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36 Therefore Yahweh says:

“Behold, I will plead your cause,
    and take vengeance for you.
I will dry up her sea,
    and make her fountain dry.
37 Babylon will become heaps,
    a dwelling place for jackals,
    an astonishment, and a hissing,
    without inhabitant.
38 They will roar together like young lions.
    They will growl as lions’ cubs.
39 When they are heated, I will make their feast,
    and I will make them drunk,
that they may rejoice,
    and sleep a perpetual sleep,
    and not wake up,” says Yahweh.

40 “I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
    like rams with male goats.

41 “How Sheshach is taken!
    How the praise of the whole earth is seized!
    How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations!
42 The sea has come up on Babylon.
    She is covered with the multitude of its waves.
43 Her cities have become a desolation,
    a dry land, and a desert,
    a land in which no man dwells.
    No son of man passes by it.
44 I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon,
    and I will bring out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up.
The nations will not flow any more to him.
    Yes, the wall of Babylon will fall.

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36 Therefore, this is what the Lord says:

I am about to champion your cause(A)
and take vengeance on your behalf;
I will dry up her sea(B)
and make her fountain run dry.
37 Babylon will become a heap of rubble,
a jackals’ den,
a desolation and an object of scorn,(C)
without inhabitant.(D)
38 They will roar together like young lions;
they will growl like lion cubs.
39 While they are flushed with heat, I will serve them a feast,
and I will make them drunk so that they celebrate.[a](E)
Then they will fall asleep forever
and never wake up.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
like rams together with male goats.(F)

41 How Sheshak[b](G) has been captured,(H)
the praise(I) of the whole earth seized.
What a horror Babylon has become
among the nations!(J)
42 The sea has risen over Babylon;(K)
she is covered with its tumultuous waves.
43 Her cities have become a desolation,(L)
an arid desert,
a land where no one lives,
where no human being even passes through.
44 I will punish Bel(M) in Babylon.
I will make him vomit what he swallowed.(N)
The nations will no longer stream to him;(O)
even Babylon’s wall will fall.

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Footnotes

  1. 51:39 LXX reads pass out
  2. 51:41 = Babylon