⁴³ Her cities now lie in ruins;
    she is a dry wasteland
    where no one lives or even passes by.

⁶ They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord
    who brought us safely out of Egypt
and led us through the barren wilderness—
    a land of deserts and pits,
a land of drought and death,
    where no one lives or even travels?’

²⁰ Babylon will never be inhabited again.
    It will remain empty for generation after generation.
Nomads will refuse to camp there,
    and shepherds will not bed down their sheep.

²⁹ The earth trembles and writhes in pain,
    for everything the Lord has planned against Babylon stands unchanged.
Babylon will be left desolate without a single inhabitant.

³⁷ and Babylon will become a heap of ruins,
    haunted by jackals.
She will be an object of horror and contempt,
    a place where no one lives.

³⁹ “Soon Babylon will be inhabited by desert animals and hyenas.
    It will be a home for owls.
Never again will people live there;
    it will lie desolate forever.
⁴⁰ I will destroy it as I^[a] destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
    and their neighboring towns,” says the Lord.
“No one will live there;
    no one will inhabit it.