Jeremiah 50–51

Chapter 50

A Message about Babylon

The Lord gave Jeremiah the prophet this message concerning Babylon and the land of the Babylonians. ²This is what the Lord says:

“Tell the whole world,

and keep nothing back.

Raise a signal flag

to tell everyone that Babylon will fall!

Her images and idols will be shattered.

Her gods Bel and Marduk will be utterly disgraced.

³For a nation will attack her from the north

and bring such destruction that no one will live there again.

Everything will be gone;

both people and animals will flee.

Hope for Israel and Judah

⁴“In those coming days,”

says the Lord,

“the people of Israel will return home

together with the people of Judah.

They will come weeping

and seeking the Lord their God.

⁵They will ask the way to Jerusalem

and will start back home again.

They will bind themselves to the Lord

with an eternal covenant that will never be forgotten.

⁶“My people have been lost sheep.

Their shepherds have led them astray

and turned them loose in the mountains.

They have lost their way

and can’t remember how to get back to the sheepfold.

⁷All who found them devoured them.

Their enemies said,

‘We did nothing wrong in attacking them,

for they sinned against the Lord,

their true place of rest,

and the hope of their ancestors.’

⁸“But now, flee from Babylon!

Leave the land of the Babylonians.

Like male goats at the head of the flock,

lead my people home again.

⁹For I am raising up an army

of great nations from the north.

They will join forces to attack Babylon,

and she will be captured.

The enemies’ arrows will go straight to the mark;

they will not miss!

¹⁰Babylonia will be looted

until the attackers are glutted with loot.

I, the Lord, have spoken!

Babylon’s Sure Fall

¹¹“You rejoice and are glad,

you who plundered my chosen people.

You frisk about like a calf in a meadow

and neigh like a stallion.

¹²But your homeland will be overwhelmed

with shame and disgrace.

You will become the least of nations—

a wilderness, a dry and desolate land.

¹³Because of the Lord’s anger,

Babylon will become a deserted wasteland.

All who pass by will be horrified

and will gasp at the destruction they see there.

¹⁴“Yes, prepare to attack Babylon,

all you surrounding nations.

Let your archers shoot at her; spare no arrows.

For she has sinned against the Lord.

¹⁵Shout war cries against her from every side.

Look! She surrenders!

Her walls have fallen.

It is the Lord’s vengeance,

so take vengeance on her.

Do to her as she has done to others!

¹⁶Take from Babylon all those who plant crops;

send all the harvesters away.

Because of the sword of the enemy,

everyone will run away and rush back to their own lands.

Hope for God’s People

¹⁷“The Israelites are like sheep

that have been scattered by lions.

First the king of Assyria ate them up.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon cracked their bones.”

¹⁸Therefore, this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies,

the God of Israel, says:

“Now I will punish the king of Babylon and his land,

just as I punished the king of Assyria.

¹⁹And I will bring Israel home again to its own land,

to feed in the fields of Carmel and Bashan,

and to be satisfied once more

in the hill country of Ephraim and Gilead.

²⁰In those days,” says the Lord,

“no sin will be found in Israel or in Judah,

for I will forgive the remnant I preserve.

The Lord’s Judgment on Babylon

²¹“Go up, my warriors, against the land of Merathaim

and against the people of Pekod.

Pursue, kill, and completely destroy them,

as I have commanded you,” says the Lord.

²²“Let the battle cry be heard in the land,

a shout of great destruction.

²³Babylon, the mightiest hammer in all the earth,

lies broken and shattered.

Babylon is desolate among the nations!

²⁴Listen, Babylon, for I have set a trap for you.

You are caught, for you have fought against the Lord.

²⁵The Lord has opened his armory

and brought out weapons to vent his fury.

The terror that falls upon the Babylonians

will be the work of the Sovereign Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

²⁶Yes, come against her from distant lands.

Break open her granaries.

Crush her walls and houses into heaps of rubble.

Destroy her completely, and leave nothing!

²⁷Destroy even her young bulls—

it will be terrible for them, too!

Slaughter them all!

For Babylon’s day of reckoning has come.

²⁸Listen to the people who have escaped from Babylon,

as they tell in Jerusalem

how the Lord our God has taken vengeance

against those who destroyed his Temple.

²⁹“Send out a call for archers to come to Babylon.

Surround the city so none can escape.

Do to her as she has done to others,

for she has defied the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

³⁰Her young men will fall in the streets and die.

Her soldiers will all be killed,”

says the Lord.

³¹“See, I am your enemy, you arrogant people,”

says the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

“Your day of reckoning has arrived—

the day when I will punish you.

³²O land of arrogance, you will stumble and fall,

and no one will raise you up.

For I will light a fire in the cities of Babylon

that will burn up everything around them.”

³³This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says:

“The people of Israel and Judah have been wronged.

Their captors hold them and refuse to let them go.

³⁴But the one who redeems them is strong.

His name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

He will defend them

and give them rest again in Israel.

But for the people of Babylon

there will be no rest!

³⁵“The sword of destruction will strike the Babylonians,”

says the Lord.

“It will strike the people of Babylon—

her officials and wise men, too.

³⁶The sword will strike her wise counselors,

and they will become fools.

The sword will strike her mightiest warriors,

and panic will seize them.

³⁷The sword will strike her horses and chariots

and her allies from other lands,

and they will all become like women.

The sword will strike her treasures,

and they all will be plundered.

³⁸A drought will strike her water supply,

causing it to dry up.

And why? Because the whole land is filled with idols,

and the people are madly in love with them.

³⁹“Soon Babylon will be inhabited by desert animals and hyenas.

It will be a home for owls.

Never again will people live there;

it will lie desolate forever.

⁴⁰I will destroy it as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah

and their neighboring towns,” says the Lord.

“No one will live there;

no one will inhabit it.

⁴¹“Look! A great army is coming from the north.

A great nation and many kings

are rising against you from far-off lands.

⁴²They are armed with bows and spears.

They are cruel and show no mercy.

As they ride forward on horses,

they sound like a roaring sea.

They are coming in battle formation,

planning to destroy you, Babylon.

⁴³The king of Babylon has heard reports about the enemy,

and he is weak with fright.

Pangs of anguish have gripped him,

like those of a woman in labor.

⁴⁴“I will come like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan,

leaping on the sheep in the pasture.

I will chase Babylon from its land,

and I will appoint the leader of my choice.

For who is like me, and who can challenge me?

What ruler can oppose my will?”

⁴⁵Listen to the Lord’s plans against Babylon

and the land of the Babylonians.

Even the little children will be dragged off like sheep,

and their homes will be destroyed.

⁴⁶The earth will shake with the shout, “Babylon has been taken!”

and its cry of despair will be heard around the world.

Chapter 51

¹This is what the Lord says:

“I will stir up a destroyer against Babylon

and the people of Babylonia.

²Foreigners will come and winnow her,

blowing her away as chaff.

They will come from every side

to rise against her in her day of trouble.

³Don’t let the archers put on their armor

or draw their bows.

Don’t spare even her best soldiers!

Let her army be completely destroyed.

⁴They will fall dead in the land of the Babylonians,

slashed to death in her streets.

⁵For the Lord of Heaven’s Armies

has not abandoned Israel and Judah.

He is still their God,

even though their land was filled with sin

against the Holy One of Israel.”

⁶Flee from Babylon! Save yourselves!

Don’t get trapped in her punishment!

It is the Lord’s time for vengeance;

he will repay her in full.

⁷Babylon has been a gold cup in the Lord’s hands,

a cup that made the whole earth drunk.

The nations drank Babylon’s wine,

and it drove them all mad.

⁸But suddenly Babylon, too, has fallen.

Weep for her.

Give her medicine.

Perhaps she can yet be healed.

⁹We would have helped her if we could,

but nothing can save her now.

Let her go; abandon her.

Return now to your own land.

For her punishment reaches to the heavens;

it is so great it cannot be measured.

¹⁰The Lord has vindicated us.

Come, let us announce in Jerusalem

everything the Lord our God has done.

¹¹Sharpen the arrows!

Lift up the shields!

For the Lord has inspired the kings of the Medes

to march against Babylon and destroy her.

This is his vengeance against those

who desecrated his Temple.

¹²Raise the battle flag against Babylon!

Reinforce the guard and station the watchmen.

Prepare an ambush,

for the Lord will fulfill all his plans against Babylon.

¹³You are a city by a great river,

a great center of commerce,

but your end has come.

The thread of your life is cut.

¹⁴The Lord of Heaven’s Armies has taken this vow

and has sworn to it by his own name:

“Your cities will be filled with enemies,

like fields swarming with locusts,

and they will shout in triumph over you.”

A Hymn of Praise to the Lord

¹⁵The Lord made the earth by his power,

and he preserves it by his wisdom.

With his own understanding

he stretched out the heavens.

¹⁶When he speaks in the thunder,

the heavens roar with rain.

He causes the clouds to rise over the earth.

He sends the lightning with the rain

and releases the wind from his storehouses.

¹⁷The whole human race is foolish and has no knowledge!

The craftsmen are disgraced by the idols they make,

for their carefully shaped works are a fraud.

These idols have no breath or power.

¹⁸Idols are worthless; they are…