¹⁴ The palace and the city will be deserted,
    and busy towns will be empty.
Wild donkeys will frolic and flocks will graze
    in the empty forts^[a] and watchtowers

¹⁰ The fortified towns will be silent and empty,
    the houses abandoned, the streets overgrown with weeds.
Calves will graze there,
    chewing on twigs and branches.

¹² The city is left in ruins,
    its gates battered down.

¹⁰ The city writhes in chaos;
    every home is locked to keep out intruders.

“Babylon is fallen—that great city is fallen!
    She has become a home for demons.
She is a hideout for every foul^[a] spirit,
    a hideout for every foul vulture
    and every foul and dreadful animal.^[b]
3 For all the nations have fallen^[c]
    because of the wine of her passionate immorality.
The kings of the world
    have committed adultery with her.
Because of her desires for extravagant luxury,
    the merchants of the world have grown rich.”

¹¹ It will be haunted by the desert owl and the screech owl,
    the great owl and the raven.^[a]
For God will measure that land carefully;
    he will measure it for chaos and destruction.
¹² It will be called the Land of Nothing,
    and all its nobles will soon be gone.^[b]
13 Thorns will overrun its palaces;
    nettles and thistles will grow in its forts.
The ruins will become a haunt for jackals
    and a home for owls.
¹⁴ Desert animals will mingle there with hyenas,
    their howls filling the night.
Wild goats will bleat at one another among the ruins,
    and night creatures^[c] will come there to rest.
¹⁵ There the owl will make her nest and lay her eggs.
    She will hatch her young and cover them with her wings.
And the buzzards will come,
    each one with its mate.

¹⁶ Search the book of the Lord,
    and see what he will do.
Not one of these birds and animals will be missing,
    and none will lack a mate,
for the Lord has promised this.
    His Spirit will make it all come true.
¹⁷ He has surveyed and divided the land
    and deeded it over to those creatures.
They will possess it forever,
    from generation to generation.