Jeremiah 51:33-52:16

New King James Version

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

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

³⁴“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon
Has ^(D)devoured me, he has crushed me;
He has made me an ^(E)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, ^(F)I will plead your case and take vengeance for you.
^(G)I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry.
³⁷^(H)Babylon shall become a heap,
A dwelling place for jackals,
^(I)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;
^(J)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 ^(K)Sheshach^[a] is taken!
Oh, how ^(L)the praise of the whole earth is seized!
How Babylon has become desolate among the nations!
⁴²^(M)The sea has come up over Babylon;
She is covered with the multitude of its waves.
⁴³^(N)Her cities are a desolation,
A dry land and a wilderness,
A land where ^(O)no one dwells,
Through which no son of man passes.
⁴⁴I will punish ^(P)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, ^(Q)the wall of Babylon shall fall.

⁴⁵“My^(R) 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 ^(S)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 ^(T)the heavens and the earth and all that is in them
Shall sing joyously over Babylon;
^(U)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^(V)You who have escaped the sword,
Get away! Do not stand still!
^(W)Remember the Lord afar off,
And let Jerusalem come to your mind.

⁵¹^(X)We are ashamed because we have heard reproach.
Shame has covered our faces,
For strangers ^(Y)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^(Z)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^(AA)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;
^(AB)For the Lord is the God of recompense,
He will surely repay.

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

⁵⁸Thus says the Lord of hosts:

“The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly ^(AE)broken,^[f]
And her high gates shall be burned with fire;
^(AF)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 ^(AG)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 ^(AH)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 ^(AI)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, ^(AJ)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.’ ”

Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

The Fall of Jerusalem Reviewed^(AK)

52 Zedekiah was ^(AL)twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of ^(AM)Libnah. ²He also did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiakim had done. ³For because of the anger of the Lord this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, till He finally cast them out from His presence. Then Zedekiah ^(AN)rebelled against the king of Babylon.

⁴Now it came to pass in the ^(AO)ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem and encamped against it; and they built a siege wall against it all around. ⁵So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. ⁶By the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the famine had become so severe in the city that there was no food for the people of the land. ⁷Then the city wall was broken through, and all the men of war fled and went out of the city at night by way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden, even though the Chaldeans were near the city all around. And they went by way of the ^[g]plain.

⁸But the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and they overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. All his army was scattered from him. ⁹^(AP)So they took the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he pronounced judgment on him. ¹⁰^(AQ)Then the king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. And he killed all the princes of Judah in Riblah. ¹¹He also ^(AR)put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in ^[h]bronze fetters, took him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.

The Temple and City Plundered and Burned

¹²^(AS)Now in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month (^(AT)which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon), ^(AU)Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, who served the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. ¹³He burned the house of the Lord and the king’s house; all the houses of Jerusalem, that is, all the houses of the great, he burned with fire. ¹⁴And all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down all the walls of Jerusalem all around. ¹⁵^(AV)Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive some of the poor people, the rest of the people who remained in the city, the defectors who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen. ¹⁶But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left some of the poor of the land as vinedressers and farmers.