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God’s Judgment on Babylon

21 “Go up against the land of Merathaim[a]
    and the inhabitants of Pekod.[b]
Kill them with swords, and completely destroy them,”
    declares the Lord,
        “and do everything that I’ve commanded you.
22 The noise of battle is in the land,
    and great destruction.
23 How the hammer of all the earth is cut off and broken!
    How Babylon has become a horror among the nations!
24 I’ll set a trap for you,
    and you will be caught, Babylon,
        but you don’t realize it.
You will be found and also seized,
    because you challenged the Lord!

25 “The Lord will open his armory,
    and bring out the weapons of his anger.
Indeed, a work of the Lord God of the Heavenly Armies
    will be in the land of the Chaldeans.
26 Come to her from afar.[c]
    Open up her barns.
Pile her up like heaps of grain,
    and completely destroy her.
        Don’t leave any survivors.
27 Put all her bulls to the sword,
    let them go down to the slaughter.
How terrible for them because their day has come,
    the time of their judgment.

28 “The sound of fugitives and refugees
    will come from the land of Babylon
to declare in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God,
    vengeance for his Temple.

29 “Summon many to Babylon,
    all those who bend the bow.
Camp all around her,
    let no one escape.
Repay her according to her deeds.
    Do to her just as she has done.
For she has behaved arrogantly against the Lord,
    against the Holy One of Israel.
30 Therefore, her warriors will fall in her streets,
    and all her soldiers will be silenced on that day,”
        declares the Lord.

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 50:21 Merathaim was an area in southern Mesopotamia; the Heb. word means double rebellion
  2. Jeremiah 50:21 Pekod was a region in southern Mesopotamia; the Heb. word means punishment
  3. Jeremiah 50:26 Lit. from the end