Beginning
Chapter 51
The Second Oracle Against Babylon
1 Thus says the Lord:
See! I rouse against Babylon,
and the inhabitants of Chaldea,
a destroyer wind.[a]
2 To Babylon I will send winnowers
to winnow and lay waste the land;
They shall besiege it on every side
on the day of affliction.(A)
3 How can the archers draw back their bows,
lift their armor?
Do not spare her young men,
put the entire army under the ban.(B)
4 The slain shall fall in the land of Chaldea,
the wounded, in its streets;(C)
5 For Israel and Judah are not left widowed
by their God, the Lord of hosts,
Even though the land is full of guilt
against the Holy One of Israel.
6 Flee from Babylon;
each of you save your own life,
do not perish because of her guilt;
This is a time of retribution from the Lord,
7 who pays out her due.(D)
Babylon was a golden cup in the hand of the Lord
making the whole earth drunk;
The nations drank its wine,
thus they have gone mad.(E)
8 Babylon suddenly falls and is broken:
wail over her!
Bring balm for her wounds,
in case she can be healed.(F)
9 “We have tried to heal Babylon,
but she cannot be healed.
Leave her, each of us must go to our own land.”
The judgment against her reaches the heavens,
it touches the clouds.(G)
10 The Lord has brought forth our vindication;
come, let us tell in Zion
what the Lord, our God, has done.(H)
11 Sharpen the arrows,
fill the quivers;
The Lord has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes,[b]
for his resolve is Babylon’s destruction.
Yes, it is retribution from the Lord,
retribution for his temple.(I)
12 Over the walls of Babylon raise a signal,
reinforce the watch;
Post sentries,
arrange ambushes!
For the Lord has both planned and carried out
what he spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon.
13 You who dwell by mighty waters,
rich in treasure,
Your end has come,
the time at which you shall be cut off!(J)
14 The Lord of hosts has sworn by himself:
I will fill you with people as numerous as locusts,
who shall raise over you a joyous shout!
15 He made the earth by his power,
established the world by wisdom,
and by his skill stretched out the heavens.(K)
16 When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar,
he summons clouds from the ends of the earth,
Makes lightning flash in the rain,
and brings out winds from their storehouses.
17 Every man is stupid, ignorant;
every artisan is put to shame by his idol:
He molds a fraud,
without life-breath.
18 They are nothing, a ridiculous work,
that will perish at the time of punishment.
19 Jacob’s portion is nothing like them:
he is the creator of all things.
Israel is his very own tribe;
Lord of hosts is his name.
20 You are my hammer,
a weapon for war;
With you I shatter nations,
with you I destroy kingdoms.
21 With you I shatter horse and rider,
with you I shatter chariot and driver.(L)
22 With you I shatter man and woman,
with you I shatter old and young,
with you I shatter the young man and young woman.(M)
23 With you I shatter shepherd and flock,
with you I shatter farmer and team,
with you I shatter governors and officers.
24 Thus I will repay Babylon,
all the inhabitants of Chaldea,
For all the evil they committed against Zion,
before your very eyes—oracle of the Lord.(N)
25 Beware! I am against you,
destroying mountain—oracle of the Lord—
destroyer of the entire earth,
I will stretch forth my hand against you,
roll you down over the cliffs,
and make you a burnt mountain:(O)
26 They will not take from you a cornerstone,
or a foundation stone;
You shall remain ruins forever—
oracle of the Lord.(P)
27 Raise a signal in the land,
sound the trumpet among the nations;
Dedicate nations for war against her,
summon against her the kingdoms:
Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz;[c]
Appoint a recruiting officer against her,
dispatch horses like bristling locusts.(Q)
28 Dedicate nations for war against her:
the king of the Medes,
Its governors and all its officers,
every land in its domain.
29 The earth quakes and writhes,
the Lord’s plan against Babylon is carried out,
Turning the land of Babylon
into a wasteland without inhabitants.
30 Babylon’s warriors have ceased to fight,
they remain in their strongholds;
Dried up is their strength,
they have become women.
Burned down are their homes,
broken their gates.
31 One runner meets another,
herald meets herald,
Telling the king of Babylon
that his entire city has been taken.(R)
32 The fords have been seized,
marshes set on fire,
warriors panic.
33 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:
Daughter Babylon is like a threshing floor
at the time of treading;
Yet a little while,
and the harvest time will come for her.(S)
34 “He consumed me, defeated me,
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon;
he left me like an empty vessel,
Swallowed me like a sea monster,
filled his belly with my delicacies and cast me out.
35 Let my torn flesh be visited upon Babylon,”
says enthroned Zion;
“My blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
says Jerusalem.
36 But now, thus says the Lord:
I will certainly defend your cause,
I will certainly avenge you;
I will dry up her sea,
and drain her fountain.
37 Babylon shall become a heap of ruins,
a haunt of jackals;
A place of horror and hissing,
without inhabitants.(T)
38 They roar like lions,
growl like lion cubs.(U)
39 When they are parched, I will set drink before them
to make them drunk, that they may be overcome
with everlasting sleep, never to awaken—
oracle of the Lord.
40 I will bring them down like lambs to slaughter,
like rams and goats.
41 How she has been seized, taken captive,
the glory of the whole world!
What a horror Babylon has become among the nations:(V)
42 against Babylon the sea rises,
she is overwhelmed by roaring waves!
43 Her cities have become wasteland,
a parched and arid land
Where no one lives,
no one passes through.
44 I will punish Bel in Babylon,
and make him vomit up what he swallowed;
nations shall no longer stream to him.
Even the wall of Babylon falls!
45 Leave her, my people; each of you save your own life
from the burning wrath of the Lord.
46 Do not be discouraged when rumors spread through the land; this year one rumor comes, next year another: “Violence in the land!” or “Ruler against ruler!”(W) 47 Realize that the days are coming when I will punish the idols of Babylon; the whole land shall be put to shame, all her slain shall fall in her midst. 48 Then heaven and earth and everything in them shall shout over Babylon with joy, when the destroyers come against her from the north—oracle of the Lord.(X) 49 Babylon, too, must fall, you slain of Israel, because by the hand of Babylon the slain of all the earth have fallen.
50 You who have escaped the sword,
go, do not stand idle;
Remember the Lord from far away,
let Jerusalem come to mind.
51 We are ashamed because we have heard taunts,
disgrace covers our faces;
strangers have entered sanctuaries in the Lord’s house.(Y)
52 Therefore see, the days are coming—oracle of the Lord—
when I will punish her idols,
and throughout the land the wounded will groan.
53 Though Babylon scale the heavens,
and make her strong heights inaccessible,
my destroyers shall reach her—oracle of the Lord.(Z)
54 A sound of crying from Babylon,
great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans;
55 For the Lord lays Babylon waste,
silences her loud cry,
Waves roaring like mighty waters,
a clamor resounding.
56 For the destroyer comes upon her, upon Babylon;
warriors are captured, their bows broken;
The Lord is a God of recompense,
he will surely repay.(AA)
57 I will make her princes and sages drunk, with her governors, officers, and warriors, so that they sleep an everlasting sleep, never to awaken—oracle of the King, whose name is Lord of hosts.
58 Thus says the Lord of hosts:
The walls of spacious Babylon shall be leveled to the ground,
its lofty gates destroyed by fire.
The toil of the peoples is for nothing;
the nations weary themselves for what the flames consume.(AB)
The Prophecy Sent to Babylon. 59 The mission Jeremiah the prophet gave to Seraiah,[d] son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon with King Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the fourth year of his reign; Seraiah was chief quartermaster. 60 Jeremiah wrote down on one scroll the disaster that would befall Babylon;[e] all these words were written against Babylon. 61 And Jeremiah said to Seraiah: “When you reach Babylon, see that you read all these words aloud,(AC) 62 and then say: Lord, you yourself spoke against this place in order to cut it down so that nothing, human being or beast, could live in it, because it is to remain a wasteland forever. 63 When you have finished reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the Euphrates,(AD) 64 and say: Thus Babylon shall sink. It will never rise, because of the disaster I am bringing upon it.” Thus far the words of Jeremiah.
IX. Historical Appendix[f]
Chapter 52
Capture of Jerusalem. 1 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king; he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.(AE) His mother’s name was Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah. 2 He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done. 3 Indeed, the things done in Jerusalem and in Judah so angered the Lord that he cast them out from his presence. Thus Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 4 (AF)In the tenth month of the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the month,[g] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his entire army advanced against Jerusalem, encamped around it, and built siege walls on every side. 5 The siege of the city continued until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
6 On the ninth day of the fourth month, when famine had gripped the city and the people had no more bread, 7 the city walls were breached. All the soldiers fled and left the city by night through the gate between the two walls which was near the king’s garden. With the Chaldeans surrounding the city, they went in the direction of the Arabah. 8 But the Chaldean army pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the wilderness near Jericho; his whole army fled from him.
9 The king, therefore, was arrested and brought to Riblah, in the land of Hamath, to the king of Babylon, who pronounced judgment on him. 10 As Zedekiah looked on, the king of Babylon slaughtered his sons before his eyes! All the nobles of Judah were slaughtered at Riblah. 11 And the eyes of Zedekiah he then blinded, bound him with chains, and the king of Babylon brought him to Babylon and kept him in prison until the day he died.
Destruction of Jerusalem. 12 On the tenth day of the fifth month, this was in the nineteenth year[h] of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, captain of the bodyguard, came to Jerusalem as the representative of the king of Babylon. 13 He burned the house of the Lord, the palace of the king, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every large building he destroyed with fire. 14 Then the Chaldean troops with the captain of the guard tore down all the walls that surrounded Jerusalem.
15 Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, led into exile the remnant of people left in the city, those who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the artisans. 16 But Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, left behind some of the country’s poor as vinedressers and farmers.
17 The bronze pillars that belonged to the house of the Lord, and the wheeled carts and the bronze sea in the house of the Lord, the Chaldeans broke into pieces; they carried away all the bronze to Babylon. 18 They also took the pots, shovels, snuffers, bowls, pans, and all the bronze vessels used for service; 19 the basins, fire holders, bowls, pots, lampstands, pans, the sacrificial bowls made of gold or silver. Along with these furnishings the captain of the guard carried off 20 the two pillars, the one sea and its base of twelve oxen cast in bronze, and the wheeled carts King Solomon had commissioned for the house of the Lord. The bronze from all these furnishings was impossible to weigh.
21 As for the pillars, each of them was eighteen cubits high and twelve cubits in diameter; each was four fingers thick and hollow inside. 22 A bronze capital five cubits high crowned the one pillar, and a network with pomegranates encircled the capital, all of bronze; and so for the other pillar, with pomegranates. 23 There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides, a hundred pomegranates surrounding the network.
24 The captain of the guard also took Seraiah the high priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the entrance. 25 From the city he took one courtier, a commander of soldiers, and seven men in the personal service of the king still in the city, the scribe of the army commander who mustered the people of the land, and sixty of the common people remaining in the city. 26 The captain of the guard, Nebuzaradan, arrested them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah, 27 who had them struck down and executed in Riblah, in the land of Hamath.
Thus Judah was exiled from the land. 28 [i]This is the number of people Nebuchadnezzar led away captive: in his seventh year, three thousand twenty-three people of Judah; 29 in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, eight hundred thirty-two persons from Jerusalem; 30 in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, deported seven hundred forty-five Judahites: four thousand six hundred persons in all.
Favor Shown to Jehoiachin.[j] 31 (AG)In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, in the inaugural year of his reign, raised up Jehoiachin, king of Judah, and released him from prison. 32 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a throne higher than the thrones of the other kings[k] who were with him in Babylon. 33 Jehoiachin took off his prison garb and ate at the king’s table as long as he lived. 34 The allowance given him by the king of Babylon was a perpetual allowance, in fixed daily amounts, all the days of his life until the day of his death.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.