Jeremiah 50
1 This is the word the LORD spoke about Babylon and the land of the Chaldeans through the prophet Jeremiah.
2 “Announce this among the nations and make it heard; raise a banner and make it heard. Do not hide it! Say: ‘Babylon has been captured. Bel is disgraced; Merodach is shattered. Her idols are disgraced, and her vile images are shattered.’”
3 For a nation from the north has come up against her. It will make her land desolate, and no one will live there. People and animals alike have fled and gone away.
4 “In those days and at that time,” declares the LORD, “the people of Israel and the people of Judah will come together. They will come weeping as they go, seeking the LORD their God.
5 They will ask the way to Zion, turning their faces toward it. ‘Come, let us join ourselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.’”
6 My people were lost sheep. Their shepherds led them astray and made them wander in the mountains. They roamed from mountain to hill and forgot their resting place.
7 All who found them devoured them, and their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, because they sinned against the LORD, the home of righteousness, the LORD, the hope of their ancestors.’
8 “Flee from the middle of Babylon; leave the land of the Chaldeans. Be like the male goats that lead the flock.
9 For I am about to stir up and bring against Babylon a gathering of great nations from the land of the north. They will form ranks against her, and from there she will be captured. Their arrows are like those of a skilled warrior who does not return empty-handed.
10 Chaldea will become plunder; all who plunder her will have their fill,” declares the LORD.
11 “Because you rejoice and celebrate, you plunderers of my inheritance, because you prance like a heifer threshing grain and bellow like bulls,
12 your mother will be deeply disgraced; the one who gave birth to you will be humiliated. Look, she is the least of the nations: a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.
13 Because of the LORD’s anger, she will be uninhabited and entirely desolate. Everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified and whistle at all her wounds.
14 “Take your positions all around Babylon, all you who draw the bow! Shoot at her; spare no arrows, for she has sinned against the LORD.
15 Raise the battle cry against her on every side! She has surrendered; her foundations have fallen, her walls have been torn down. This is the LORD’s vengeance; take vengeance on her. Do to her as she has done.
16 “Cut off from Babylon the one who sows and the one who wields the sickle at harvest time. Faced with the sword of the oppressor, each will return to his own people, and each will flee to his own land.
17 Israel is a scattered sheep, chased away by lions. First the king of Assyria devoured him; then Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon broke his bones.
18 Therefore, this is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘I am about to punish the king of Babylon and his land, just as I punished the king of Assyria.
19 I will bring Israel back to his pasture. He will graze on Carmel and Bashan, and his appetite will be satisfied in the hills of Ephraim and Gilead.
20 In those days and at that time,” declares the LORD, “Israel’s guilt will be sought, but none will be found; Judah’s sins will be sought, but they will not be found. For I will forgive those I leave as a remnant.
21 “Go up against the land of Merathaim; go up against it and against the inhabitants of Pekod. Destroy them and devote them to destruction,” declares the LORD. “Do everything I have commanded you.”’
22 There is the sound of battle in the land, and great destruction.
23 How the hammer of the whole earth has been cut down and broken! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations!
24 I set a trap for you, and you were caught, Babylon, without knowing it. You were found and captured, because you defied the LORD.
25 The LORD opened his storehouse and brought out the weapons of his anger, for this is the work of the Lord GOD of Armies in the land of the Chaldeans.
26 Come against her from every side; open her storehouses! Heap her up like piles of grain and devote her to destruction; leave nothing of her.
27 Kill all her young bulls; let them go down to the slaughter! Woe to them, for their day has come, the time of their punishment!
28 Listen to the voices of those who flee and escape from the land of Babylon, announcing in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God, the vengeance for his temple.
29 “Summon many archers against Babylon; all who draw the bow. Camp around her; let no one escape. Repay her for what she has done; do to her as she has done. For she has defied the LORD, the Holy One of Israel.
30 Therefore her young men will fall in her squares, and all her warriors will be silenced that day,” declares the LORD.
31 “I am against you, Arrogance,” declares the Lord GOD of Armies, “for your day has come, the time when I will punish you.
32 Arrogance will stumble and fall, and no one will raise her up. I will set fire to her cities, and it will consume everything around her.”
33 This is what the LORD of Armies says: “The people of Israel and the people of Judah are oppressed together. All who took them captive hold them fast and refuse to let them go.
34 Their Redeemer is strong; the LORD of Armies is his name. He will firmly defend their cause, to bring rest to the land and make the inhabitants of Babylon tremble.”
35 “A sword against the Chaldeans,” declares the LORD, “against the inhabitants of Babylon, against her officials and her wise men!
36 A sword against her diviners, and they will become fools! A sword against her warriors, and they will be terrified!
37 A sword against her horses and chariots, and against all the mixed peoples among her; they will become like women! A sword against her treasures, and they will be plundered!
38 Drought on her waters, and they will dry up! For it is a land of carved images, and they go mad over their terrifying idols.
39 Therefore desert creatures will live there with the hyenas, and ostriches will dwell in it. It will never again be inhabited; no one will live there from generation to generation.
40 As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns,” declares the LORD, “no one will live there, and no human being will reside in it.”
41 Look, a people is coming from the north; a great nation and many kings are rising from the ends of the earth.
42 They take up bow and spear; they are cruel and show no mercy. Their roar is like the sea; they ride horses, drawn up for battle like one man against you, daughter Babylon.
43 The king of Babylon heard the report about them, and his hands went limp. Anguish seized him, pain like that of a woman in labor.
44 “Look, like a lion coming up from the thickets of the Jordan to a lush pasture, in an instant I will make them flee from there. And who is the chosen one I will appoint over her? For who is like me? Who can summon me to court? And what shepherd can stand before me?”
45 Therefore, hear the plan the LORD has made against Babylon, the thoughts he has formed against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely the least of the flock will drag them away; surely their pasture will be horrified because of them.
46 At the sound of Babylon’s capture, the earth trembles, and a cry is heard among the nations.
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