LORD.

25I am against you, destroying mountain, declares the LORD, you who destroy the whole earth. I will stretch out my hand against you and roll you down from the cliffs, and make you a burned-out mountain. 26No one will take a cornerstone from you, or any stone for a foundation, for you will be a desolation forever, declares the LORD. 27Raise a signal flag in the land! Sound the ram’s horn among the nations! Set apart nations for holy war against her; summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz! Appoint a commander against her; send up horses like a swarm of bristling locusts! 28Set apart nations for holy war against her: the kings of the Medes, with their governors and all their officials, and every land they rule. 29The land trembles and writhes in pain, for the LORD’s plans against Babylon stand firm: to make the land of Babylon a wasteland where no one lives. 30Babylon’s warriors have stopped fighting; they stay in their strongholds. Their strength is gone; they have become like women. Her houses are set on fire; the bars of her gates are broken. 31One runner runs to meet another, one messenger to meet the next, to tell the king of Babylon that his city has been taken from end to end. 32The river crossings are seized, the marshes of reeds are set on fire, and the soldiers are in panic.

33For the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says this: Daughter Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is stamped down; in a little while the time of her harvest will come. 34“Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon has devoured me and crushed me; he has left me standing like an empty jar. He has swallowed me like a sea monster, filled his belly with my good things, and spewed me out.” 35“May the violence done to me and to my flesh fall on Babylon,” the people of Zion will say. “May my blood be on those who live in Chaldea,” Jerusalem will say.

36Therefore the LORD says this: I will plead your case and avenge you. I will dry up her sea and leave her spring dry. 37Babylon will become a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, a horror and an object of scorn, where no one lives. 38They roar together like young lions; they growl like lion cubs. 39While they are heated with greed, I will set out a feast for them and make them drunk, so that they shout and laugh, and they will sleep a sleep that lasts forever and never wake, declares the LORD. 40I will lead them down like lambs to be slaughtered, like rams and male goats. 41How Sheshach is taken, the pride of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become a horror among the nations! 42The sea has risen over Babylon; she is covered by its roaring waves. 43Her towns have become a horror, a dry land and a desert, a land where no one lives, where no human being passes through. 44I will punish Bel in Babylon and make him spit out what he has swallowed. Nations will stream to him no more; even Babylon’s wall has fallen. 45Come out of her, my people! Every one of you, run for your life from the fierce anger of the LORD! 46Do not lose heart or be afraid at the rumors heard in the land, one rumor this year, another the next, rumors of violence in the land and of ruler against ruler. 47Therefore the days are coming when I will punish Babylon’s idols. Her whole land will be put to shame, and all her slain will fall within her. 48Then heaven and earth and everything in them will sing for joy over Babylon, for destroyers will come against her from the north, declares the LORD. 49Babylon must fall because of Israel’s slain, just as because of Babylon the slain of the whole earth have fallen. 50You who have escaped the sword, go! Do not linger! Remember the LORD in that distant land, and let Jerusalem come to your mind. 51“We are ashamed, for we have heard insults; disgrace covers our faces, because foreigners have gone into the holy places of the LORD’s house.”

52Therefore the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will bring punishment on her idols, and the dying will groan in every part of her land. 53Even if Babylon should climb to the heavens and make her lofty stronghold secure, I will send destroyers against her, declares the LORD.

54Listen! A cry rises from Babylon, the crash of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! 55For the LORD is destroying Babylon and silencing her loud noise. Their waves roar like mighty waters; the din of their voices rises. 56For a destroyer has come against her, against Babylon. Her warriors are captured, their bows are broken, for the LORD is a God who repays; he will repay in full. 57I will make her officials and wise men drunk, her governors, deputies and warriors, and they will sleep a sleep that lasts forever and never wake, declares the King, whose name is the LORD of Armies.

58The LORD of Armies says this: The broad wall of Babylon will be leveled to the ground, and her high gates will be set on fire. The peoples toil for nothing; the nations wear themselves out only for the fire.

59This is the message that Jeremiah the prophet gave as a command to Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon with Zedekiah king of Judah in the fourth year of his reign. Seraiah was the quartermaster. 60Jeremiah had written on a single scroll all the disaster that would come on Babylon, all these words written about Babylon. 61Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you reach Babylon, see that you read all these words aloud, 62and say, ‘LORD, you have said that you will destroy this place, so that nothing will live in it, neither people nor animals, and it will be a desolation forever.’ 63When you have finished reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates, 64and say, ‘So Babylon will sink and rise no more, because of the disaster I am bringing on her, and they will grow weary.’” Here the words of Jeremiah end.