Judgment on Babylon

50 The word that the Lord spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by the prophet Jeremiah:^(A)

³ For out of the north a nation has come up against her; it shall make her land a desolation, and no one shall live in it; both humans and animals shall flee away.^(C)

⁴ In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the people of Israel shall come, they and the people of Judah together; they shall come weeping as they seek the Lord their God.^{(D) 5} They shall ask the way to Zion, with faces turned toward it, and they shall come and join themselves to the Lord by an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.

⁶ My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray, turning them away on the mountains; from mountain to hill they have gone, they have forgotten their fold.^{(E) 7} All who found them have devoured them, and their enemies have said, “We are not guilty, because they have sinned against the Lord, the true pasture, the Lord, the hope of their ancestors.”^(F)

¹⁷ Israel is a hunted sheep driven away by lions. First the king of Assyria devoured it, and now at the end King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon has gnawed its bones.^{(A) 18} Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to punish the king of Babylon and his land as I punished the king of Assyria. ¹⁹ I will restore Israel to its pasture, and it shall feed on Carmel and in Bashan, and on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead its hunger shall be satisfied.^{(B) 20} In those days and at that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought, and there shall be none, and the sins of Judah, and none shall be found, for I will pardon the remnant that I have spared.^(C)