Jeremiah 51:59-64

The Voice

This strongly worded message about Babylon is the last of the oracles against the nations. Such is the message that the prophet Jeremiah is called to give—even while Babylon’s power is at its height. And so in 594 b.c., before the final fall of Jerusalem, the prophet to the nations delivers this prophecy to the exiles already in Babylon and—if they choose to listen—to the Babylonians themselves. Jeremiah instructs an assistant to the king of Judah to take this oracle to Babylon and read it aloud. As if that is not enough, he then instructs the man to perform a symbolic act—the sort of thing Jeremiah himself would do if he were there. His willing accomplice will dramatize the ultimate sinking of the Babylonian Empire by fulfilling the prophet’s strange request.

⁵⁹Jeremiah the prophet gave the following order to Seraiah (son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah), when Seraiah was accompanying Zedekiah (king of Judah) to Babylon in the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign. Seraiah worked in the king’s administration. ⁶⁰Jeremiah had written on a scroll all of the terrible things that would one day happen to Babylon (those things which you have just read). Once this important message had been recorded, ⁶¹he said to Seraiah,

Jeremiah: When you get to Babylon, find a public place and read aloud every single word written on this scroll. ⁶²Then say loud enough for others to hear, “O Eternal One, You have promised that You will destroy this place so that neither man nor beast will live here. Babylon will then be a wasteland forever.” ⁶³When you have finished reading the scroll and saying these things, tie it to a heavy stone and throw it into the Euphrates River. ⁶⁴Then say loud enough for others to hear, “Just as this stone and scroll sink, so will Babylon and her people sink, never to rise again, for they shall be tired after the disaster I, the Lord, am bringing to her.”