Old/New Testament
Chapter 51
Another Prophecy against Babylon
1 Thus says the Lord:
Against Babylon and the inhabitants of Chaldea
I will rouse a destructive wind.
2 I will send foreigners to Babylon
to winnow her and lay waste her land.
They will besiege her from all sides
on the day of disaster.
3 Let no archer draw his bow
or array himself in his coat of armor.
Do not spare her young men;
completely destroy her entire army.
4 Let them be slain in the land of the Chaldeans,
lying mortally wounded in her streets.
5 For Israel and Judah have not been forsaken
by their God, the Lord of hosts,
although their land is full of guilt
that will not be ignored by the Holy One of Israel.
6 Flee from Babylon!
Save your lives, each one of you!
Do not perish for her guilt.
This is the time of vengeance for the Lord;
he will exact full recompense for their deeds.
7 Babylon was a golden cup
in the hand of the Lord,
and she made the entire earth drunk.
The nations drank her wine,
and now they have gone mad.
8 Suddenly Babylon has fallen and is shattered.
Wail for her.
Fetch balm for her wounds;
perhaps she can be cured.
9 We tried to heal Babylon,
but she cannot be healed.
Leave her and let us depart,
each one to his own land.
For her judgment reaches up to heaven
and touches the clouds.
10 The Lord has made clear our vindication.
Come, let us proclaim in Zion
what the Lord, our God, has done.
11 Sharpen the arrows;
fill the quivers.
The Lord has stirred up
the spirit of the kings of the Medes
because he is determined to destroy Babylon.
This will be the vengeance of the Lord,
vengeance for his temple.
12 Raise the standard against the walls of Babylon.
Strengthen the watch.
Post sentinels and prepare ambushes,
for the Lord has both planned and will carry out
his threat against the inhabitants of Babylon.
13 You lands that lie on the shores of abundant waters
and are rich in treasures,
your end has now come,
the cessation of your power.
14 The Lord of hosts has sworn by himself,
“I will fill you with enemies
as numerous as a swarm of locusts,
and they will raise a shout of victory over you.”
15 By his power, he made the earth;
by his wisdom, he established the world;
by his discernment, he stretched out the heavens.
16 When he thunders,
there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
and he causes the clouds to rise
from the farthest ends of the earth.
He sends forth lightning with the rain,
and he brings out the wind from his storehouses.
17 Everyone is stupid and lacking in knowledge;
goldsmiths are put to shame by their idols,
for the images they cast are a sham,
with no breath of life in them.
18 They devise worthless objects of mockery;
at the time of judgment, they will perish.
19 Not like these is the portion of Jacob,
for he is the Creator of all things,
and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance;
the Lord of hosts is his name.
20 You are my war club,
my weapon in battle.
With you I shatter nations,
with you I destroy kingdoms.
21 With you I crush horse and rider,
with you I crush chariot and charioteer.
22 With you I crush man and woman,
with you I crush old and young,
with you I crush youth and maiden.
23 With you I crush shepherd and flock,
with you I crush the plowman and his team,
with you I crush governors and magistrates.
24 Thus will I repay Babylon
and all the inhabitants of Chaldea
for all the wrongs that they have done in Zion
before your very eyes, says the Lord.
25 I am against you, O mountain of destruction,
destroyer of the entire earth, says the Lord.
I will stretch forth my hand against you,
send you tumbling down from the cliffs,
and make you a burned-out mountain.
26 No rock will be taken from you
to be used for a cornerstone,
nor any stone for a foundation,
for you will be forever desolate,
says the Lord.
27 Raise a standard throughout the earth.
Blow the trumpet among the nations.
Consecrate nations for war against her.
Summon against her these kingdoms:
Ararat,[a] Minni, and Ashkenaz.
Appoint a commander against her.
Bring forward horses bristling like locusts.
28 Consecrate nations for war against her:
the kings of Media,
its governors and magistrates,
and all the lands under their rule.
29 The earth trembles and writhes
as the Lord’s plan against Babylon is carried out,
turning the land of Babylon into a desert waste.
30 The warriors of Babylon have ceased to fight;
they remain in their strongholds.
Their courage has failed;
they are now like women.
Their buildings have been set on fire,
and their gates are shattered.
31 One courier appears after another,
and one messenger follows another,
to inform the king of Babylon
that his entire city has been taken.
32 The river crossings have been seized,
the marshes have been set afire,
and the soldiers are overcome with terror.
33 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:
The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor
at the time it is being trodden.
Yet it will only be a short while
before the time of her harvest will come.
34 “King Nebuchadnezzar has devoured us;
he has routed us
and set us aside like an empty dish.
Like a serpent he has swallowed us,
filled his stomach with our delicacies,
and then spewed us out.
35 May our torn flesh be avenged on Babylon,”
the inhabitants of Zion say.
“May my blood be avenged
on the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
Jerusalem says.
36 Therefore, thus says the Lord:
I will take up your cause
and ensure that you will be avenged.
I will dry up her sea[b]
and cause her springs to run dry.
37 Babylon will become a heap of ruins,
a haunt of jackals,
an object of horror and scorn,
where no one lives.
38 Like lions they roar together
and growl like lion cubs.
39 But when they are afflicted with fever,
I will set a drink before them
and cause them to become drunk
so that they will sink into an unending sleep,
never to awaken again, says the Lord.
40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
like rams and goats.
41 Babylon has been seized and conquered,
she who was the pride of the entire world.
What an object of horror
has Babylon become among the nations.
42 The sea has surged over Babylon,
covering her with its roaring waves.
43 Her cities have become desert wastelands,
nothing more than parched and arid land,
an area in which no one lives
and through which no one passes.
44 I will punish Bel in Babylon
and compel him to spew out what he has swallowed.
The nations will no longer stream to him;
the wall of Babylon has fallen.
45 Leave her, my people.
Save your lives, each one of you,
from the fierce anger of the Lord.
46 Do not become faint-hearted or fearful
at various rumors that are heard in the land.
One year a certain rumor will spread,
the next year another one,
with rumors of possible violence in the land
and of conflicts between rulers.
47 But behold, the days are coming
when I will punish the idols of Babylon;
her entire territory will be put to shame,
and all her slain warriors
will lie fallen within her borders.
48 The heavens and the earth
and all that are in them
will shout for joy in regard to Babylon,
for marauders will descend from the north
and attack her, says the Lord.
49 Babylon, too, must fall
because of the slain of Israel,
just as the slain of all the earth
have fallen at the hands of Babylon.
50 You who have escaped the sword,
leave and do not linger.
Remember the Lord from afar,
and let Jerusalem remain in your thoughts.
51 We have been put to shame
because of the insults we have endured.
Our faces were covered in confusion
because foreigners have dared to enter
the holy places of the Lord’s house.
52 However, the days are surely coming,
says the Lord,
when I will punish her idols,
and the wounded will groan
throughout all her land.
53 Even if Babylon were to scale the heavens
and reinforce her inaccessible citadel,
I would send forth destroyers,
and they would come to her.
54 Agonized cries can be heard from Babylon,
and sounds of great destruction
from the land of the Chaldeans.
55 For the Lord is laying waste to Babylon
and stilling her loud cries of anguish.
Massive waves of enemies will roar like mighty waters,
and their clamor will be heard from afar.
56 A destroying force is moving against Babylon;
her warriors are captured,
and their bows are broken.
For the Lord is a God of retribution,
and he never fails to repay in full.
57 I will make her princes and her wise men drunk,
as well as her governors,
her prefects and her warriors.
They will sink into an unending sleep,
never to awaken again,
says the King whose name is the Lord of hosts.
58 [c]Thus says the Lord of hosts:
The thick walls of Babylon will be leveled to the ground,
and her lofty gates will be destroyed by fire.
Thus the peoples exhaust themselves for nothing,
and the nations weary themselves only for the flames.
59 Destruction of Babylon Foretold. This is the message that the prophet Jeremiah gave to the quartermaster Seraiah,[d] the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon with King Zedekiah of Judah in the fourth year of his reign.
60 Jeremiah had enumerated on a scroll all of the disasters that would befall Babylon—everything that had been recorded in regard to Babylon. 61 He said to Seraiah, “When you reach Babylon, make sure that you read all these words aloud. 62 Then say, ‘O Lord, you yourself declared your firm resolve to destroy this place so that neither man nor beast will ever live here again; it will be a desolate waste forever.’
63 “When you have finished reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and cast it into the middle of the Euphrates. 64 Then say, ‘In the same way will Babylon sink, never again to rise because of the disaster I intend to inflict upon her.’ ”
Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.
Historical Appendix
Chapter 52[e]
The Siege of Jerusalem. 1 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 2 He did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as Jehoiakim had done. 3 Indeed Jerusalem and Judah so aroused the anger of the Lord that he cast them away from his presence.
Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. 4 Therefore, in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, advanced against Jerusalem with his entire army. They encamped around the city and constructed siege-works against it on every side. 5 The city remained under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.
6 On the ninth day of the fourth month there was such a severe famine in the city that there was no food available for the people to eat. 7 Then a breach was made in the city wall, and all of the soldiers fled, departing from the city under the cover of darkness by the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden, and they set off in the direction of the Arabah, even though the Chaldeans were surrounding the city. 8 The army of the Chaldeans set off in pursuit of the king, and they overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, while his army deserted him and scattered in all directions.
9 After Zedekiah was captured, he was taken to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where the king of Babylon passed sentence on him. 10 He had the sons of Zedekiah slaughtered before their father’s eyes, and he also put to death the princes of Judah at Riblah. 11 Then the king of Babylon put out the eyes of Zedekiah, bound him in fetters, and took him to Babylon, confining him in prison until the day of his death.
12 The Fall of Jerusalem. On the tenth day of the fifth month—this was in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, arrived at Jerusalem as the representative of the king of Babylon. 13 He burned to the ground the house of the Lord, the royal palace, and all the houses of Jerusalem. Every large house he ordered to be set afire. 14 Meanwhile, all the Chaldean troops who had accompanied the captain of the guard demolished the walls that surrounded Jerusalem.
15 Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, led into exile some of the poorest people and those who remained in the city, those deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon, and the remaining artisans. 16 However, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, left behind some of the poorest people of the land to serve as vinedressers and farmers.
17 The Chaldeans broke up into pieces the pillars of bronze that were in the house of the Lord, and the wheeled stand and the bronze sea that were in the house of the Lord, and they carried away all the bronze to Babylon. 18 They removed the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the basins, the ladles, and all the bronze vessels used in worship. 19 The captain of the guard also took away the small bowls, the censers, the sprinkling bowls, the ash containers, the lampstands, the goblets, and the saucers—everything that was made of gold or of silver.
20 The bronze of the two pillars, of the one sea, and of the twelve oxen under the sea, and the wheeled stands that King Solomon had ordered to be made for the house of the Lord, encompassed more than could be weighed. 21 Each of the pillars was eighteen cubits high, and the circumference of each was twelve cubits; although it was hollow inside, its thickness was four fingers. 22 Upon it was a capital of bronze. The height of each capital was five cubits, encircled at the top of the capital with latticework and bronze pomegranates. 23 There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides, with one hundred pomegranates encircling the latticework.
24 The captain of the guard took as prisoners the chief priest Seraiah, Zephaniah, who was the next highest in rank, and the three guardians of the threshold. 25 He also took from the city an officer who had been in command of the soldiers, seven members of the king’s council who were discovered in the city, the secretary of the army commander who mustered the people of the land, and sixty of the common people who had not departed from the city.
26 Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, arrested these men and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 27 There at Riblah, in the land of Hamath, the king of Babylon ordered them to be executed. Thus Judah went into captivity after being deported from its own land.
28 [f]This is the number of people whom Nebuchadnezzar led away into exile: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Judeans; 29 in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, eight hundred and thirty-two people were deported from Jerusalem; 30 in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took into exile seven hundred and forty-five Judeans. Thus there was a total of four thousand six hundred persons.
31 Honor Bestowed on Jehoiachin. In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin, the king of Judah, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-merodach, the king of Babylon, in the year he ascended the throne, pardoned Jehoia-chin, the king of Judah and ordered him to be released from prison. 32 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor above the seats of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.
33 Jehoiachin laid aside his prison clothes, and for the rest of his life, he always dined at the king’s table. 34 In addition, the king of Babylon granted him a regular daily allowance for as long as he lived, up to the day of his death.
Chapter 9
The Ancient Worship.[a] 1 Now the first covenant also had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. 2 For a tabernacle was constructed. In the outer section, called the Holy Place, were located the lampstand, the table, and the consecrated bread.
3 Behind the second veil was the tabernacle called the Holy of Holies 4 in which stood the gold altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold. In that ark were the gold jar containing the manna, and Aaron’s staff that had sprouted buds, and the tablets of the covenant. 5 Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the place of atonement (but we cannot discuss these things in detail now). 6 With these arrangements for worship having been made, the priests continually enter the first tabernacle to carry out their ritual duties. 7 However, the high priest alone enters the second tabernacle, and he can do so only once a year, and not without the blood that he offers for himself and for the errors that the people had committed.
8 By this the Holy Spirit reveals to us that as long as the first tabernacle remains standing, the way into the sanctuary has not been disclosed. 9 This is a symbol of the present time, during which the gifts and sacrifices that are offered are unable to cleanse the conscience of the worshiper. 10 They deal only with food and drink and various ceremonial washings, regulations in regard to the body that are imposed until the coming of the new order.
11 Christ Has Come.[b] But now Christ has arrived as the high priest of the good things that have come. He has passed through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by human hands, that is, not a part of this creation, 12 and he has entered once for all into the sanctuary not with the blood of goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.
13 The blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of ashes of a heifer sanctify those who have been defiled and restore bodily purity. 14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from acts that lead to death so that we may worship the living God.
15 A Covenant Sealed with the Blood of Christ.[c] For this reason, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who have been called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since his death has served to redeem the sins that were committed under the first covenant.
16 Now when a will is involved, it is obligatory to prove the death of the one who made it. 17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it has no force while the one who made it is still alive.
18 Hence, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. 19 For when all the commandments of the Law had been proclaimed by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, together with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God has commanded you to observe.”
21 And in the same way, he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the liturgical vessels. 22 Indeed, under the Law almost everything is purified by blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
23 Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves required still greater sacrifices.
24 Once and for All.[d] For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, so that he now appears in the presence of God on our behalf.
25 Nor was it his purpose to offer himself again and again, as the high priest enters into the sanctuary year after year with the blood that is not his own. 26 For then he would have had to suffer over and over again since the creation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once and for all at the end of the ages to abolish sin by sacrificing himself.
27 And just as human beings are destined to die but once, and after that to face judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to bring salvation to those who are eagerly waiting for him.
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