Jeremiah 47-52

Jeremiah 47

¹The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet about the Philistines, before Pharaoh's attack on Gaza.

²This is what the Lord has said: See, waters are coming up out of the north, and will become an overflowing stream, overflowing the land and everything in it, the town and those who are living in it; and men will give a cry, and all the people of the land will be crying out in pain.

³At the noise of the stamping of the feet of his war-horses, at the rushing of his carriages and the thunder of his wheels, fathers will give no thought to their children, because their hands are feeble;

⁴Because of the day which is coming with destruction on all the Philistines, cutting off from Tyre and Zidon the last of their helpers: for the Lord will send destruction on the Philistines, the rest of the sea-land of Caphtor.

⁵The hair is cut off from the head of Gaza; Ashkelon has come to nothing; the last of the Anakim are deeply wounding themselves.

⁶O sword of the Lord, how long will you have no rest? put yourself back into your cover; be at peace, be quiet.

⁷How is it possible for it to be quiet, seeing that the Lord has given it orders? against Ashkelon and against the sea-land he has given it directions.

Jeremiah 48

¹Of Moab. The Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: Sorrow on Nebo, for it has been made waste; Kiriathaim has been put to shame and is taken: the strong place is put to shame and broken down.

²The praise of Moab has come to an end; as for Heshbon, evil has been designed against her; come, let us put an end to her as a nation. But your mouth will be shut, O Madmen; the sword will go after you.

³There is the sound of crying from Horonaim, wasting and great destruction;

⁴Moab is broken; her cry has gone out to Zoar.

⁵For by the slope of Luhith they will go up, weeping all the way; for on the way down to Horonaim the cry of destruction has come to their ears.

⁶Go in flight, get away with your lives, and let your faces be turned to Aroer in the Arabah.

⁷For because you have put your faith in your strong places, you, even you, will be taken: and Chemosh will go out as a prisoner, his priests and his rulers together.

⁸And the attacker will come against every town, not one will be safe; and the valley will be made waste, and destruction will come to the lowland, as the Lord has said.

⁹Put up a pillar for Moab, for she will come to a complete end: and her towns will become a waste, without anyone living in them.

¹⁰Let him be cursed who does the Lord's work half-heartedly; let him be cursed who keeps back his sword from blood.

¹¹From his earliest days, Moab has been living in comfort; like wine long stored he has not been drained from vessel to vessel, he has never gone away as a prisoner: so his taste is still in him, his smell is unchanged.

¹²So truly, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will send to him men who will have him turned over till there is no more wine in his vessels, and his wine-skins will be completely broken.

¹³And Moab will be shamed on account of Chemosh, as the children of Israel were shamed on account of Beth-el their hope.

¹⁴How say you, We are men of war and strong fighters?

¹⁵He who makes Moab waste has gone up against her; and the best of her young men have gone down to their death, says the King, whose name is the Lord of armies.

¹⁶The fate of Moab is near, and trouble is coming on him very quickly.

¹⁷All you who are round about him, give signs of grief for him, and all you who have knowledge of his name, say, How is the strong rod broken, even the beautiful branch!

¹⁸Come down from your glory, O people of Dibon, and take your seat in the place of the waste; for the attacker of Moab has gone up against you, sending destruction on your strong places.

¹⁹O daughter of Aroer, take your station by the way, on the watch: questioning him who is in flight, and her who has got away safe, say, What has been done?

²⁰Moab has been put to shame, she is broken: make loud sounds of grief, crying out for help; give the news in Arnon, that Moab has been made waste.

²¹And punishment has come on the lowlands; on Holon and Jahzah, and on Mephaath,

²²And on Dibon, and on Nebo, and on Beth-diblathaim,

²³And on Kiriathaim, and on Beth-gamul, and on Beth-meon,

²⁴And on Kerioth, and on Bozrah, and on all the towns of the land of Moab, far and near.

²⁵The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, says the Lord.

²⁶Make him full of wine, for his heart has been lifted up against the Lord: and Moab will be rolling in the food he was not able to keep down, and everyone will be making sport of him.

²⁷For did you not make sport of Israel? was he taken among thieves? for whenever you were talking about him, you were shaking your head over him.

²⁸O people of Moab, go away from the towns and take cover in the rock; be like the dove of the Arabah, which makes her living-place in holes.

²⁹We have had word of the pride of Moab, how great it is; how he is lifted up in pride; and his great opinion of himself, and that his heart is lifted up.

³⁰I have knowledge of his wrath, says the Lord, that it is nothing; his high-sounding words have done nothing.

³¹For this cause I will give cries of grief for Moab, crying out for Moab, even for all of it; I will be sorrowing for the men of Kir-heres.

³²My weeping for you, O vine of Sibmah, will be more than the weeping of Jazer: your branches have gone over the sea, stretching even to Jazer: destruction has come down on your summer fruits and your cut grapes.

³³All joy is gone; no longer are they glad for the fertile field and for the land of Moab; I have made the wine come to an end from the crushing vessels: no longer will the grapes be crushed with the sound of glad voices.

³⁴The cry of Heshbon comes even to Elealeh; to Jahaz their voice is sounding; from Zoar even to Horonaim and to Eglath-shelishiyah: for the waters of Nimrim will become dry.

³⁵And I will put an end in Moab, says the Lord, to him who is making offerings in the high place and burning perfumes to his gods.

³⁶So my heart is sounding for Moab like the sound of pipes, and my heart is sounding like pipes for the men of Kir-heres: for the wealth he has got for himself has come to an end.

³⁷For everywhere the hair of the head and the hair of the face is cut off: on every hand there are wounds, and haircloth on every body.

³⁸On all the house-tops of Moab and in its streets there is weeping everywhere; for Moab has been broken like a vessel in which there is no pleasure, says the Lord.

³⁹How is it broken down! how is Moab's back turned in shame! so Moab will be a cause of sport and of fear to everyone round about him.

⁴⁰For the Lord has said, See, he will come like an eagle in flight, stretching out his wings against Moab.

⁴¹Kerioth is taken, and the strong places have been forced, and the hearts of Moab's men of war in that day will be like the heart of a woman in birth-pains.

⁴²And Moab will come to an end as a people, because he has been lifting himself up against the Lord.

⁴³Fear and death and the net have come on you, O people of Moab, says the Lord.

⁴⁴He who goes in flight from the fear will be overtaken by death; and he who gets free from death will be taken in the net: for I will make this come on Moab, even the year of their punishment, says the Lord.

⁴⁵Those who went in flight from the fear are waiting under the shade of Heshbon: for a fire has gone out from Heshbon and a flame from the house of Sihon, burning up the pride of Moab and the crown of the head of the violent ones.

⁴⁶Sorrow is yours, O Moab! the people of Chemosh are overcome: for your sons have been taken away as prisoners, and your daughters made servants.

⁴⁷But still, I will let the fate of Moab be changed in the last days, says the Lord.

Jeremiah 49

¹About the children of Ammon. These are the words of the Lord: Has Israel no sons? has he no one to take the heritage? why then has Milcom taken Gad for himself, putting his people in its towns?

²Because of this, see, the days are coming when I will have a cry of war sounded against Rabbah, the town of the children of Ammon; it will become a waste of broken walls, and her daughter-towns will be burned with fire: then Israel will take the heritage of those who took his heritage, says the Lord.

³Make sounds of grief, O Heshbon, for Ai is wasted; give loud cries, O daughters of Rabbah, and put haircloth round you: give yourselves to weeping, running here and there and wounding yourselves; for Milcom will be taken prisoner together with his rulers and his priests.

⁴Why are you lifted up in pride on account of your valleys, your flowing valley, O daughter ever turning away? who puts her faith in her wealth, saying, Who will come against me?

⁵See, I will send fear on you, says the Lord, the Lord of armies, from those who are round you on every side; you will be forced out, every man straight before him, and there will be no one to get together the wanderers.

⁶But after these things, I will let the fate of the children of Ammon be changed, says the Lord.

⁷About Edom. This is what the Lord of armies has said. Is there no more wisdom in Teman? have wise suggestions come to an end among men of good sense? has their wisdom completely gone?

⁸Go in flight, go back, take cover in deep places, you who are living in Dedan; for I will send the fate of Edom on him, even the time of his punishment.

⁹If men came to get your grapes, would they not let some be uncut on the vines? if thieves came by night, would they not make waste till they had enough?

¹⁰I have had Esau searched out, uncovering his secret places, so that he may not keep himself covered: his seed is wasted and has come to an end, and there is no help from his neighbours.

¹¹Put in my care your children who have no father, and I will keep them safe; and let your widows put their faith in me.

¹²For the Lord has said, Those for whom the cup was not made ready will certainly be forced to take of it; and are you to go without punishment? you will not be without punishment, but will certainly be forced to take from the cup.

¹³For I have taken an oath by myself, says the Lord, that Bozrah will become a cause of wonder, a name of shame, a waste and a curse; and all its towns will be waste places for ever.

¹⁴Word has come to me from the Lord, and a representative has been sent to the nations, to say, Come together and go up against her, and take your places for the fight.

¹⁵For see, I have made you small among the nations, looked down on by men.

¹⁶... the pride of your heart has been a false hope, O you who are living in the cracks of the rock, keeping your place on the top of the hill: even if you made your living-place as high as the eagle, I would make you come down, says the Lord.

¹⁷And Edom will become a cause of wonder: everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder, and make sounds of fear at all her punishments.

¹⁸As at the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbouring towns, says the Lord, no man will be living in it, no son of man will have a resting-place there.

¹⁹See, he will come up like a lion from the thick growth of Jordan against the resting-place of Teman: but I will suddenly make him go in flight from her; and I will put over her the man of my selection: for who is like me? and who will put forward his cause against me? and what keeper of sheep will be able to keep his place before me?

²⁰For this cause give ear to the decision of the Lord which he has made against Edom, and to his purposes designed against the people of Teman: Truly, they will be pulled away by the smallest of the flock; truly, he will make waste their fields with them.

²¹The earth is shaking with the noise of their fall; their cry is sounding in the Red Sea.

²²See, he will come up like an eagle in flight, stretching out his wings against Bozrah: and the hearts of Edom's men of war on that day will be like the heart of a woman in birth-pains.

²³About Damascus. Hamath is put to shame, and Arpad; for the word of evil has come to their ears, their heart in its fear is turned to water, it will not be quiet.

²⁴Damascus has become feeble, she is turned to flight, fear has taken her in its grip: pain and sorrows have come on her, as on a woman in birth-pains.

²⁵How has the town of praise been wasted, the place of joy!

²⁶So her young men will be falling in her streets, and all the men of war will be cut off in that day, says the Lord of armies.

²⁷And I will have a fire lighted on the wall of Damascus, burning up the great houses of Ben-hadad.

²⁸About Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, overcame. This is what the Lord has said: Up! go against Kedar, and make an attack on the children of the east.

²⁹Their tents and their flocks they will take; they will take away for themselves their curtains and all their vessels and their camels: they will give a cry to them, Fear on every side.

³⁰Go in flight, go wandering far off, take cover in deep places, O people of Hazor, says the Lord; for Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, has made a design against you, he has a purpose against you in mind.

³¹Up! go against a nation which is living in comfort and without fear of danger, says the Lord, without doors or locks, living by themselves.

³²And their camels will be taken from them by force, and their great herds will come into the hands of their attackers: those who have the ends of their hair cut I will send in flight to all the winds; and I will send their fate on them from every side, says the Lord.

³³And Hazor will be a hole for jackals, a waste for ever: no one will be living in it, and no son of man will have a resting-place there.

³⁴The word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah the prophet about Elam, when Zedekiah first became king of Judah, saying,

³⁵This is what the Lord of armies has said: See, I will have the bow of Elam, their chief strength, broken.

³⁶And I will send on Elam four winds from the four quarters of heaven, driving them out to all those winds; there will be no nation into which the wanderers from Elam do not come.

³⁷And I will let Elam be broken before their haters, and before those who are making designs against their lives: I will send evil on them, even my burning wrath, says the Lord; and I will send the sword after them till I have put an end to them:

³⁸I will put the seat of my power in Elam, and in Elam I will put an end to kings and rulers, says the Lord.

³⁹But it will come about that, in the last days, I will let the fate of Elam be changed, says the Lord.

Jeremiah 50

¹The word which the Lord said about Babylon, about the land of the Chaldaeans, by Jeremiah the prophet.

²Give it out among the nations, make it public, and let the flag be lifted up; give the word and keep nothing back; say, Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is broken, her images are put to shame, her gods are broken.

³For out of the north a nation is coming up against her, which will make her land waste and unpeopled: they are in flight, man and beast are gone.

⁴In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping and making prayer to the Lord their God.

⁵They will be questioning about the way to Zion, with their faces turned in its direction, saying, Come, and be united to the Lord in an eternal agreement which will be kept in mind for ever.

⁶My people have been wandering sheep: their keepers have made them go out of the right way, turning them loose on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, having no memory of their resting-place.

⁷They have been attacked by all those who came across them: and their attackers said, We are doing no wrong, because they have done evil against the Lord in whom is righteousness, against the Lord, the hope of their fathers.

⁸Go in flight out of Babylon, go out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and be like he-goats before the flocks.

⁹For see, I am moving and sending up against Babylon a band of great nations from the north country: and they will put their armies in position against her; and from there she will be taken: their arrows will be like those of an expert man of war; not one will come back without getting its mark.

¹⁰And the wealth of Chaldaea will come into the hands of her attackers: all those who take her wealth will have enough, says the Lord.

¹¹Because you are glad, because you are lifted up with pride, you wasters of my heritage, because you are playing like a young cow put out to grass, and you make a noise like strong horses;

¹²Your mother will be put to shame; she who gave you birth will be looked down on: see, she will be the last of the nations, a waste place, a dry and unwatered land.

¹³Because of the wrath of the Lord no one will be living in it, and it will be quite unpeopled: everyone who goes by Babylon will be overcome with wonder, and make sounds of fear at all her punishments.

¹⁴Put your armies in position against Babylon on every side, all you bowmen; let loose your arrows at her, not keeping any back: for she has done evil against the Lord.

¹⁵Give a loud cry against her on every side; she has given herself up, her supports are overturned, her walls are broken down: for it is the payment taken by the Lord; give her payment; as she has done, so do to her.

¹⁶Let the planter of seed be cut off from Babylon, and everyone using the curved blade at the time of the grain-cutting: for fear of the cruel sword, everyone will be turned to his people, everyone will go in flight to his land.

¹⁷Israel is a wandering sheep; the lions have been driving him away: first he was attacked by the king of Assyria, and now his bones have been broken by Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon.

¹⁸So this is what the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: See, I will send punishment on the king of Babylon and on his land, as I have given punishment to the king of Assyria.

¹⁹And I will make Israel come back to his resting-place, and he will get his food on Carmel and Bashan, and have his desire in full measure on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead.

²⁰In those days and in that time, says the Lord, when the evil-doing of Israel is looked for, there will be nothing; and in Judah no sins will be seen: for I will have forgiveness for those whom I will keep safe.

²¹Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the people of Pekod; put them to death and send destruction after them, says the Lord, and do everything I have given you orders to do.

²²There is a sound of war in the land and of great destruction.

²³How is the hammer of all the earth cut in two and broken! how has Babylon become a waste among the nations!

²⁴I have put a net for you, and you have been taken, O Babylon, without your knowledge: you have been uncovered and taken because you were fighting against the Lord.

²⁵From his store-house the Lord has taken the instruments of his wrath: for the Lord, the Lord of armies, has a work to do in the land of the Chaldaeans.

²⁶Come up against her one and all, let her store-houses be broken open: make her into a mass of stones, give her to the curse, till there is nothing of her to be seen.

²⁷Put all her oxen to the sword; let them go down to death: sorrow is theirs, for their day has come, the time of their punishment.

²⁸The voice of those who are in flight, who have got away safe from the land of Babylon, to give news in Zion of punishment from the Lord our God, even payment for his Temple.

²⁹Send for the archers to come together against Babylon, all the bowmen; put up your tents against her on every side; let no one get away: give her the reward of her work; as she has done, so do to her: for she has been uplifted in pride against the Lord, against the Holy One of Israel.

³⁰For this cause her young men will be falling in her streets, and all her men of war will be cut off in that day, says the Lord.

³¹See, I am against you, O pride, says the Lord, the Lord of armies, for your day has come, the time when I will send punishment on you.

³²And pride will go with uncertain steps and have a fall, and there will be no one to come to his help: and I will put a fire in his towns, burning up everything round about him.

³³This is what the Lord of armies has said: The children of Israel and the children of Judah are crushed down together: all those who took them prisoner keep them in a tight grip; they will not let them go.

³⁴Their saviour is strong; the Lord of armies is his name: he will certainly take up their cause, so that he may give rest to the earth and trouble to the people of Babylon.

³⁵A sword is on the Chaldaeans, says the Lord, and on the people of Babylon, and on her rulers and on her wise men.

³⁶A sword is on the men of pride, and they will become foolish: a sword is on her men of war, and they will be broken.

³⁷A sword is on all the mixed people in her, and they will become like women: a sword is on her store-houses, and they will be taken by her attackers.

³⁸A sword is on her waters, drying them up; for it is a land of images, and their minds are fixed on false gods.

³⁹For this reason the beasts of the waste land with the wolves will make their holes there and the ostriches will be living in it: never again will men be living there, it will be unpeopled from generation to generation.

⁴⁰As when Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbouring towns were overturned by God, says the Lord, so no man will be living in it, and no son of man will have a resting-place there.

⁴¹See, a people is coming from the north; a great nation and a number of kings will be put in motion from the inmost parts of the earth.

⁴²Bows and spears are in their hands; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice is like the thunder of the sea, and they go on horses; everyone in his place like men going to the fight, against you, O daughter of Babylon.

⁴³The king of Babylon has had news of them, and his hands have become feeble: trouble has come on him and pain like the pain of a woman in childbirth.

⁴⁴See, he will come up like a lion from the thick growth of Jordan against the resting-place of Teman: but I will suddenly make them go in flight from her; and I will put over her the man of my selection: for who is like me? and who will put forward his cause against me? and what keeper of sheep will keep his place before me?

⁴⁵So give ear to the decision of the Lord which he has made against Babylon, and to his purposes designed against the land of the Chaldaeans; Truly, they will be pulled away by the smallest of the flock; truly, he will make waste their fields with them.

⁴⁶At the cry, Babylon is taken! the earth is shaking, and the cry comes to the ears of the nations.

Jeremiah 51

¹The Lord has said: See, I will make a wind of destruction come up against Babylon and against those who are living in Chaldaea;

²And I will send men to Babylon to make her clean and get her land cleared: for in the day of trouble they will put up their tents against her on every side.

³Against her the bow of the archer is bent, and he puts on his coat of metal: have no mercy on her young men, give all her army up to the curse.

⁴And the dead will be stretched out in the land of the Chaldaeans, and the wounded in her streets.

⁵For Israel has not been given up, or Judah, by his God, by the Lord of armies; for their land is full of sin against the Holy One of Israel.

⁶Go in flight out of Babylon, so that every man may keep his life; do not be cut off in her evil-doing: for it is the time of the Lord's punishment; he will give her her reward.

⁷Babylon has been a gold cup in the hand of the Lord, which has made all the earth overcome with wine: the nations have taken of her wine, and for this cause the nations have gone off their heads.

⁸Sudden is the downfall of Babylon and her destruction: make cries of grief for her; take sweet oil for her pain, if it is possible for her to be made well.

⁹We would have made Babylon well, but she is not made well: give her up, and let us go everyone to his country: for her punishment is stretching up to heaven, and lifted up even to the skies.

¹⁰The Lord has made clear our righteousness: come, and let us give an account in Zion of the work of the Lord our God.

¹¹Make bright the arrows; take up the body-covers: the Lord has been moving the spirit of the king of the Medes; because his design against Babylon is its destruction: for it is the punishment from the Lord, the payment for his Temple.

¹²Let the flag be lifted up against the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, put the watchmen in their places, make ready a surprise attack: for it is the Lord's purpose, and he has done what he said about the people of Babylon.

¹³O you whose living-place is by the wide waters, whose stores are great, your end is come, your evil profit is ended.

¹⁴The Lord of armies has taken an oath by himself, saying, Truly, I will make you full with men as with locusts, and their voices will be loud against you.

¹⁵He has made the earth by his power, he has made the world strong in its place by his wisdom, and by his wise design the heavens have been stretched out:

¹⁶At the sound of his voice there is a massing of the waters in the heavens, and he makes the mists go up from the ends of the earth; he makes the thunder-flames for the rain and sends out the wind from his store-houses.

¹⁷Then every man becomes like a beast without knowledge; every gold-worker is put to shame by the image he has made: for his metal image is deceit, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁸They are nothing, a work of error: in the time of their punishment, destruction will overtake them.

¹⁹The heritage of Jacob is not like these; for the maker of all things is his heritage: the Lord of armies is his name.

²⁰You are my fighting axe and my instrument of war: with you the nations will be broken; with you kingdoms will be broken;

²¹With you the horse and the horseman will be broken; with you the war-carriage and he who goes in it will be broken;

²²With you man and woman will be broken; with you the old man and the boy will be broken; with you the young man and the virgin will be broken;

²³With you the keeper of sheep with his flock will be broken, and with you the farmer and his oxen will be broken, and with you captains and rulers will be broken.

²⁴And I will give to Babylon, and to all the people of Chaldaea, their reward for all the evil they have done in Zion before your eyes, says the Lord.

²⁵See, I am against you, says the Lord, O mountain of destruction, causing the destruction of all the earth: and my hand will be stretched out on you, rolling you down from the rocks, and making you a burned mountain.

²⁶And they will not take from you a stone for the angle of a wall or the base of a building; but you will be a waste place for ever, says the Lord.

²⁷Let a flag be lifted up in the land, let the horn be sounded among the nations, make the nations ready against her; get the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz together against her, make ready a scribe against her; let the horses come up against her like massed locusts.

²⁸Make the nations ready for war against her, the king of the Medes and his rulers and all his captains, and all the land under his rule.

²⁹And the land is shaking and in pain: for the purposes of the Lord are fixed, to make the land of Babylon an unpeopled waste.

³⁰Babylon's men of war have kept back from the fight, waiting in their strong places; their strength has given way, they have become like women: her houses have been put on fire, her locks are broken.

³¹One man, running, will give word to another, and one who goes with news will be handing it on to another, to give word to the king of Babylon that his town has been taken from every quarter:

³²And the ways across the river have been taken, and the water-holes ... burned with fire, and the men of war are in the grip of fear.

³³For these are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a grain-floor when it is stamped down; before long, the time of her grain-cutting will come.

³⁴Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, has made a meal of me, violently crushing me, he has made me a vessel with nothing in it, he has taken me in his mouth like a dragon, he has made his stomach full with my delicate flesh, crushing me with his teeth.

³⁵May the violent things done to me, and my downfall, come on Babylon, the daughter of Zion will say; and, May my blood be on the people of Chaldaea, Jerusalem will say.

³⁶For this reason the Lord has said: See, I will give support to your cause, and take payment for what you have undergone; I will make her sea dry, and her fountain without water.

³⁷And Babylon will become a mass of broken walls, a hole for jackals, a cause of wonder and surprise, without a living man in it.

³⁸They will be crying out together like lions, their voices will be like the voices of young lions.

³⁹When they are heated, I will make a feast for them, and overcome them with wine, so that they may become unconscious, sleeping an eternal sleep without awaking, says the Lord.

⁴⁰I will make them go down to death like lambs, like he-goats together.

⁴¹How is Babylon taken! and the praise of all the earth surprised! how has Babylon become a cause of wonder among the nations!

⁴²The sea has come up over Babylon; she is covered with the mass of its waves.

⁴³Her towns have become a waste, a dry and unwatered land, where no man has his living-place and no son of man goes by.

⁴⁴And I will send punishment on Bel in Babylon, and take out of his mouth what went into it; no longer will the nations be flowing together to him: truly, the wall of Babylon will come down.

⁴⁵My people, go out from her, and let every man get away safe from the burning wrath of the Lord.

⁴⁶So that your hearts may not become feeble and full of fear because of the news which will go about in the land; for a story will go about one year, and after that in another year another story, and violent acts in the land, ruler against ruler.

⁴⁷For this cause, truly, the days are coming when I will send punishment on the images of Babylon, and all her land will be shamed, and her dead will be falling down in her.

⁴⁸And the heaven and the earth and everything in them, will make a song of joy over Babylon: for those who make her waste will come from the north, says the Lord.

⁴⁹As Babylon had the dead of Israel put to the sword, so in Babylon the dead of all the land will be stretched out.

⁵⁰You who have got away safe from the sword, go, waiting for nothing; have the Lord in memory when you are far away, and keep Jerusalem in mind.

⁵¹We are shamed because bitter words have come to our ears; our faces are covered with shame: for men from strange lands have come into the holy places of the Lord's house.

⁵²For this reason, see, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will send punishment on her images; and through all her land the wounded will be crying out in pain.

⁵³Even if Babylon was lifted up to heaven, even if she had the high places of her strength shut in with walls, still I would send against her those who will make her waste, says the Lord.

⁵⁴There is the sound of a cry from Babylon, and of a great destruction from the land of the Chaldaeans:

⁵⁵For the Lord is making Babylon waste, and putting an end to the great voice coming out of her; and her waves are thundering like great waters, their voice is sounding loud:

⁵⁶For the waster has come on her, even on Babylon, and her men of war are taken, their bows are broken: for the Lord is a rewarding God, and he will certainly give payment.

⁵⁷And I will make her chiefs and her wise men, her rulers and her captains and her men of war, overcome with wine; their sleep will be an eternal sleep without awaking, says the King; the Lord of armies is his name.

⁵⁸The Lord of armies has said: The wide walls of Babylon will be completely uncovered and her high doorways will be burned with fire; so peoples keep on working for nothing, and the weariness of nations comes to an end in the smoke.

⁵⁹The order which Jeremiah the prophet gave to Seraiah, the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah, the king of Judah, to Babylon in the fourth year of his rule. Now Seraiah was the chief controller of the house.

⁶⁰And Jeremiah put in a book all the evil which was to come on Babylon.

⁶¹And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, see that you give them all these words;

⁶²And after reading them, say, O Lord, you have said about this place that it is to be cut off, so that no one will be living in it, not a man or a beast, but it will be unpeopled for ever.

⁶³And it will be that, when you have come to an end of reading this book, you are to have a stone fixed to it, and have it dropped into the Euphrates:

⁶⁴And you are to say, So Babylon will go down, never to be lifted up again, because of the evil which I will send on her: and weariness will overcome them. So far, these are the words of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 52

¹Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king; he was king for eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

²And he did evil in the eyes of the Lord, as Jehoiakim had done.

³And because of the wrath of the Lord this came about in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had sent them away from before him: and Zedekiah took up arms against the king of Babylon.

⁴And in the ninth year of his rule, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, came against Jerusalem with all his army and took up his position before it, building earthworks all round it.

⁵So the town was shut in by their forces till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

⁶In the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the store of food in the town was almost gone, so that there was no food for the people of the land.

⁷Then an opening was made in the wall of the town, and all the men of war went in flight out of the town by night through the doorway between the two walls which was by the king's garden; (now the Chaldaeans were stationed round the town:) and they went by the way of the Arabah.

⁸And the Chaldaean army went after King Zedekiah and overtook him on the other side of Jericho, and all his army went in flight from him in every direction.

⁹Then they made the king a prisoner and took him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath to be judged.

¹⁰And the king of Babylon put the sons of Zedekiah to death before his eyes: and he put to death all the rulers of Judah in Riblah.

¹¹And he put out Zedekiah's eyes; and the king of Babylon, chaining him in iron bands, took him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.

¹²Now in the fifth month, on the tenth day of the month, in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadrezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, a servant of the king of Babylon, came into Jerusalem.

¹³And he had the house of the Lord and the king's house and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, burned with fire:

¹⁴And the walls round Jerusalem were broken down by the Chaldaean army which was with the captain.

¹⁵Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took away as prisoners the rest of the people who were still in the town, and those who had given themselves up to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the workmen.

¹⁶But Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, let the poorest of the land go on living there, to take care of the vines and the fields.

¹⁷And the brass pillars which were in the house of the Lord, and the wheeled bases and the great brass water-vessel in the house of the Lord, were broken up by the Chaldaeans, who took all the brass away to Babylon.

¹⁸And the pots and the spades and the scissors for the lights and the spoons, and all the brass vessels used in the Lord's house, they took away.

¹⁹And the cups and the fire-trays and the basins and the pots and the supports for the lights and the spoons and the wide basins; the gold of the gold vessels, and the silver of the silver vessels, the captain of the armed men took away.

²⁰The two pillars, the great water-vessel, and the twelve brass oxen which were under it, and the ten wheeled bases, which King Solomon had made for the house of the Lord: the brass of all these vessels was without weight.

²¹And as for the pillars, one pillar was eighteen cubits high, and twelve cubits measured all round, and it was as thick as a man's hand: it was hollow.

²²And there was a crown of brass on it: the crown was five cubits high, circled with a network and apples all of brass; and the second pillar had the same.

²³There were ninety-six apples on the outside; the number of apples all round the network was a hundred.

²⁴And the captain of the armed men took Seraiah, the chief priest, and Zephaniah, the second priest, and the three door-keepers;

²⁵And from the town he took the unsexed servant who was over the men of war, and seven of the king's near friends who were in the town, and the scribe of the captain of the army, who was responsible for getting the people of the land together in military order, and sixty men of the people of the land who were in the town.

²⁶These Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took with him to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

²⁷And the king of Babylon put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was taken prisoner away from his land.

²⁸These are the people whom Nebuchadrezzar took away prisoner: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Jews:

²⁹And in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar he took away as prisoners from Jerusalem eight hundred and thirty-two persons:

³⁰In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the armed men, took away as prisoners seven hundred and forty-five of the Jews: all the persons were four thousand and six hundred.

³¹And in the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin, king of Judah, had been taken prisoner, in the twelfth month, on the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evil-merodach, king of Babylon, in the first year after he became king, took Jehoiachin, king of Judah, out of prison.

³²And he said kind words to him and put his seat higher than the seats of the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

³³And his prison clothing was changed, and he was a guest at the king's table every day for the rest of his life.

³⁴And for his food, the king gave him a regular amount every day till the day of his death, for the rest of his life.