Jeremiah 51:15-64

New King James Version

¹⁵^(A)He has made the earth by His power;
He has established the world by His wisdom,
And ^(B)stretched out the heaven by His understanding.
¹⁶When He utters His voice—
There is a multitude of waters in the heavens:
^(C)“He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth;
He makes lightnings for the rain;
He brings the wind out of His treasuries.”

¹⁷^(D)Everyone is dull-hearted, without knowledge;
Every metalsmith is put to shame by the carved image;
^(E)For his molded image is falsehood,
And there is no breath in them.
¹⁸They are futile, a work of errors;
In the time of their punishment they shall perish.
¹⁹The Portion of Jacob is not like them,
For He is the Maker of all things;
And Israel is the tribe of His inheritance.
The Lord of hosts is His name.

²⁰“You^(F) are My battle-ax and weapons of war:
For with you I will break the nation in pieces;
With you I will destroy kingdoms;
²¹With you I will break in pieces the horse and its rider;
With you I will break in pieces the chariot and its rider;
²²With you also I will break in pieces man and woman;
With you I will break in pieces ^(G)old and young;
With you I will break in pieces the young man and the maiden;
²³With 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^(H) 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, ^(I)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,
^(J)And make you a burnt mountain.
²⁶They shall not take from you a stone for a corner
Nor a stone for a foundation,
^(K)But you shall be desolate forever,” says the Lord.

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

³³For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:

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

³⁴“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon
Has ^(X)devoured me, he has crushed me;
He has made me an ^(Y)empty vessel,
He has swallowed me up like a monster;
He has filled his stomach with my delicacies,
He has spit me out.
³⁵Let 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.

³⁶Therefore thus says the Lord:

“Behold, ^(Z)I will plead your case and take vengeance for you.
^(AA)I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry.
³⁷^(AB)Babylon shall become a heap,
A dwelling place for jackals,
^(AC)An astonishment and a hissing,
Without an inhabitant.
³⁸They shall roar together like lions,
They shall growl like lions’ whelps.
³⁹In their excitement I will prepare their feasts;
^(AD)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 ^(AE)Sheshach^[a] is taken!
Oh, how ^(AF)the praise of the whole earth is seized!
How Babylon has become desolate among the nations!
⁴²^(AG)The sea has come up over Babylon;
She is covered with the multitude of its waves.
⁴³^(AH)Her cities are a desolation,
A dry land and a wilderness,
A land where ^(AI)no one dwells,
Through which no son of man passes.
⁴⁴I will punish ^(AJ)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, ^(AK)the wall of Babylon shall fall.

⁴⁵“My^(AL) people, go out of the midst of her!
And let everyone deliver ^[c]himself from the fierce anger of the Lord.
⁴⁶And lest your heart faint,
And you fear ^(AM)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),
⁴⁷Therefore behold, the days are coming
That I will bring judgment on the carved images of Babylon;
Her whole land shall be ashamed,
And all her slain shall fall in her midst.
⁴⁸Then ^(AN)the heavens and the earth and all that is in them
Shall sing joyously over Babylon;
^(AO)For the plunderers shall come to her from the north,” says the Lord.

⁴⁹As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall,
So at Babylon the slain of all the earth shall fall.
⁵⁰^(AP)You who have escaped the sword,
Get away! Do not stand still!
^(AQ)Remember the Lord afar off,
And let Jerusalem come to your mind.

⁵¹^(AR)We are ashamed because we have heard reproach.
Shame has covered our faces,
For strangers ^(AS)have come into the ^[d]sanctuaries of the Lord’s house.

⁵²“Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord,
“That I will bring judgment on her carved images,
And throughout all her land the wounded shall groan.
⁵³^(AT)Though Babylon were to ^[e]mount up to heaven,
And though she were to fortify the height of her strength,
Yet from Me plunderers would come to her,” says the Lord.

⁵⁴^(AU)The sound of a cry comes from Babylon,
And great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans,
⁵⁵Because the Lord is plundering Babylon
And silencing her loud voice,
Though her waves roar like great waters,
And the noise of their voice is uttered,
⁵⁶Because the plunderer comes against her, against Babylon,
And her mighty men are taken.
Every one of their bows is broken;
^(AV)For the Lord is the God of recompense,
He will surely repay.

⁵⁷“And I will make drunk
Her princes and ^(AW)wise men,
Her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men.
And they shall sleep a perpetual sleep
And not awake,” says ^(AX)the King,
Whose name is the Lord of hosts.

⁵⁸Thus says the Lord of hosts:

“The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly ^(AY)broken,^[f]
And her high gates shall be burned with fire;
^(AZ)The people will labor in vain,
And the nations, because of the fire;
And they shall be weary.”

Jeremiah’s Command to Seraiah

⁵⁹The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of ^(BA)Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. And Seraiah was the quartermaster. ⁶⁰So Jeremiah ^(BB)wrote in a book all the evil that would come upon Babylon, all these words that are written against Babylon. ⁶¹And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you arrive in Babylon and see it, and read all these words, ⁶²then you shall say, ‘O Lord, You have spoken against this place to cut it off, so that ^(BC)none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but it shall be desolate forever.’ ⁶³Now it shall be, when you have finished reading this book, ^(BD)that you shall tie a stone to it and throw it out into the Euphrates. ⁶⁴Then you shall say, ‘Thus Babylon shall sink and not rise from the catastrophe that I will bring upon her. And they shall be weary.’ ”