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you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:

How the oppressor has ceased!
    How his insolence[a] has ceased!(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 14.4 Q ms Compare Gk Syr Vg: Meaning of MT uncertain

26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh,
    and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine.
Then all flesh shall know
    that I am the Lord your Savior
    and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.(A)

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20 Rejoice over her, O heaven, you saints and apostles and prophets! For God has condemned her condemnation of you.(A)

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16 “Alas, alas, the great city,
    clothed in fine linen,
        in purple and scarlet,
    adorned with gold,
        with jewels, and with pearls!(A)

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for her sins are heaped high as heaven,
    and God has remembered her iniquities.(A)
Render to her as she herself has rendered,
    and repay her double for her deeds;
    mix a double dose for her in the cup she mixed.(B)
As she glorified herself and lived luxuriously,
    so give her a like measure of torment and grief.
Since in her heart she says,
    ‘I rule as a queen;
I am no widow,
    and I will never see grief,’(C)
therefore her plagues will come in a single day—
    pestilence and mourning and famine—
and she will be burned with fire,
    for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.”(D)

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And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.

When I saw her, I was greatly amazed.(A)

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And I heard the angel of the waters say,

“You are just, O Holy One, who are and were,
    for you have judged these things;(A)
because they shed the blood of saints and prophets,
    you have given them blood to drink.
It is what they deserve!”

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15 and it was allowed to give breath[a] to the image of the beast so that the image of the beast could even speak and cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. 16 Also, it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be given a brand on the right hand or the forehead,(A) 17 so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the brand, that is, the name of the beast or the number for its name.(B)

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Footnotes

  1. 13.15 Or spirit

17 For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you;
    the destruction of the animals will terrify you—[a]
because of human bloodshed and violence to the earth,
    to cities and all who live in them.(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 2.17 Gk Syr: Heb terrify them

The Woes of the Wicked

Shall not everyone taunt such people and, with mocking riddles, say about them,

“Alas for you who heap up what is not your own!”
    How long will you load yourselves with goods taken in pledge?(A)
Will not your own creditors suddenly rise
    and those who make you tremble wake up?
    Then you will be plunder for them.
Because you have plundered many nations,
    all who survive of the peoples shall plunder you—
because of human bloodshed and violence to the earth,
    to cities and all who live in them.(B)

“Alas for you who get evil gain for your house,
    setting your nest on high
    to be safe from the reach of harm!”(C)
10 You have devised shame for your house
    by cutting off many peoples;
    you have forfeited your life.(D)
11 The very stones will cry out from the wall,
    and the rafter will respond from the woodwork.

12 “Alas for you who build a town by bloodshed
    and found a city on iniquity!”(E)

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The Prophet’s Complaint

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
    and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
    and you will not save?(A)
Why do you make me see wrongdoing
    and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
    strife and contention arise.(B)
So the law becomes slack,
    and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous;
    therefore judgment comes forth perverted.(C)

Look at the nations and see!
    Be astonished! Be astounded!
For a work is being done in your days
    that you would not believe if you were told.(D)
For I am rousing the Chaldeans,
    that fierce and impetuous nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth
    to seize dwellings not their own.(E)
Dread and fearsome are they;
    their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.(F)
Their horses are swifter than leopards,
    more menacing than wolves at dusk;
    their horses charge.
Their horsemen come from far away;
    they fly like an eagle swift to devour.(G)
They all come for violence,
    with faces pressing[a] forward;
    they gather captives like sand.(H)
10 At kings they scoff,
    and of rulers they make sport.
They laugh at every fortress
    and heap up earth to take it.(I)

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Footnotes

  1. 1.9 Meaning of Heb uncertain

19 Then I desired to know the truth concerning the fourth beast, which was different from all the rest, exceedingly terrifying, with its teeth of iron and claws of bronze, and which devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet; 20 and concerning the ten horns that were on its head, and concerning the other horn that came up and before which three others had fallen—the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spoke arrogantly and that seemed greater than the others. 21 As I looked, that horn made war with the holy ones and was prevailing over them,(A) 22 until the Ancient One[a] came; then judgment was given for the holy ones of the Most High, and the time arrived when the holy ones gained possession of the kingdom.(B)

23 This is what he said: “As for the fourth beast,

there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth
    that shall be different from all the other kingdoms;
it shall devour the whole earth
    and trample it down and break it to pieces.(C)
24 As for the ten horns,
out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise,
    and another shall arise after them.
This one shall be different from the former ones
    and shall put down three kings.(D)
25 He shall speak words against the Most High,
    shall wear out the holy ones of the Most High,
    and shall attempt to change the ritual calendar and the law,
and they shall be given into his power
    for a time, two times,[b] and half a time.(E)

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Footnotes

  1. 7.22 Aram the Ancient of Days
  2. 7.25 Aram a time, times

38 into whose hand he has given human beings wherever they live, the wild animals of the field, and the birds of the air and whom he has established as ruler over them all—you are the head of gold.(A)

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15 You shall be[a] a mockery and a taunt, a warning and a horror, to the nations around you when I execute judgments on you in anger and fury and with furious punishments—I, the Lord, have spoken(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 5.15 Q ms Gk Syr Vg Tg: MT It shall be

The Punishment of Zion

How the gold has grown dim;
    how the pure gold is changed!
The sacred stones lie scattered
    at the head of every street.

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34 “King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon has devoured me;
    he has crushed me;
he has made me an empty vessel;
    he has swallowed me like a monster;
he has filled his belly with my delicacies;
    he has spewed me out.(A)
35 May my torn flesh be avenged on Babylon,”
    the inhabitants of Zion shall say.
“May my blood be avenged on the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
    Jerusalem shall say.(B)

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Israel the Creator’s Instrument

20 You are my war club, my weapon of battle:
with you I smash nations;
    with you I destroy kingdoms;(A)
21 with you I smash the horse and its rider;
    with you I smash the chariot and the charioteer;
22 with you I smash man and woman;
    with you I smash the old man and the boy;
with you I smash the young man and the girl;(B)
23     with you I smash shepherds and their flocks;
with you I smash farmers and their teams;
    with you I smash governors and deputies.

The Doom of Babylon

24 I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea before your very eyes for all the wrong that they have done in Zion, says the Lord.(C)

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22 The noise of battle is in the land
    and great destruction!(A)
23 How the hammer of the whole earth
    is cut down and broken!
How Babylon has become
    a horror among the nations!(B)

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Now I have given all these lands into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, my servant, and I have given him even the wild animals of the field to serve him.(A) All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings shall make him their slave.(B)

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I am going to send for all the tribes of the north, says the Lord, even for King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all these nations around; I will utterly destroy them and make them an object of horror and of hissing and an everlasting disgrace.[a](A) 10 And I will banish from them the sound of mirth and the sound of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp.(B) 11 This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. 12 Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, says the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste.(C) 13 I will bring upon that land all the words that I have uttered against it, everything written in this book that Jeremiah prophesied against all the nations. 14 For many nations and great kings shall make slaves of them also, and I will repay them according to their deeds and the work of their hands.(D)

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Footnotes

  1. 25.9 Gk Compare Syr: Heb and everlasting desolations

I will make them a horror, an evil thing, to all the kingdoms of the earth—a disgrace, a byword, a taunt, and a curse in all the places where I shall drive them.(A)

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23 And I will put it into the hand of your tormentors,
    who have said to you,
    “Bow down, that we may walk on you,”
and you have made your back like the ground
    and like the street for them to walk on.(A)

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Sit in silence, and go into darkness,
    daughter Chaldea!
For you shall no more be called
    the mistress of kingdoms.(A)

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I will go before you
    and level the mountains;[a]
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
    and cut through the bars of iron;(A)
I will give you the treasures of darkness
    and riches hidden in secret places,
so that you may know that it is I, the Lord,
    the God of Israel, who call you by your name.(B)

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Footnotes

  1. 45.2 Q ms Gk: MT the swellings

17 who made the world like a desert
    and overthrew its cities,
    who would not let his prisoners go home?”(A)

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