Old/New Testament
51 The Lord says: I will stir up a destroyer against Babylon, against that whole land of the Chaldeans, and destroy it. 2 Winnowers shall come and winnow her and blow her away; they shall come from every side to rise against her in her day of trouble. 3 The arrows of the enemy shall strike down the bowmen of Babylon and pierce her warriors in their coats of mail. No one shall be spared; both young and old alike shall be destroyed. 4 They shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, slashed to death in her streets. 5 For the Lord Almighty has not forsaken Israel and Judah. He is still their God, but the land of the Chaldeans[a] is filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel.
6 Flee from Babylon! Save yourselves! Don’t get trapped! If you stay, you will be destroyed when God takes his vengeance on all of Babylon’s sins. 7 Babylon has been as a gold cup in the Lord’s hands, a cup from which he made the whole earth drink and go mad. 8 But now, suddenly Babylon too has fallen. Weep for her; give her medicine; perhaps she can yet be healed. 9 We would help her if we could, but nothing can save her now. Let her go. Abandon her and return to your own land, for God is judging her from heaven. 10 The Lord has vindicated us. Come, let us declare in Jerusalem all the Lord our God has done.
11 Sharpen the arrows! Lift up the shields! For the Lord has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes to march on Babylon and destroy her. This is his vengeance on those who wronged his people and desecrated his Temple. 12 Prepare your defenses, Babylon! Set many watchmen on your walls; send out an ambush, for the Lord will do all he has said he would concerning Babylon. 13 O wealthy port, great center of commerce, your end has come; the thread of your life is cut. 14 The Lord Almighty has taken this vow and sworn to it in his own name: Your cities shall be filled with enemies, like fields filled with locusts in a plague, and they shall lift to the skies their mighty shouts of victory.
15 God made the earth by his power and wisdom. He stretched out the heavens by his understanding. 16 When he speaks, there is thunder in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to rise around the world; he brings the lightning with the rain and the winds from his treasuries. 17 Compared to him, all men are stupid beasts. They have no wisdom—none at all! The silversmith is dulled by the images he makes, for in making them he lies; for he calls them gods when there is not a breath of life in them at all! 18 Idols are nothing! They are lies! And the time is coming when God will come and see, and shall destroy them all. 19 But the God of Israel is no idol! For he made everything there is, and Israel is his nation; the Lord Almighty is his name.
20 Cyrus is[b] God’s battleaxe and sword. I will use you, says the Lord, to break nations in pieces and to destroy many kingdoms. 21 With you I will crush armies, destroying the horse and his rider, the chariot and the charioteer— 22 yes, and the civilians too, both old and young, young men and maidens, 23 shepherds and flocks, farmers and oxen, captains and rulers; 24 before your eyes I will repay Babylon and all the Chaldeans for all the evil they have done to my people, says the Lord.
25 For see, I am against you, O mighty mountain, Babylon, destroyer of the earth! I will lift my hand against you, roll you down from your heights, and leave you, a burnt-out mountain. 26 You shall be desolate forever;[c] even your stones shall never be used for building again. You shall be completely wiped out.
27 Signal many nations to mobilize for war on Babylon. Sound the battle cry; bring out the armies of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a leader; bring a multitude of horses! 28 Bring against her the armies of the kings of the Medes and their generals, and the armies of all the countries they rule.
29 Babylon trembles and writhes in pain, for all that the Lord has planned against her stands unchanged. Babylon will be left desolate without a living soul. 30 Her mightiest soldiers no longer fight; they stay in their barracks. Their courage is gone; they have become as women. The invaders have burned the houses and broken down the city gates. 31 Messengers from every side come running to the king to tell him all is lost! 32 All the escape routes are blocked; the fortifications are burning, and the army is in panic.
33 For the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Babylon is like the wheat upon a threshing floor; in just a little while the flailing will begin.
34-35 The Jews in Babylon say, “Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has eaten and crushed us and emptied out our strength; he has swallowed us like a great monster and filled his belly with our riches; he has cast us out of our own country. May Babylon be repaid for all she did to us! May she be paid in full for all our blood she spilled!”
36 And the Lord replies: I will be your lawyer; I will plead your case; I will avenge you. I will dry up her river, her water supply, 37 and Babylon shall become a heap of ruins, haunted by jackals, a land horrible to see, incredible, without a living soul. 38 In their drunken feasts, the men of Babylon roar like lions. 39 And while they lie inflamed with all their wine, I will prepare a different kind of feast for them and make them drink until they fall unconscious to the floor, to sleep forever, never to waken again, says the Lord. 40 I will bring them like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and goats.
41 How Babylon is fallen—great Babylon, lauded by all the earth! The world can scarcely believe its eyes at Babylon’s fall! 42 The sea has risen upon Babylon; she is covered by its waves. 43 Her cities lie in ruins—she is a dry wilderness where no one lives nor even travelers pass by. 44 And I will punish Bel, the god of Babylon, and pull from his mouth what he has taken. The nations shall no longer come and worship him; the wall of Babylon has fallen.
45 O my people, flee from Babylon; save yourselves from the fierce anger of the Lord. 46 But don’t panic when you hear the first rumor of approaching forces. For rumors will keep coming year by year. Then there will be a time of civil war as the governors of Babylon fight against each other. 47 For the time is surely coming when I will punish this great city and all her idols; her dead shall lie in the streets. 48 Heaven and earth shall rejoice, for out of the north shall come destroying armies against Babylon, says the Lord. 49 Just as Babylon killed the people of Israel, so must she be killed. 50 Go, you who escaped the sword! Don’t stand and watch—flee while you can! Remember the Lord and return to Jerusalem far away!
51 “We are ashamed because the Temple of the Lord has been defiled by foreigners from Babylon.”
52 Yes, says the Lord. But the time is coming for the destruction of the idols of Babylon. All through the land will be heard the groans of the wounded. 53 Though Babylon be as powerful as heaven, though she increase her strength immeasurably, she shall die, says the Lord.
54 Listen! Hear the cry of great destruction out of Babylon, the land the Chaldeans rule! 55 For the Lord is destroying Babylon; her mighty voice is stilled as the waves roar in upon her. 56 Destroying armies come and slay her mighty men; all her weapons break in her hands, for the Lord God gives just punishment and is giving Babylon all her due. 57 I will make drunk her princes, wise men, rulers, captains, warriors. They shall sleep and not wake up again! So says the King, the Lord Almighty. 58 For the wide walls of Babylon shall be leveled to the ground, and her high gates shall be burned; the builders from many lands have worked in vain—their work shall be destroyed by fire!
59 During the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign, this message came to Jeremiah to give to Seraiah (son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah), concerning Seraiah’s capture[d] and exile to Babylon along with Zedekiah, king of Judah. (Seraiah was quartermaster of Zedekiah’s army.) 60 Jeremiah wrote on a scroll all the terrible things God had scheduled against Babylon—all the words written above— 61-62 and gave the scroll to Seraiah and said to him, “When you get to Babylon, read what I have written and say, ‘Lord, you have said that you will destroy Babylon so that not a living creature will remain, and it will be abandoned forever.’ 63 Then, when you have finished reading the scroll, tie a rock to it, and throw it into the Euphrates River, 64 and say, ‘So shall Babylon sink, never more to rise, because of the evil I am bringing upon her.’”
(This ends Jeremiah’s messages.)
52 (Events told about in chapter 39.)
Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal (daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah). 2 But he was a wicked king, just as Jehoiakim had been. 3 Things became so bad at last that the Lord, in his anger, saw to it that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon until he and the people of Israel were ejected from the Lord’s presence in Jerusalem and Judah, and were taken away as captives to Babylon.
4 In the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came with all his army against Jerusalem and built forts around it, 5 and laid siege to the city for two years. 6 Then finally, on the ninth day of the fourth month, when the famine in the city was very serious, with the last of the food entirely gone, 7 the people in the city tore a hole in the city wall and all the soldiers fled from the city during the night, going out by the gate between the two walls near the king’s gardens (for the city was surrounded by the Chaldeans), and made a dash for it across the fields, toward Arabah.
8 But the Chaldean soldiers chased them and caught King Zedekiah in some fields near Jericho—for all his army was scattered from him. 9 They brought him to the king of Babylon who was staying in the city of Riblah in the kingdom of Hamath, and there judgment was passed upon him. 10 He made Zedekiah watch while his sons and all the princes of Judah were killed before his eyes. 11 Then his eyes were gouged out, and he was taken in chains to Babylon and put in prison for the rest of his life.
12 On the tenth day of the fifth month during the nineteenth year[e] of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, arrived in Jerusalem, 13 and burned the Temple and the palace and all the larger homes, 14 and set the Chaldean army to work tearing down the walls of the city. 15 Then he took to Babylon, as captives, some of the poorest of the people—along with those who survived the city’s destruction, and those who had deserted Zedekiah and had come over to the Babylonian army, and the tradesmen who were left. 16 But he left some of the poorest people to care for the crops as vinedressers and plowmen.
17 The Babylonians dismantled the two large bronze pillars that stood at the entrance of the Temple, and the bronze laver and bronze bulls on which it stood, and carted them off to Babylon. 18 And he took along all the bronze pots and kettles, the ash shovels used at the altar, the snuffers, spoons, bowls, and all the other items used in the Temple. 19 He also took the firepans, the solid gold and silver candlesticks, and the cups and bowls.
20 The weight of the two enormous pillars, the laver, and twelve bulls was tremendous. They had no way of estimating it. (They had been made in the days of King Solomon.) 21 For the pillars were each 27 feet high and 18 feet in circumference, hollow, with 3-inch walls. 22 The top 7-1/2 feet of each column had bronze carvings, a network of bronze pomegranates. 23 There were 96 pomegranates on the sides, and on the network round about there were a hundred more.
24-25 The captain of the guard took along with him as his prisoners: Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah his assistant, the three chief Temple guards, one of the commanding officers of the army, seven of the king’s special counselors discovered in the city, the secretary of the general-in-chief of the Jewish army (who was in charge of recruitment), and sixty other men of importance found hiding. 26 He took them to the king of Babylon at Riblah, 27 where the king killed them all.
So it was that Judah’s exile was accomplished.
28 The number of captives taken to Babylon in the seventh year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign was 3,023. 29 Then, eleven years later, he took 832 more; 30 five years after that he sent Nebuzaradan, his captain of the guard, and took 745—a total of 4,600 captives in all.
31 On February 25 of the thirty-seventh year of the imprisonment in Babylon of Jehoiachin, king of Judah, Evil-merodach, who became king of Babylon that year, was kind to King Jehoiachin and brought him out of prison. 32 He spoke pleasantly to him and gave him preference over all the other kings in Babylon; 33 he gave him new clothes and fed him from the king’s kitchen as long as he lived. 34 And he was given a regular allowance to cover his daily needs until the day of his death.
9 1-2 Now in that first agreement between God and his people there were rules for worship and there was a sacred tent down here on earth. Inside this place of worship there were two rooms. The first one contained the golden candlestick and a table with special loaves of holy bread upon it; this part was called the Holy Place. 3 Then there was a curtain, and behind the curtain was a room called the Holy of Holies. 4 In that room there were a golden incense-altar and the golden chest, called the ark of the covenant, completely covered on all sides with pure gold. Inside the ark were the tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments written on them, and a golden jar with some manna in it, and Aaron’s wooden cane that budded. 5 Above the golden chest were statues of angels called the cherubim—the guardians of God’s glory—with their wings stretched out over the ark’s golden cover, called the mercy seat. But enough of such details.
6 Well, when all was ready, the priests went in and out of the first room whenever they wanted to, doing their work. 7 But only the high priest went into the inner room, and then only once a year, all alone, and always with blood that he sprinkled on the mercy seat as an offering to God to cover his own mistakes and sins and the mistakes and sins of all the people.
8 And the Holy Spirit uses all this to point out to us that under the old system the common people could not go into the Holy of Holies as long as the outer room and the entire system it represents were still in use.
9 This has an important lesson for us today. For under the old system, gifts and sacrifices were offered, but these failed to cleanse the hearts of the people who brought them. 10 For the old system dealt only with certain rituals—what foods to eat and drink, rules for washing themselves, and rules about this and that. The people had to keep these rules to tide them over until Christ came with God’s new and better way.
11 He came as High Priest of this better system that we now have. He went into that greater, perfect tabernacle in heaven, not made by men nor part of this world, 12 and once for all took blood into that inner room, the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it on the mercy seat; but it was not the blood of goats and calves. No, he took his own blood, and with it he, by himself, made sure of our eternal salvation.
13 And if under the old system the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of young cows could cleanse men’s bodies from sin, 14 just think how much more surely the blood of Christ will transform our lives and hearts. His sacrifice frees us from the worry of having to obey the old rules and makes us want to serve the living God. For by the help of the eternal Holy Spirit, Christ willingly gave himself to God to die for our sins—he being perfect, without a single sin or fault. 15 Christ came with this new agreement so that all who are invited may come and have forever all the wonders God has promised them. For Christ died to rescue them from the penalty of the sins they had committed while still under that old system.
16 Now, if someone dies and leaves a will—a list of things to be given away to certain people when he dies—no one gets anything until it is proved that the person who wrote the will is dead. 17 The will goes into effect only after the death of the person who wrote it. While he is still alive no one can use it to get any of those things he has promised them.
18 That is why blood was sprinkled as proof of Christ’s death[a] before even the first agreement could go into effect. 19 For after Moses had given the people all of God’s laws, he took the blood of calves and goats, along with water, and sprinkled the blood over the book of God’s laws and over all the people, using branches of hyssop bushes and scarlet wool to sprinkle with. 20 Then he said, “This is the blood that marks the beginning of the agreement between you and God, the agreement God commanded me to make with you.” 21 And in the same way he sprinkled blood on the sacred tent and on whatever instruments were used for worship. 22 In fact we can say that under the old agreement almost everything was cleansed by sprinkling it with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.
23 That is why the sacred tent down here on earth and everything in it—all copied from things in heaven—all had to be made pure by Moses in this way, by being sprinkled with the blood of animals. But the real things in heaven, of which these down here are copies, were made pure with far more precious offerings.
24 For Christ has entered into heaven itself to appear now before God as our Friend. It was not in the earthly place of worship that he did this, for that was merely a copy of the real temple in heaven. 25 Nor has he offered himself again and again, as the high priest down here on earth offers animal blood in the Holy of Holies each year. 26 If that had been necessary, then he would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But no! He came once for all, at the end of the age, to put away the power of sin forever by dying for us.
27 And just as it is destined that men die only once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so also Christ died only once as an offering for the sins of many people; and he will come again, but not to deal again with our sins.
This time he will come bringing salvation to all those who are eagerly and patiently waiting for him.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.