³⁴ If people crush underfoot
    all the prisoners of the land,

²² This is what the Sovereign Lord,
    your God and Defender, says:
“See, I have taken the terrible cup from your hands.
    You will drink no more of my fury.
²³ Instead, I will hand that cup to your tormentors,
    those who said, ‘We will trample you into the dust
    and walk on your backs.’”

³³ This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies,
    the God of Israel, says:
“Babylon is like wheat on a threshing floor,
    about to be trampled.
In just a little while
    her harvest will begin.”

³⁴ “King Nebuchadnezzar^[a] of Babylon has eaten and crushed us
    and drained us of strength.
He has swallowed us like a great monster
    and filled his belly with our riches.
    He has thrown us out of our own country.
³⁵ Make Babylon suffer as she made us suffer,”
    say the people of Zion.
“Make the people of Babylonia pay for spilling our blood,”
    says Jerusalem.

“I will be your lawyer to plead your case,
    and I will avenge you.
I will dry up her river,
    as well as her springs,

⁹ I will say to the prisoners, ‘Come out in freedom,’
    and to those in darkness, ‘Come into the light.’
They will be my sheep, grazing in green pastures
    and on hills that were previously bare.

²⁰     to hear the groans of the prisoners,
    to release those condemned to die.

³³ For the Lord hears the cries of the needy;
    he does not despise his imprisoned people.

¹⁷ Is this the one who destroyed the world
    and made it into a wasteland?
Is this the king who demolished the world’s greatest cities
    and had no mercy on his prisoners?’

¹¹ Listen to the moaning of the prisoners.
    Demonstrate your great power by saving those condemned to die.