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21 “Attack the land of Merathaim.
    Attack the people who live in Pekod [C alternate names for Babylon].
·Chase them, kill them [L Put them to the sword], and ·completely destroy [annihilate] them.
    Do everything I commanded you!” says the Lord.

22 “The noise of battle can be heard all over the country;
    it is the noise of ·much destruction [L great fracture].
23 ·Babylon was the hammer of the whole earth,
    but how broken and shattered that hammer is now [L How cut down and broken is the hammer of the whole earth].
·It is truly the most ruined
    of [L How Babylon has become a horror among] all the nations.
24 I set a trap for you [C Babylon],
    and you were caught before you knew it.
You ·fought against [challenged] the Lord,
    so you were found and ·taken prisoner [captured].
25 The Lord has opened up his storeroom
    and brought out the weapons of his anger,
because the Lord God ·All-Powerful [Almighty; of Heaven’s Armies; T of hosts] has work to do
    in the land of the ·Babylonians [L Chaldeans].
26 Come against it [C Babylon] from far away.
    Break open her storehouses of grain.
    Pile them up [C dead bodies] like heaps of grain.
·Completely destroy Babylon [L Annihilate it]
    and ·do not leave anyone alive [L let there be no remnant].
27 ·Kill [L Put to the sword] all its bulls [C the young men in Babylon];
    let them go down to the slaughter [C killed like animals].
·How terrible it will be for [Woe to] them, because ·the time has come for their defeat [L their day has come];
    it is time for them to be punished.
28 Listen to the people ·running [fleeing] to escape the country of Babylon!
    They are telling ·Jerusalem [L Zion; C the location of the Temple]
how the Lord our God is punishing Babylon as it deserves
    for destroying his Temple.

29 “Call for ·the archers [L all those who draw the bow]
    to come against Babylon.
·Tell them to surround the city [L Camp all around it],
    and let no one escape.
Pay her back for what she has done;
    do to her what she has done to other nations.
Babylon acted with ·pride [arrogance] against the Lord,
    the Holy One of Israel.
30 So her young men will be killed in her streets.
    All her soldiers will ·die [L be silenced] on that day,” says the Lord.

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