¹This is what the Lord says:

“I am about to stir up a destructive wind against Babylon

And against the inhabitants of the Chaldees.

²And I will send foreigners to Babylon,

Who will winnow it and empty its land,

For they will be against it all around on the baneful day,

³ Against the archer who draws his bow,

And against him who exalts himself in his coat of mail.

And do not spare its young men;

Obliterate all of its army.

⁴And casualties will fall in the land of the Chaldeans

With men pierced through in its streets.

⁵For Israel has not been widowed,

Nor Judah, from their God

– From the Lord of hosts –

Although their land is full of guilt

Against the holy one of Israel.

For it is the time of the Lord's vengeance,

When he requites it with retribution.

⁷Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord's hand

– A cup which made the whole earth drunk.

Nations drank its wine,

Which is why the nations are acting in a mad way.

Wail for it,

Fetch balsam for its wounds;

Maybe it can be healed.

⁹We applied healing to Babylon,

But it did not become healed.

Leave it and let each of us go to his own country,

For its case in law has reached the heavens,

And it has been raised to the skies.

¹⁰The Lord has vindicated us.

Come, let us report in Zion

What the Lord our God has done.

¹¹Polish the arrows;

Take up the shields.

The Lord has stirred up the spirit of the kings of Media,

For his purpose is against Babylon,

To bring ruin on it,

For it is the Lord's vengeance

– The avenging of his temple.

¹²Raise a standard at Babylon's walls,

Make the watch strong,

Set up guards,

Prepare ambushes,

For the Lord has both purposed and will do

What he has declared

To the inhabitants of Babylon.

¹³You dwell by much water,

You are rich in treasures,

But your end has come

– The just deserts of your plundering.

¹⁴The Lord of hosts has sworn by himself and said,

‘I will certainly fill you with men, like devouring locusts,

And they will raise a shout against you.’

¹⁵He is the maker of the earth by his power

– The preparer of the world by his wisdom –

Who stretched out the heavens with his understanding.

¹⁶When he sounds his voice,

There is roaring of water in the sky,

And he makes vapours rise from the end of the earth.

He produces lightning with the rain,

And he brings wind out of his storehouses.

¹⁷Every man has become deficient in knowledge;

Every metalsmith has become ashamed of the idol,

For his cast figure is a false thing,

And there is no spirit in them.

¹⁸They are vanity

– A work based on delusions.

At the time of their visitation,

They will perish.

¹⁹Such is not the portion of Jacob;

Rather, it is he who is the fashioner of everything,

And of the sceptre of his inheritance

– The Lord of hosts is his name.

²⁰You are my hammer

– Instruments of war –

And I will crush nations with you,

And I will bring ruin on kingdoms with you.

²¹And I will crush a horse and its rider with you,

And I will crush a chariot and its rider with you,

²²And I will crush man and woman with you,

And I will crush old and young with you,

And I will crush the young man and the virgin girl with you,

²³And I will crush shepherd and his flock with you,

And I will crush farmer and his yoke of oxen with you,

And I will crush governors and administrators with you.

²⁴And I will requite Babylon

And all the inhabitants of the Chaldees

For all the harm they have done to Zion before your eyes,

Says the Lord.

²⁵I am here against you,

You mountain which bring ruin,

Says the Lord,

You who bring ruin on the whole earth,

And I have stretched out my hand against you,

And I will roll you down from the rocks,

And I will make you a blazing mountain.

²⁶And they will not take from you stone for a cornerstone,

Or stone for foundations,

For you will be an age-abiding desolate area,

Says the Lord.

²⁷Raise a standard in the land,

Sound the ramshorn among the nations,

Consecrate nations against it;

Summon against it the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz.

Appoint a general against it;

Bring up horses like the bristly devouring locust.

²⁸Consecrate nations against it

– The kings of Media,

Their governors and all their administrators,

And the whole land under its rule.

²⁹And the land will shake and tremble,

For the purposes of the Lord will be established against Babylon

So as to make the land of Babylon a desolation

Without an inhabitant.

³⁰The warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting;

They have remained in the fortresses.

Their valour has ebbed away,

They have become women,

Its homes have been burned;

Its bolts have been broken.

³¹One runner is running towards another,

And one messenger towards another,

To tell the king of Babylon

That his city has been captured

From end to end.

³²And the fords have been captured,

And the reedy places have been burned with fire,

And the combatants have become terrified.

³³For this is what the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, says:

‘The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor

At the time for it to be trodden.

In a little while,

The time of harvesting it will come.’ ”

³⁴“Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me,

He has routed me,

He has presented me as an empty vessel,

He has swallowed me as a crocodile does,

He has filled his belly with my delightful things;

He has driven me out.

³⁵The violence I have suffered

And that of my kin

Be on Babylon”,

The inhabitant of Zion will say.

“And may my blood be on the inhabitants of the Chaldees”,

Jerusalem will say.

³⁶Therefore this is what the Lord says:

“I am about to plead your case,

And I will take your revenge,

And I will dry up its sea,

And I will cause failure of its water-source.

³⁷And Babylon will become heaps of stones,

A den of jackals,

A desolation and a laughing stock,

Without an inhabitant.

³⁸They will roar together like lion cubs;

They will growl like the whelp of lionesses.

³⁹When they are in a state of arousal,

I will lay on a banquet for them,

And I will make them drunk

So that they exult

And sleep an age-abiding sleep

And do not wake up,

Says the Lord.

⁴⁰I will bring them down

Like fatted lambs to the slaughter,

Like rams with he-goats.

⁴¹How Babylon has been captured!

And how the object of praise of the whole earth has been seized!

How Babylon has become an object of astonishment among the nations.

⁴²The sea came up to Babylon;

It was covered by the vast quantity of its waves.

⁴³Its towns became a desolation

– A land of drought and aridity.

A land in whose towns no man can live,

And through which no son of Adam will pass.

⁴⁴And I will visit Bel in Babylon,

And I will eject from his mouth what he has swallowed,

And the nations will no longer stream to him.

Indeed, Babylon's wall will fall.

⁴⁵Come out of it, my people,

And let each man save himself

From the furious anger of the Lord.

⁴⁶And so that your heart does not become faint,

And you become afraid at the report heard in the land,

When a report comes in one year,

And after it a report in the next year,

And there is violence in the land

– With ruler against ruler –

⁴⁷Behold, the days are coming

When I will visit the carved images of Babylon,

And all its land will be put to shame,

And all its casualties will fall within its precincts.

⁴⁸And heaven and earth and all who are in them will be jubilant about Babylon,

For the plunderers will come against it from the north,

Says the Lord.

⁴⁹Babylon was both the cause of Israel's casualties falling,

And it was because of Babylon

That the casualties of the whole earth fell.

⁵⁰You who have escaped the sword,

Go away; do not stand still.

Remember the Lord when you are far away,

And let Jerusalem come to mind.

⁵¹We were ashamed when we heard the reproach;

Ignominy covered our faces,

For foreigners had arrived at the sanctuaries of the house of the Lord.

⁵²That is why, behold, the days are coming,

Says the Lord,

When I will visit its idols,

And throughout all its land

The wounded will groan.

⁵³Even if Babylon rises to the skies,

Or if it fortifies itself to the height of its strength,

Plunderers will go to it

At my instigation,

Says the Lord.

⁵⁴Hear a sound of an outcry from Babylon,

And of widescale destruction

From the land of the Chaldeans.

⁵⁵For the Lord is ravaging Babylon,

And he has silenced its loud voice,

As their waves rage like mighty waters,

As their tumultuous sound rings out.

⁵⁶For the plunderer has come against it

– Against Babylon –

And its warriors will be captured,

And their bows will each be broken in pieces,

For the Lord is a God of retributions;

He will certainly requite them.

⁵⁷And I will make its officers and its wise men,

And its governors and its administrators and its warriors,

Drunk,

And they will sleep an age-abiding sleep,

And they will not wake up,

Says the king

– The Lord of hosts is his name.”

⁵⁸This is what the Lord of hosts says:

“The wide walls of Babylon will certainly be demolished,

And its tall gates will be burned with fire,

And various peoples will toil quite in vain,

And nations will become weary,

With so much fire.”

⁵⁹The words with which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah, the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon, in the fourth year of his reign, when Seraiah was the officer for security, ⁶⁰for Jeremiah wrote in a book all the trouble which would come over Babylon – all those things which have been written concerning Babylon. ⁶¹And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you arrive in Babylon, then look and read all these words. ⁶²And say, ‘Lord, you have spoken against this place, that you will cut it off so that it has no inhabitant, neither man nor beast, for it will be an age-abiding desolation.’ ⁶³And it will come to pass, when you have finished reading this book, that you will bind a stone to it, and you will cast it into the Euphrates. ⁶⁴And you will say, ‘This is how Babylon will sink and will not rise, because of the trouble which I am bringing on it, and they will become weary.’ ” Those were the words of Jeremiah.

Reference(s) in Chapter 51: v.6 ↔ Revelation 18:4 ● v.8 ↔ Revelation 14:8, Revelation 18:2 ● v.61 ↔ Revelation 18:21 ● v.62 ↔ Revelation 18:21 ● v.63 ↔ Revelation 18:21 ● v.64 ↔ Revelation 18:21.