³ For a nation will attack her from the north
    and bring such destruction that no one will live there again.
Everything will be gone;
    both people and animals will flee.

²⁰ Rejoice over her fate, O heaven
    and people of God and apostles and prophets!
For at last God has judged her
    for your sakes.

“Just like this, the great city Babylon
    will be thrown down with violence
    and will never be found again.
²² The sound of harps, singers, flutes, and trumpets
    will never be heard in you again.
No craftsmen and no trades
    will ever be found in you again.
The sound of the mill
    will never be heard in you again.
²³ The light of a lamp
    will never shine in you again.
The happy voices of brides and grooms
    will never be heard in you again.
For your merchants were the greatest in the world,
    and you deceived the nations with your sorceries.

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.

²² This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says:
    “I, myself, have risen against Babylon!
I will destroy its children and its children’s children,”
    says the Lord.
²³ “I will make Babylon a desolate place of owls,
    filled with swamps and marshes.
I will sweep the land with the broom of destruction.
    I, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, have spoken!”

¹⁹ Babylon, the most glorious of kingdoms,
    the flower of Chaldean pride,
will be devastated like Sodom and Gomorrah
    when God destroyed them.
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.
²¹ Desert animals will move into the ruined city,
    and the houses will be haunted by howling creatures.
Owls will live among the ruins,
    and wild goats will go there to dance.
²² Hyenas will howl in its fortresses,
    and jackals will make dens in its luxurious palaces.
Babylon’s days are numbered;
    its time of destruction will soon arrive.

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.