Judgement on Babylon
Jeremiah 51YHWH says:
“I am about to raise up against Babylon, and against those who dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind. I will send to Babylon strangers, who will winnow her. They will empty her land; for in the day of trouble they will be against her all around. Don’t let the archer string his bow, or put on his coat of mail. Y’all must not spare her young men! Y’all must compmletely destroy all her army! They will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets. For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, by his God, by YHWH Almighty, though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel.“Y’all must flee from Babylon! Y’all must escape with your own life! Don’t let yourself* be killed for her iniquity, because it is the time of YHWH’s vengeance. Hᴇ will repay her what she deserves. Babylon has been a golden cup in YHWH’s hand, who made all the earth drunk. The nations drank of her wine, therefore the nations have gone mad. Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed! Y’all wail over her! Y’all get balm for her pain. Perhaps she may be healed.
“We would have healed Babylon, but she cannot be healed. Y’all must forsake her, and each go to his own land; for her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. ‘YHWH has produced our righteousness. Y’all come and let’s declare in Zion the work of YHWH our God.’
“Y’all must sharpen the arrows, and hold the shields firmly! YHWH has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because ʜɪꜱ purpose is to destroy Babylon; for it is the vengeance of YHWH, the vengeance of ʜɪꜱ temple. Y’all set up a signal flag to attack walls of Babylon! Y’all must make the watch strong! Y’all are to set the watchmen, and prepare the an ambush. YHWH will do what he has planned what ʜᴇ said concerning the inhabitants of Babylon. You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your covetousness. YHWH Almighty has sworn by himself, saying, ‘Surely I will fill you with men, as with locusts, and they will lift up a shout against you.’
“Hᴇ made the earth by ʜɪꜱ power. Hᴇ established the world by ʜɪꜱ wisdom. By ʜɪꜱ understanding ʜᴇ has stretched out the heavens. When ʜɪꜱ voice thunders, there is a roar of waters in the heavens, and ʜᴇ causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. Hᴇ makes lightning for the rain, and brings the wind out of ʜɪꜱ storehouses.
“Everyone is stupid and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is shamed by his image, for his molten images are frauds, and there is no breath in them. They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation, they will perish. The portion of Jacob is not like these, for ʜᴇ is the maker all things, including the tribe of ʜɪꜱ inheritance. YHWH Almighty is ʜɪꜱ name.
“You are my battle ax and weapons of war. With you I will break the nations into pieces. With you I will destroy kingdoms. With you I will shatter the horse and his rider. With you I will shatter man and woman. With you I will shatter the old man and the youth. With you I will shatter the young man and the virgin. With you I will shatter the shepherd and his flock. With you I will shatter the farmer and his yoke. With you I will shatter governors and officials.
“I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all the evil that they have done in Zion in y’all’s sight,” says YHWH.
“Look! I am against you, destroying mountain,” says YHWH, “which destroys all the earth. I will stretch out my hand on you, roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burned mountain. They won’t take a cornerstone from you, nor a stone for foundations; but you will be desolate forever,” says YHWH.“Y’all are to lift up a signal flag in the land! Y’all must blow the trumpet among the nations! Y’all are to set apart the nations against her! Y’all must summon the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz against her! Y’all must appoint a marshal against her! Y’all must send the horses like the swarming locusts! Y’all are to set apart the nations against her, the kings of the Medes, its governors, and all its deputies, and all the land of their dominion! The land trembles and is in pain, for the purposes of YHWH against Babylon stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant. The warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting, they remain in their strongholds. Their might has failed. They have become like women. Her dwelling places are set on fire. Her bars are broken. A runner runs to meet another, and a messenger to meet another, to announce that the king of Babylon and his city has been captured from end to end. The passages have been seized. They have set the marshes on fire. The soldiers are terrified.”
For YHWH Almighty, the God of Israel says:
“The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trampled. Yet a little while the time of harvest will come for her.”“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has swallowed me up like a sea monster. He has filled his belly with my delicacies. and then spewed me out. May the violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon!” the inhabitant of Zion will say; and, “May my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea!” will Jerusalem say.
Therefore YHWH says,
“Look! I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry. Babylon will become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant. They will roar together like young lions. They will growl like lion cubs. When they are aroused, I set out a feast for them and make them drunk, so that they may rejoice, and fall into a forever sleep, and not wake up,” says YHWH.“I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats.
“How Sheshach is taken! How the praise of the whole earth is seized! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations! The sea has come up on Babylon. She is covered with the multitude of its waves. Her cities have become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no one dwells. No child of humanity passes by it. I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth what he has swallowed up. The nations will no longer stream to him. Yes, the wall of Babylon will fall.
“My people, y’all are to come out of her, and each of y’all save yourselves* from YHWH’s fierce anger. Y’all must not lose heart faint, and y’all must not fear the reports that will be heard in the land. For reports will come one year, and after that in another year news will come, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler. For the days come when I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole land will be confounded. All her slain will fall in the middle of her. Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them will sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers will come to her from the north,” says YHWH.
“As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so the slain of all the land will fall at Babylon. Y’all who have escaped the sword, go! Y’all must not stand still! Y’all must remember YHWH from afar, and let Jerusalem come into y’all’s mind.”
“We are ashamed because we have heard reproach. Disgrace covers our faces, because strangers have come into the sanctuaries of the house of YHWH.”
“But look! The days are coming,” says YHWH, “when I will execute judgment on her engraved images, and through all her land the wounded will groan. Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet destroyers will come to her from me,” says YHWH.
“The sound of a cry comes from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! For YHWH lays Babylon waste, and destroys out of her the great voice! Their waves roar like many waters. They will make a roaring noise. For the destroyer has come against her, against Babylon. Her mighty men are taken. Their bows are broken in pieces, for YHWH is a God of retribution. Hᴇ will repay-repay. I will make her officials, her wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her warriors drunk. They will fall into a forever sleep, and not wake up,” says the King, whose name is YHWH Almighty.
YHWH Almighty says:
“The wide walls of Babylon will be demolished-demolished. Her high gates will be set on fire. The peoples will labor in vain, and the nations for the fire; and they will be weary.”The word that Jeremiah the prophet commanded 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 reign. Now Seraiah was quartermaster. Jeremiah wrote in a scroll all the disasters that would come on Babylon, all these words which have been written concerning Babylon. Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you come to Babylon, make sure that you read all these words, and say, ‘YHWH, you have said you will cut off this place so that no one will dwell in it, neither human nor animal, but that it will be desolate forever.’ When you have finished reading this book, you are to tie a stone to it, and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates. Then you are to say, ‘So will Babylon sink, and it will not rise again because of the disaster that I will bring on her. And they will grow weary.’”
Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.