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Contemporary English Version
Psalm 137:1
A Prayer for Revenge
Beside the rivers of Babylon we thought about Jerusalem, and we sat down and cried.
The Message
Psalm 137:1-3
Alongside Babylon’s rivers we sat on the banks; we cried and cried, remembering the good old days in Zion. Alongside the quaking aspens we stacked our unplayed harps; That’s where our captors demanded songs, sarcastic and mocking: “Sing us a happy Zion song!”
Easy-to-Read Version
Psalm 137:1
We sat by the rivers in Babylon and cried as we remembered Zion.
Living Bible
Psalm 137:1
Weeping, we sat beside the rivers of Babylon thinking of Jerusalem.
Common English Bible
Psalm 137:1
Psalm 137
Alongside Babylon’s streams, there we sat down, crying because we remembered Zion.
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Common English Bible
and hurry away to Media. I trust God’s word that Nahum spoke about Nineveh; everything will come true and happen to Assyria and Nineveh. Indeed, everything that the prophets of Israel sent by God have said will actually occur. None of their words will fail, and everything will happen in its own time. Thus it will be safer in Media than in Assyria and Babylon. I know then and believe that everything that God has said will be accomplished and come true. Not a single detail of what they have spoken will fail to happen. All our relatives who dwell in the land of Israel will be scattered, and they will be taken away from that good land into captivity. The entire land of Israel will be deserted. Samaria and Jerusalem will be deserted, and after a while even God’s house, still in mourning, will be destroyed by fire.
Common English Bible
Addition A
Mordecai’s dream
In the second year of the rule of Artaxerxes the Great, on the first day of Nisan, Mordecai had a dream. He was Jair’s son, Shimei’s grandson, and Kish’s great-grandson, from the tribe of Benjamin. He was a Jew living in the city of Susa, an important man serving in the royal court. He was one of the prisoners of war whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had brought from Jerusalem along with Judea’s King Jeconiah. This was his dream: Look! Noise and confusion, thunder and earthquake, and chaos on the earth. Look! Two mighty dragons came forward, both ready to fight, and they roared loudly. At their roar every nation got ready for battle, to make war on the righteous nation. Look! A day of darkness and gloom, misery and suffering, distress and chaos on the earth. The entire righteous nation was thrown into a state of panic, dreading the evil that was coming against them. They expected to die. So they cried out to God. Their cry was small at first, like a little spring, but soon it became loud as a mighty river, an abundance of water. Then the sun with its light shone, the lowly were raised up high, and it devoured those who were held in honor. Then Mordecai, who had this dream and saw what God had planned to do, woke up and kept it secret. He wished to examine it in every detail before nightfall. Mordecai was relaxing in the courtyard with Gabatha and Tharra, two castrated men, attendants of King Artaxerxes who were guarding the courtyard. He overheard their plans and investigated their intentions. He learned that they were preparing to attack King Artaxerxes, so he informed the king about them. The king questioned the two eunuchs. Once they had confessed, they were taken away to be executed. The king wrote these matters down so they would be remembered, and Mordecai also wrote about them. The king appointed Mordecai to serve in the court and gave him gifts for his service. But Haman, Hammedatha’s son, a Bougaean who was greatly respected by the king, sought to injure Mordecai and his people for the sake of the king’s two eunuchs. Queen Vashti
After these events, this is what happened back during the rule of Artaxerxes, the very one who ruled as far as India, one hundred twenty-seven provinces in all.
Common English Bible
He had been taken into exile away from Jerusalem by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
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Writing from Babylon
These are the words of the scroll that Baruch—son of Neriah son of Mahseiah son of Zedekiah son of Hasadiah son of Hilkiah—wrote in Babylon
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and to the powerful ones, the rulers’ sons, the elders, and all the people, from the least important to the greatest, and to all the ones who lived in Babylon by the Sud River.
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( This occurred after Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar removed Jeconiah, the leading officials, the prisoners, the powerful ones, and the land’s people from Jerusalem, and brought them to Babylon.)
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Pray for the lives of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his son Belshazzar that their days on earth may be like the days of heaven.
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“The Lord says: ‘Bend your shoulders and serve the king of Babylon, and then you’ll reside in the land that I gave to your ancestors.
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But if you don’t listen to the Lord’s voice and serve the king of Babylon,
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But we didn’t listen to your voice, to serve the king of Babylon, so you have carried out the words that you spoke through your servants the prophets. The bones of our rulers and ancestors were brought out of their tombs.
Common English Bible
Introduction
This is a copy of the letter that Jeremiah sent to those who would be taken as prisoners to Babylon by the Babylonian king. Jeremiah wrote to give them the instructions that God imposed upon him. God’s exile of Israel into Babylon
Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon’s king, will bring you as prisoners to Babylon because of the sins that you committed in the presence of God.
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When you enter Babylon, you will be there a long time, as long as seven generations. Afterward, I will bring you out from there peacefully.
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In Babylon you will see gods of silver, gold, and wood paraded on the Babylonians’ shoulders. These gods inspire awe among the people.
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spreading out and burning the Babylonians who stood near the furnace.
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A man named Joakim once lived in Babylon.
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Two elders among the people had been appointed as judges that year. It was about them that the Lord had spoken: “Lawless disorder has come out of Babylon, from elders, from judges who were supposed to guide the people.”
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Now the Babylonians had an idol named Bel. Each day they supplied it with twelve bushels of fine flour, forty sheep, and sixty gallons of wine.
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A living god?
Now there was a big snake that the Babylonians worshipped.
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Daniel in the lions’ pit
When the Babylonians heard what happened, they were very angry. They came together as a mob and started toward the king, saying,“The king has become a Jew! He’s torn down Bel, killed the snake, and murdered the priests!”
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But the Lord’s angel said to Habakkuk,“Take this lunch to Babylon, to Daniel in the lions’ pit.”
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Habakkuk said,“Lord, I’ve never seen Babylon, and I’m not familiar with that pit.”
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So the Lord’s angel lifted Habakkuk by his hair and brought him in a rush of wind to Babylon, right above the pit.
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They resisted him in battle, and he fled. With great disappointment, he planned to return to Babylon.
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or the battle with the Galatians in Babylonia. A total of eight thousand Jewish troops went into action along with four thousand Macedonians, who got into severe difficulty, yet the eight thousand Jewish forces, with the assistance they received from heaven, killed one hundred twenty thousand of the enemy and took the spoils of war.
Common English Bible
Then Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar went up against him, bound him with bronze chains, and took him away to Babylon.
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Nebuchadnezzar also seized some of the Lord’s holy equipment, carried it off to Babylon, and placed it in his temple.
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After a year, Nebuchadnezzar removed Jehoiachin to Babylon, along with the Lord’s holy equipment.
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They seized and carried off to Babylon all the Lord’s holy equipment, great and small, the treasure chests of the Lord, and the royal stores.
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They utterly ruined all of its radiance. King Nebuchadnezzar led away the survivors to Babylon under guard.
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They handed over all five thousand four hundred sixty-nine gold and silver objects. So Sheshbazzar, with the help of war prisoners returning from Babylon, carried the equipment back to Jerusalem.
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You promised to send back all the holy equipment that was taken from Jerusalem, which Cyrus set apart when he promised to destroy Babylon and also promised to send it back there.
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He wrote that all who depart from Babylon to rebuild the city should have their freedom, both they and their children and all the priests who depart as well.
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He sent back from Babylon all the holy equipment that Cyrus had set aside. Everything that Cyrus had said he would do, Darius himself commanded to do them and to send them to Jerusalem.
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So he took the letters, went to Babylon, and reported this to all of his people.
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These are the ones from Judea who came up out of their captivity in exile, whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had taken to Babylon
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But when our ancestors angrily sinned against the Lord of Israel who is in heaven, God gave them over into the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, king of the Chaldeans;
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and they tore down the house and burned it, and led the people away as prisoners to Babylon.
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But in the first year of Cyrus’ rule over the country of Babylonia, King Cyrus wrote that this house should be rebuilt.
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King Cyrus took out the holy gold and silver equipment from the temple in Babylon, which Nebuchadnezzar had removed from the house in Jerusalem and deposited in his own temple. Cyrus handed it over to Zerubbabel and the governor Sheshbazzar
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Now, King, if it seems right, please search the royal archives that are in Babylon.
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Then King Darius commanded a search of the royal archives that were kept in Babylon. In Ecbatana, within the palace of Medea, a scroll was found that recorded the following words:
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Also the holy silver and gold equipment from the Lord’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar removed from the house in Jerusalem and transported to Babylon, should be restored to the house in Jerusalem, to be kept where it used to be.
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Ezra leads more exiles out of Babylon
Sometime later, during Artaxerxes’ rule as the king of the Persians, Ezra arrived. He was the son of Seraiah son of Azariah son of Hilkiah son of Shallum
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Ezra came up from Babylon as a legal expert well trained in the Law from Moses, a gift from the God of Israel.
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They left Babylon on the new moon of the first month and arrived in Jerusalem on the new moon of the fifth month, since the Lord gave them a safe journey.
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They might bring to Jerusalem the gifts for the Lord of Israel that I and my advisors have solemnly promised. They might acquire for the Lord in Jerusalem all the gold and silver that may be found in the country of Babylonia, together with what the nation gives them for the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem.
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These are the leaders, according to their families and their divisions, who went up with me from Babylon, in King Artaxerxes’ rule:
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Daniel’s three friends in Babylon voluntarily gave their lives to the fire in order not to serve worthless things. You rescued them, sprinkling the fiery furnace with dew, such that not a hair on their heads was harmed, while you sent the flames forth upon all their enemies.
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First dialogue
In the thirtieth year after our city was destroyed, I, Salathiel, who am also Ezra, was in Babylon. I was disturbed as I lay on my bed, and my thoughts kept welling up inside me,
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because I saw how Zion lay in ruins and how those who lived in Babylon enjoyed abundance.
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“I said then in my heart, Are the lives of Babylon’s inhabitants any better? Is that why Babylon has gained dominion over Zion?
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and haven’t given anyone any clue as to how to make sense of these ways. Does Babylon do better than Zion?
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They will proceed steadily to Babylon to destroy it.
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You, Asia—you who share in Babylon’s splendor and the glory of the mask it wears—
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how terrible it will be for you, wretched one, because you have become like Babylon. You dressed up your daughters for sexual immorality, to please and take pride in your lovers, who have always lusted for you.
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As they return from Babylon, passersby will strike the repulsive city and will destroy her. They will destroy another portion of your glory and your land as they return from Babylon.
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Oracles of doom against the nations
How terrible it will be for you, Babylon and Asia! How terrible for you, Egypt and Syria!
