Jeremiah 50

This is the word the LORD spoke against Babylon, against the land of the Chaldeans, through Jeremiah the prophet: “Declare it among the nations and proclaim it!
Raise a banner!
Proclaim it;
hide nothing!
Say, ‘Babylon is captured!
Bel is put to shame;
Merodach is shattered.
Her images are put to shame, and her idols are shattered.’ For a nation has come up against her from the north.
It will make her land a desolation, with no one living in it.
People and animals alike have fled and gone away. In those days and at that time, declares the LORD, the people of Israel and the people of Judah will come together.
They will go along weeping and seek the LORD their God. They will ask the way to Zion, their faces turned toward her: ‘Come and join yourselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.’ My people have been lost sheep.
Their shepherds have led them astray, making them wander on the mountains.
They have gone from mountain to hill and forgotten their resting place. All who found them devoured them.
Their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, for they sinned against the LORD, the dwelling of righteousness, the LORD, the hope of their fathers.’ Flee from the midst of Babylon!
Go out from the land of the Chaldeans!
Be like male goats at the head of the flock. For look, I am stirring up and bringing against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the northern land.
They will line up against her, and from there she will be captured.
Their arrows are like those of a skilled warrior who does not return empty-handed. Chaldea will become plunder.
All who plunder her will have their fill, declares the LORD. Because you rejoice and exult, plunderers of my inheritance, because you frolic like a heifer threshing grain and neigh like stallions, your mother will be greatly ashamed;
she who bore you will be humiliated.
Look, she will be the last of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert. Because of the LORD’s wrath she will not be inhabited, but will be utterly desolate.
Everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified and hiss at all her wounds. Line up against Babylon on every side, all you who bend the bow!
Shoot at her;
spare no arrows, for she has sinned against the LORD. Raise the battle cry against her on every side!
She has surrendered;
her foundations have fallen, and her walls have been torn down.
This is the LORD’s vengeance.
Take vengeance on her!
Do to her as she has done! Cut off from Babylon the sower and the one who wields the sickle at harvesttime.
Because of the oppressing sword, each will turn to his own people and flee to his own land. Israel is a scattered sheep driven away by lions.
First the king of Assyria devoured him, and last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon broke his bones. Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Look, I am punishing the king of Babylon and his land as I punished the king of Assyria. I will bring Israel back to his pasture.
He will graze on Carmel and Bashan, and his appetite will be satisfied in the hill country of Ephraim and Gilead. In those days and at that time, declares the LORD, the iniquity of Israel will be sought, but there will be none, and the sins of Judah, but they will not be found, for I will forgive those I leave as a remnant. Go up against the land of Merathaim and against the inhabitants of Pekod!
Pursue them, lay waste, and devote them to destruction, declares the LORD.
Do everything I have commanded you. The sound of battle is in the land, and great destruction! How the hammer of the whole earth has been cut down and broken!
How Babylon has become a horror among the nations! I set a snare for you, Babylon, and you were caught without knowing it.
You were found and seized, for you challenged the LORD. The LORD has opened his armory and brought out the weapons of his indignation, for the Lord GOD of hosts has work to do in the land of the Chaldeans. Come against her from the farthest border!
Open her storehouses!
Pile her up in heaps and devote her to destruction!
Let no remnant of her remain. Strike down all her bulls!
Let them go down to slaughter!
Woe to them, for their day has come, the time of their punishment. There is the sound of those fleeing and escaping from the land of Babylon, to announce in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God, vengeance for his temple. Summon the archers against Babylon, all who bend the bow!
Encamp all around her;
let no one escape.
Repay her according to her deeds;
do to her everything she has done, for she has acted arrogantly against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel. Therefore her young men will fall in her squares, and all her soldiers will be silenced on that day, declares the LORD. Look, I am against you, proud one, declares the Lord GOD of hosts, for your day has come, the time of your punishment. The proud one will stumble and fall, and no one will raise him up.
I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it will devour everything around him. Thus says the LORD of hosts: The people of Israel and the people of Judah are oppressed together.
All their captors hold them fast and refuse to let them go. Their Redeemer is strong;
the LORD of hosts is his name.
He will surely plead their cause, to give rest to the earth and unrest to the inhabitants of Babylon. A sword against the Chaldeans, declares the LORD, against the inhabitants of Babylon, her officials, and her wise men! A sword against the liars, and they will become fools!
A sword against her warriors, and they will be dismayed! A sword against his horses and chariots and all the mixed peoples within her, and they will become like women!
A sword against her treasures, and they will be plundered! A drought upon her waters, and they will dry up, for it is a land of carved images, and they are mad over their terrifying idols. Therefore desert creatures and hyenas will dwell there, and ostriches will live in her.
She will never again be inhabited, nor will anyone dwell there from generation to generation. As when God overthrew Sodom, Gomorrah, and their neighbors, declares the LORD, no one will live there;
no human being will reside in her. Look, a people is coming from the north;
a great nation and many kings are stirring from the farthest parts of the earth. They wield bow and javelin;
they are cruel and show no mercy.
Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, lined up like a man for battle against you, daughter Babylon. The king of Babylon has heard the report of them, and his hands have grown weak.
Anguish has seized him, pains like those of a woman in labor. Look, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan against a secure pasture.
In an instant I will drive them away from her, and I will appoint over her whomever I choose.
For who is like me?
Who can summon me to court?
What shepherd can stand before me? Therefore hear the plan the LORD has made against Babylon and the purposes he has devised against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely the least of the flock will drag them away;
surely he will devastate the pasture because of them. At the sound of Babylon’s capture the earth trembles, and a cry is heard among the nations.”

Rights and attribution