1Thus says the Lord: Behold, I am bringing against Babylon and against the inhabitants of the land of the Chaldeans peoples who kill, whose heart is high, and they are beautiful in stature; their spirit destroys. 2 And I will send against Babylon plunderers, and they shall plunder it and empty her land; for they have been against her round about on the day of misfortune. 3 He who bends his bow, let him not bend it, and let him come up to her in his coat of mail; and do not have pity on her young men; finish off completely all her possessions. 4 And the slain shall be cast out in the land of the Chaldeans, and the wounded in her streets. 5 For the house of Israel and Judah have not been forsaken of their God, the Lord of Hosts, for their land is full of the sins of murder from the Memra of the Holy One of Israel. 6 Flee from the midst of Babylon, and let each man rescue his life; do not be wearied with his sin, for the time of punishment is before the Lord; he will repay him the rewards. 7 Behold, like the cup of gold which was precious among all the vessels, so is the sin of Babylon exalted; therefore mighty punishment is about to come to her from before the Lord. 8 Suddenly Babylon has fallen and has been shattered; howl over her, take balm for her wound; perhaps she may be healed. 9 We would have healed Babylon, but she would not be healed; forsake her, and let us go each man to his land, for her destruction comes near to heaven and is carried up to the heaven of heavens. 10 The Lord has revealed our righteous deeds; come, let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God. 11 Sharpen your arrows, fill the shields; the Lord has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, for his will is against Babylon to destroy it, because the vengeance of the Lord is the vengeance of his temple. 12 On the walls of Babylon lift up the ensign, strengthen the guard, set up watchmen, strengthen the outposts, for indeed the Lord has planned, moreover he has done what he spoke about the inhabitants of Babylon. 13 You who dwell on many waters, the house of her treasures, the day of your destruction has come, the time of the visitation of your wickedness. 14 The Lord of Hosts has sworn by his word, Surely I will fill you with troops of nations who are as many as the locust, and they will lift up their voice against you. 15 He who made the earth by his might said these things, who completed the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding suspended the heavens. 16 At the sound of his voice there is a heap of water in the heavens, and he brings up clouds from the ends of the earth; he makes lightnings at the time of rain and brings forth winds from his treasure-houses. 17 All the nations have become too dull to know wisdom; all the metal-workers are ashamed to make an image, for they have established them as falsehood, and there is no breath in them. 18 They are vanity, the work of scorn; at the time when I visit their sins upon them they shall perish. 19 He whose portion is Jacob is not like these, for he is the one who created everything, and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance; the Lord of Hosts is his name. 20 You scatter before me the fortified city in which are weapons of war, and through you I will scatter nations and destroy kingdoms. 21 And through you I will scatter horses and their riders; through you I will scatter chariots and their riders. 22 And through you I will scatter man and woman, and through you I will scatter the old and the suckling; and through you I will scatter young men and virgins. 23 And through you I will scatter the shepherd and his flock; and through you I will scatter the farmer and his yoke of oxen; and I will scatter through you rulers and tyrants. 24 And I will repay to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of the land of the Chaldeans all their wickedness which they have done in Zion in your sight, says the Lord. 25 Behold, I am sending my wrath against you, O destroying fortified city, says the Lord, which destroys all the earth; and I will lift up the plague of my power against you, and I will drag you down from your strength, and I will bring you into a burning fortified city. 26 And they will not appoint from you a king for a kingdom, nor a ruler for rulership, but you shall be an everlasting desolation, says the Lord. 27 Lift up an ensign in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, appoint nations against her, declare concerning her, O kingdom of the land of Kardu, O troops of Hormine and Adiabene, appoint against her those who make war, whose horses shall come up speeding like a locust which is yellow. 28 Appoint the nations against her, the kings of the Medes, her governors and all her tyrants, and all the land of his rulership. 29 And the land shall tremble and be sick, for the thoughts of the Lord against Babylon have stood firm, to make the land of Babylonia a desolation without inhabitant. 30 The mighty men of Babylon have refrained from waging war; they dwell in the fortresses; their strength has been shattered; they are weak like women; her fortifications have been burned, her bolts have been shattered. 31 Runner shall run to meet runner, and he who tells news to meet him who tells news, to declare to the king of Babylon that his city has been conquered from its end. 32 The fords have been taken, and they have set the marshlands on fire, and the mighty men, the makers of war, have been terrified. 33 For thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: The assembly of Babylon is like a threshing-floor at the time of whose trampling has come; again, a little while, and the plunderers shall come against her. 34 Jerusalem said: Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has plundered my possessions and destroyed me; he has scattered me like an empty vessel; he has swallowed me up like the sea-monster; he has filled his treasure-house with the good things of my land; he has taken me into exile. 35 The violence and the plunder done to me shall be upon Babylon, says the assembly of Zion, and the debt of innocent blood which was shed in me shall be upon the inhabitants of the land of the Chaldeans, says Jerusalem. 36 Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I am judging your case and am taking vengeance for you, and I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry. 37 And Babylon shall become heaps of stones, a dwelling-place of wild asses, desolation and astonishment, without inhabitant. 38 Together like lions they shall roar; like young lions they shall lift up their voice. 39 Bring distress upon them, and they shall be like drunken men, so that they shall not be strong, and they shall die the second death, and shall not live for the world to come, says the Lord. 40 I will hand them over like bulls to the slaughter, like rams with goats. 41 How Babylon has been conquered, and the praise of all the earth captured; how Babylon has become a desolation among the nations. 42 A king with his troops who are as many as the waters of the sea has come up against Babylon; he covers them with the roaring of his waves. 43 Her cities have become a desolation, a desolate and dry land, a land in which no man at all dwells, and no man crosses over it. 44 And I will punish those who worship Bel in Babylon, and I will plunder his possessions from him, and the peoples shall not again be subject to him; also the walls of Babylon shall be cast down. 45 Go out from her midst, my people, and let each man rescue his soul from the strength of the Lord’s wrath. 46 Lest also your heart tremble and you be afraid before the news which is heard in the land; for news shall come in the year, and news after it in the next year; and violent men shall increase in the land, and ruler shall rise against ruler. 47 Therefore behold, the days are coming, that I will punish the images of Babylon, and all her land shall be dried up, and all her slain shall be cast out in her midst. 48 And the heavens and the earth and all that is in them shall glory over Babylon, for from the north plunderers shall come to her, says the Lord. 49 As the slain of Israel were cast out in Babylon, so the slain of all the earth shall be cast out to Babylon. 50 You who have been rescued from the sword, go into exile, do not hold back; remember from afar the worship of the Lord, and let Jerusalem come up into your mind. 51 We are ashamed, because we have heard disgrace; humiliation has covered our face, because foreigners have gone up and defiled the house of the Lord’s sanctuary. 52 Therefore behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will punish her images, and the slain shall be cast out through all her land. 53 Even though Babylon should build buildings which are as high as the top of heaven, and though she should fortify strong fortified cities up to the height, from before me plunderers shall come against her, says the Lord. 54 The sound of a shout from Babylon, and great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans. 55 For the Lord has plundered Babylon and has destroyed out of her many troops, and the troops of many nations shall be gathered against her, and they shall lift up their voice with roaring. 56 For plunderers have come up against her, against Babylon, and her mighty men have been captured; their bows have been shattered, for God, the Lord of rewards, will surely pay them their reward. 57 And I will make her princes and her wise men drunk, her governors and her tyrants and her mighty men; and they shall die the second death and not live for the world to come, says the King, the Lord of Hosts is his name. 58 Thus says the Lord of Hosts: The walls of broad Babylon shall certainly be ruined, and her high gates shall be burned with fire, and the peoples shall labour in vain, and the fire shall consume the kingdom, and they shall be exhausted. 59 The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah the son of Mahaseiah, when he went with the commission of Zedekiah the king of the tribe of the house of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign; and Seraiah was chief of the tribute. 60 And Jeremiah wrote all the evil that was to come upon Babylon in one book—all these words which are written against Babylon. 61 And Jeremiah said to Seraiah: When you come to Babylon, then you shall see and read all these words. 62 And you shall say: O Lord, you have decreed against this place to destroy it, so that there should not be an inhabitant in it, neither man nor beast; for it shall be an everlasting desolation. 63 And when you have finished reading this book, you shall tie a stone to it and cast it into the Euphrates. 64 And you shall say: Thus Babylon shall sink and shall not rise from before the evil which I am bringing upon her, and they shall be exhausted. Thus far the prophecy of Jeremiah.
2The word of prophecy that was with Jeremiah from before the Lord to say: 2 Stand at the gate of the house of the Lord and prophesy there this word, and say: Receive the word of the Lord, all of Judah, who enter these gates to worship before the Lord: 3 Thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. 4 Do not trust in lying words, saying: The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these. 5 But if you thoroughly amend your ways and your deeds, if you thoroughly execute justice between a man and his neighbor, 6 Do not oppress the stranger, the orphan, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods to your hurt: 7 Then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, from of old and forever. 8 Behold, you trust in lying words, that cannot profit. 9 Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, 10 And come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? 11 Has this house, which is called by My name, become a house of an assembly of wicked men in your eyes? Even so, I have seen it, says the Lord. 12 But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. 13 And now, because you have done all these works, says the Lord, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer; 14 Therefore, I will do to this house, which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. 15 And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, the whole seed of Ephraim. 16 Therefore, do not pray for this people, nor lift up cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to Me; for I will not hear you. 17 Do you not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger. 19 Do they provoke Me to anger? says the Lord: Do they not provoke themselves, to the confusion of their own faces? 20 Therefore, thus said the Lord God: Behold, My anger and My fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched. 21 Thus said the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat flesh. 22 For I spoke not to your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: 23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people: and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you. 24 But they did not listen, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward. 25 Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them: 26 Yet they did not listen to Me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers. 27 Therefore, you shall speak all these words to them; but they will not listen to you: you shall also call to them; but they will not answer you. 28 But you shall say to them, This is a nation that does not obey the voice of the Lord their God, nor receives correction: truth has perished and is cut off from their mouth. 29 Cut off your hair and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the high places; for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath. 30 For the children of Judah have done evil in My sight, says the Lord: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by My name, to pollute it. 31 And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart. 32 Therefore, behold, the days come, says the Lord, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet until there is no place. 33 And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the birds of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall frighten them away. 34 Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate.