“Tell the whole world,
    and keep nothing back.
Raise a signal flag
    to tell everyone that Babylon will fall!
Her images and idols^[a] will be shattered.
    Her gods Bel and Marduk will be utterly disgraced.

⁵² “Yes,” says the Lord, “but the time is coming
    when I will destroy Babylon’s idols.
The groans of her wounded people
    will be heard throughout the land.

⁹ Now at last—look!
Here comes a man in a chariot
    with a pair of horses!”
Then the watchman said,
    “Babylon is fallen, fallen!
All the idols of Babylon
    lie broken on the ground!”

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

²⁴ “I will repay Babylon
    and the people of Babylonia^[a]
for all the wrong they have done
    to my people in Jerusalem,” says the Lord.

¹⁸ Idols are worthless; they are ridiculous lies!
    On the day of reckoning they will all be destroyed.

³⁵ “The sword of destruction will strike the Babylonians,”
    says the Lord.
“It will strike the people of Babylon—
    her officials and wise men, too.
³⁶ The sword will strike her wise counselors,
    and they will become fools.
The sword will strike her mightiest warriors,
    and panic will seize them.
³⁷ The sword will strike her horses and chariots
    and her allies from other lands,
    and they will all become like women.
The sword will strike her treasures,
    and they all will be plundered.
³⁸ A drought^[a] will strike her water supply,
    causing it to dry up.
And why? Because the whole land is filled with idols,
    and the people are madly in love with them.

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^[b] destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
    and their neighboring towns,” says the Lord.
“No one will live there;
    no one will inhabit it.