²⁰ “You^(A) are My battle-ax and weapons of war:
For with you I will break the nation in pieces;
With you I will destroy kingdoms;
²¹ With you I will break in pieces the horse and its rider;
With you I will break in pieces the chariot and its rider;
²² With you also I will break in pieces man and woman;
With you I will break in pieces ^(B)old and young;
With you I will break in pieces the young man and the maiden;
²³ With you also I will break in pieces the shepherd and his flock;
With you I will break in pieces the farmer and his yoke of oxen;
And with you I will break in pieces governors and rulers.

²⁴ “And^(C) I will repay Babylon
And all the inhabitants of Chaldea
For all the evil they have done
In Zion in your sight,” says the Lord.

²⁵ “Behold, I am against you, ^(D)O destroying mountain,
Who destroys all the earth,” says the Lord.
“And I will stretch out My hand against you,
Roll you down from the rocks,
^(E)And make you a burnt mountain.
²⁶ They shall not take from you a stone for a corner
Nor a stone for a foundation,
^(F)But you shall be desolate forever,” says the Lord.

^27 (G)Set up a banner in the land,
Blow the trumpet among the nations!
^(H)Prepare the nations against her,
Call ^(I)the kingdoms together against her:
Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz.
Appoint a general against her;
Cause the horses to come up like the bristling locusts.
²⁸ Prepare against her the nations,
With the kings of the Medes,
Its governors and all its rulers,
All the land of his dominion.
²⁹ And the land will tremble and sorrow;
For every ^(J)purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Babylon,
^(K)To make the land of Babylon a desolation without inhabitant.
³⁰ The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting,
They have remained in their strongholds;
Their might has failed,
^(L)They became like women;
They have burned her dwelling places,
^(M)The bars of her gate are broken.
^31 (N)One runner will run to meet another,
And one messenger to meet another,
To show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on all sides;
^32 (O)The passages are blocked,
The reeds they have burned with fire,
And the men of war are terrified.

“The daughter of Babylon is ^(P)like a threshing floor
When ^(Q)it is time to thresh her;
Yet a little while
^(R)And the time of her harvest will come.”

³⁴ “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon
Has ^(S)devoured me, he has crushed me;
He has made me an ^(T)empty vessel,
He has swallowed me up like a monster;
He has filled his stomach with my delicacies,
He has spit me out.
³⁵ Let the violence done to me and my flesh be upon Babylon,”
The inhabitant of Zion will say;
“And my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea!”
Jerusalem will say.

“Behold, ^(U)I will plead your case and take vengeance for you.
^(V)I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry.
^37 (W)Babylon shall become a heap,
A dwelling place for jackals,
^(X)An astonishment and a hissing,
Without an inhabitant.
³⁸ They shall roar together like lions,
They shall growl like lions’ whelps.
³⁹ In their excitement I will prepare their feasts;
^(Y)I will make them drunk,
That they may rejoice,
And sleep a perpetual sleep
And not awake,” says the Lord.
⁴⁰ “I will bring them down
Like lambs to the slaughter,
Like rams with male goats.

⁴¹ “Oh, how ^(Z)Sheshach^[a] is taken!
Oh, how ^(AA)the praise of the whole earth is seized!
How Babylon has become desolate among the nations!
^42 (AB)The sea has come up over Babylon;
She is covered with the multitude of its waves.
^43 (AC)Her cities are a desolation,
A dry land and a wilderness,
A land where ^(AD)no one dwells,
Through which no son of man passes.
⁴⁴ I will punish ^(AE)Bel^[b] in Babylon,
And I will bring out of his mouth what he has swallowed;
And the nations shall not stream to him anymore.
Yes, ^(AF)the wall of Babylon shall fall.

⁴⁵ “My^(AG) people, go out of the midst of her!
And let everyone deliver ^[c]himself from the fierce anger of the Lord.
⁴⁶ And lest your heart faint,
And you fear ^(AH)for the rumor that will be heard in the land
(A rumor will come one year,
And after that, in another year
A rumor will come,
And violence in the land,
Ruler against ruler),

^11 (A)Make^[a] the arrows bright!
Gather the shields!
^(B)The Lord has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes.
^(C)For His plan is against Babylon to destroy it,
Because it is ^(D)the vengeance of the Lord,
The vengeance for His temple.

¹⁷ “Behold,^(A) I will stir up the Medes against them,
Who will not ^[a]regard silver;
And as for gold, they will not delight in it.

^26 (A)He will lift up a banner to the nations from afar,
And will ^(B)whistle to them from ^(C)the end of the earth;
Surely ^(D)they shall come with speed, swiftly.