Jeremiah 50:21–29

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.