¹⁴ Those we served before are dead and gone.
    Their departed spirits will never return!
You attacked them and destroyed them,
    and they are long forgotten.

“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.”

⁷ We have happy memories of the godly,
    but the name of a wicked person rots away.

¹⁸ “What good is an idol carved by man,
    or a cast image that deceives you?
How foolish to trust in your own creation—
    a god that can’t even talk!
¹⁹ What sorrow awaits you who say to wooden idols,
    ‘Wake up and save us!’
To speechless stone images you say,
    ‘Rise up and teach us!’
    Can an idol tell you what to do?
They may be overlaid with gold and silver,
    but they are lifeless inside.
²⁰ But the Lord is in his holy Temple.
    Let all the earth be silent before him.”

¹² “I, yes I, am the one who comforts you.
    So why are you afraid of mere humans,
    who wither like the grass and disappear?
¹³ Yet you have forgotten the Lord, your Creator,
    the one who stretched out the sky like a canopy
    and laid the foundations of the earth.
Will you remain in constant dread of human oppressors?
    Will you continue to fear the anger of your enemies?
Where is their fury and anger now?
    It is gone!