1The LORD says:
2I will send to Babylon strangers, who will winnow her.
3Against him who bends, let the archer bend his bow,
4They will fall down slain in the land of the Kasdim,
5For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, by his God,
6“Flee out of the middle of Babylon!
7Babylon has been a golden cup in the LORD’s hand,
8Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed!
9“We would have healed Babylon,
10‘The LORD has produced our righteousness.
11“Make the arrows sharp!
12Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon!
13You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures,
14The LORD of Hosts has sworn by himself, saying,
15“He has made the earth by his power.
16When he utters his voice,
17“Every man has become stupid and without knowledge.
18They are vanity,
19The portion of Jacob is not like these,
20“You are my battle ax and weapons of war.
21With you I will break in pieces
22With you I will break in pieces
23With you I will break in pieces
24“I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of the Kasdim for all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight,” says the LORD.
25“Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain,” says the LORD,
26They won’t take a cornerstone from you,
27“Set up a standard in the land!
28Prepare against her the nations,
29The land trembles and is in pain;
30The mighty men of Babylon have stopped fighting,
31One runner will run to meet another,
32So the passages are seized.
33For the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel says:
34“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me.
35May the violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon!”
36Therefore the LORD says:
37Babylon will become heaps,
38They will roar together like young lions.
39When they are inflamed, I will make their feast,
40“I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
41“How Sheshach is taken!
42The sea has come up on Babylon.
43Her cities have become a desolation,
44I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon,
45“My people, go away from the middle of her,
46Don’t let your heart faint.
47Therefore behold, the days come that I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon;
48Then the heavens and the earth,
49“As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall,
50You who have escaped the sword, go!
51“We are confounded
52“Therefore behold, the days come,” says the LORD,
53Though Babylon should mount up to the sky,
54“The sound of a cry comes from Babylon,
55For the LORD lays Babylon waste,
56For the destroyer has come on her,
57I will make her princes, her wise men,
58The LORD of Hosts says:
59The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was chief quartermaster.
60Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come on Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning Babylon.
61Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words,
62and say, ‘LORD, you have spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that no one will dwell in it, neither man nor animal, but that it will be desolate forever.’
63It will be, when you have finished reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the middle of the Euphrates.
64Then you shall say, ‘Thus will Babylon sink, and will not rise again because of the evil that I will bring on her; and they will be weary.’”