Jeremiah 51:20-46
“ You are my hammer and weapon of war: with you I break nations in pieces; with you I destroy kingdoms;with you I break in pieces the horse and his rider; with you I break in pieces the chariot and the charioteer;with you I break in pieces man and woman; with you I break in pieces the old man and the youth; with you I break in pieces the young man and the young woman;with you I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; with you I break in pieces the farmer and his team; with you I break in pieces governors and commanders.“ I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea before your very eyes for all the evil that they have done in Zion, declares the Lord.“ Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, declares the Lord, which destroys the whole earth; I will stretch out my hand against you, and roll you down from the crags, and make you a burnt mountain.No stone shall be taken from you for a corner and no stone for a foundation, but you shall be a perpetual waste, declares the Lord.“ Set up a standard on the earth; blow the trumpet among the nations; prepare the nations for war against her; summon against her the kingdoms, Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz; appoint a marshal against her; bring up horses like bristling locusts.Prepare the nations for war against her, the kings of the Medes, with their governors and deputies, and every land under their dominion.The land trembles and writhes in pain, for the Lord’s purposes against Babylon stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.The warriors of Babylon have ceased fighting; they remain in their strongholds; their strength has failed; they have become women; her dwellings are on fire; her bars are broken.One runner runs to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to tell the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every side;the fords have been seized, the marshes are burned with fire, and the soldiers are in panic.For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come.”“ Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me; he has made me an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like a monster; he has filled his stomach with my delicacies; he has rinsed me out.The violence done to me and to my kinsmen be upon Babylon,” let the inhabitant of Zion say.“ My blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,” let Jerusalem say.Therefore thus says the Lord:“ Behold, I will plead your cause and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea and make her fountain dry,and Babylon shall become a heap of ruins, the haunt of jackals, a horror and a hissing, without inhabitant.“ They shall roar together like lions; they shall growl like lions’ cubs.While they are inflamed I will prepare them a feast and make them drunk, that they may become merry, then sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, declares the Lord.I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and male goats.“ How Babylon is taken, the praise of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become a horror among the nations!The sea has come up on Babylon; she is covered with its tumultuous waves.Her cities have become a horror, a land of drought and a desert, a land in which no one dwells, and through which no son of man passes.And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and take out of his mouth what he has swallowed. The nations shall no longer flow to him; the wall of Babylon has fallen.“ Go out of the midst of her, my people! Let every one save his life from the fierce anger of the Lord!Let not your heart faint, and be not fearful at the report heard in the land, when a report comes in one year and afterward a report in another year, and violence is in the land, and ruler is against ruler.
