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46 1-2 The idols of Babylon, Bel and Nebo,[a] are being hauled away on ox carts! But look! The beasts are stumbling! The cart is turning over! The gods are falling out onto the ground! Is that the best that they can do? If they cannot even save themselves from such a fall, how can they save their worshipers from Cyrus?

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 46:1 Bel and Nebo. Names of Marduk and Nabu, the two principal gods in the Babylonian pantheon.

Babylon’s Idols

46 Bel bows down;
    Nebo is stooping.
Their idols are on[a] animals[b] and on[c] cattle;
    your cargo[d] is carried as a burden on[e] weary animals.

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 46:1 Literally “to”
  2. Isaiah 46:1 Hebrew “animal”
  3. Isaiah 46:1 Literally “to”
  4. Isaiah 46:1 Literally “things that are carried”
  5. Isaiah 46:1 Literally “to”

Tell all the world that Babylon will be destroyed; her god Marduk will be utterly disgraced!

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“Declare among the nations and proclaim,
    and lift up a banner.
Proclaim, you must not conceal it.
Say, ‘Babylon is captured,
    Bel is ashamed,
    Merodach is filled with terror,
her idols are ashamed,
    her idols are filled with terror.

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44 And I will punish Bel, the god of Babylon, and pull from his mouth what he has taken. The nations shall no longer come and worship him; the wall of Babylon has fallen.

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44 And I will punish Bel in Babylon,
    and I will wrench out from his mouth what he has swallowed.[a]
And the nations will not stream towards him any longer
    what’s worse,[b] the wall of Babylon has fallen.

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 51:44 Literally “what has been swallowed by him”
  2. Jeremiah 51:44 Literally “also”