12  What a comedown this, O Babylon!

Daystar! Son of Dawn!

Flat on your face in the underworld mud,

you, famous for flattening nations!

13–14  You said to yourself,

“I’ll climb to heaven.

I’ll set my throne

over the stars of God.

I’ll run the assembly of angels

that meets on sacred Mount Zaphon.

I’ll climb to the top of the clouds.

I’ll take over as King of the Universe!”

15–17  But you didn’t make it, did you?

Instead of climbing up, you came down—

Down with the underground dead,

down to the abyss of the Pit.

People will stare and muse:

“Can this be the one

Who terrorized earth and its kingdoms,

turned earth to a moonscape,

Wasted its cities,

shut up his prisoners to a living death?”

18–20  Other kings get a decent burial,

honored with eulogies and placed in a tomb.

But you’re dumped in a ditch unburied,

like a stray dog or cat,

Covered with rotting bodies,

murdered and indigent corpses.

Your dead body desecrated, mutilated—

no state funeral for you!

You’ve left your land in ruins,

left a legacy of massacre.

The progeny of your evil life

will never be named. Oblivion!

21  Get a place ready to slaughter the sons of the wicked

and wipe out their father’s line.

Unthinkable that they should own a square foot of land

or desecrate the face of the world with their cities!