⁹I will send for all the peoples of the north,” says the Lord, “along with my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. I will bring them all against Judah, those who live there, and all the nations around you, too. I will completely destroy all those countries and leave them in ruins forever. People will be shocked when they see how badly I have destroyed those countries. ¹⁰I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and happiness, the sounds of brides and bridegrooms, and the sound of people grinding meal. And I will take away the light of the lamp. ¹¹That whole area will be an empty desert, and these nations will be slaves of the king of Babylon for seventy years.

¹²“But when the seventy years have passed, I will punish the king of Babylon and his entire nation for their evil,” says the Lord. “I will make that land a desert forever. ¹³I will make happen all the terrible things I said about Babylonia—everything Jeremiah prophesied about all those foreign nations, the warnings written in this book. ¹⁴Even the Babylonians will have to serve many nations and many great kings. I will give them the punishment they deserve for all their own hands have done.”

Judgment on the Nations

¹⁵The Lord, the God of Israel, said this to me: “My anger is like the wine in a cup. Take it from my hand and make all the nations, to whom I am sending you, drink all of my anger from this cup. ¹⁶They will drink my anger and stumble about and act like madmen because of the war I am going to send among them.”

¹⁷So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand and went to those nations and made them drink from it. ¹⁸I served this wine to the people of Jerusalem and the towns of Judah, and the kings and officers of Judah, so they would become a ruin. Then people would be shocked and would insult them and speak evil of them. And so it has been to this day. ¹⁹I also made these people drink of the Lord’s anger: the king of Egypt, his servants, his officers, all his people, ²⁰and all the foreigners there; all the kings of the land of Uz; all the kings of the Philistines (the kings of the cities of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the people left at Ashdod); ²¹the people of Edom, Moab, and Ammon; ²²all the kings of Tyre and Sidon; all the kings of the coastal countries to the west; ²³the people of Dedan and Tema and Buz; all who cut their hair short; ²⁴all the kings of Arabia; and the kings of the people who live in the desert; ²⁵all the kings of Zimri, Elam, and Media; ²⁶and all the kings of the north, near and far, one after the other. I made all the kingdoms on earth drink from the cup of the Lord’s anger, but the king of Babylon will drink from this cup after all the others.

²⁷“Then say to them, ‘This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: Drink this cup of my anger. Get drunk from it and vomit. Fall down and don’t get up because of the war I am sending among you!’

²⁸“If they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink, say to them, ‘The Lord All-Powerful says this: You must drink from this cup. ²⁹Look! I am already bringing disaster on Jerusalem, the city that is called by my name. Do you think you will not be punished? You will be punished! I am sending war on all the people of the earth, says the Lord All-Powerful.’

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