Jeremiah 51
1 This is what the LORD says: “Look, I am stirring up a destructive wind against Babylon and the people of Leb-kamai.
2 I will send foreigners to Babylon to winnow her and empty her land. They will surround her on the day of disaster.”
3 Let the archer not draw his bow; let no one rise in his armor! Spare none of her young men; devote her whole army to destruction.
4 The slain will fall in the land of the Chaldeans, the pierced through in her streets.
5 For Israel and Judah have not been widowed from their God, from the LORD of Armies; but their land is full of guilt before the Holy One of Israel.
6 Flee from the midst of Babylon, and let each of you save your life! Do not be destroyed because of her guilt, for this is the time of the LORD’s vengeance; he is repaying her what she deserves.
7 Babylon was a golden cup in the LORD’s hand, making the whole earth drunk. The nations drank her wine; that is why the nations went mad.
8 Suddenly Babylon has fallen and shattered. Wail over her! Get balm for her pain; perhaps she will be healed.
9 “We tried to heal Babylon, but she was not healed. Abandon her, and let each of us go to our own land, for her judgment has reached the sky and risen to the clouds.”
10 The LORD has brought our vindication to light. Come, let us declare in Zion what the LORD our God has done.
11 Sharpen the arrows, take up the shields! The LORD has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his plan against Babylon is to destroy her. This is the LORD’s vengeance, vengeance for his temple.
12 Raise a banner against Babylon’s walls, strengthen the guard, station watchmen, prepare the ambushes! For the LORD has planned and carried out what he said concerning the people of Babylon.
13 You who live beside many waters, rich in treasures: your end has come, the measure of your gain is full.
14 The LORD of Armies has sworn by himself: “I will surely fill you with people as with locusts, and they will raise a victory shout over you.”
15 He made the earth by his power, established the world by his wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by his understanding.
16 At the sound of his voice, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain and brings the wind out of his storehouses.
17 Every human being is foolish, without knowledge; every metalworker is put to shame by his idol. The image he casts is a lie, and there is no breath in it.
18 They are worthless, a work of mockery; when the time comes to punish them, they will perish.
19 Jacob’s portion is not like these, for he is the one who formed everything, and Israel is the tribe he claims as his own. The LORD of Armies is his name.
20 You are my hammer, my weapon of war. With you I shatter nations; with you I destroy kingdoms.
21 With you I shatter horse and rider; with you I shatter chariot and driver.
22 With you I shatter man and woman; with you I shatter old and young; with you I shatter young man and young woman.
23 With you I shatter shepherd and flock; with you I shatter farmer and his team of oxen; with you I shatter governors and officials.
24 I will repay Babylon and all the people of Chaldea for all the evil they did in Zion before your eyes, declares the LORD.
25 I am against you, destructive mountain, declares the LORD, you who destroy the whole earth. I will stretch out my hand against you, roll you down from the rocks, and make you a burned-out mountain.
26 No one will take from you a cornerstone or a foundation stone, for you will be desolate forever, declares the LORD.
27 Raise a banner in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations! Consecrate nations against her; summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a commander against her; bring up horses like bristling locusts.
28 Consecrate nations against her: the kings of the Medes, their governors and all their officials, and the whole land under their rule.
29 The earth trembles and writhes, for the LORD’s plans against Babylon have been carried out: to make the land of Babylon desolate, without an inhabitant.
30 Babylon’s warriors have stopped fighting; they stay in their strongholds. Their strength has failed; they have become like women. Her homes are set on fire, her bars are broken.
31 One runner meets another, one messenger meets another, to tell the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end.
32 The crossings have been seized, the marshes burned with fire, and the men of war are terrified.
33 For this is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Daughter Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is trampled; soon the time will come for her harvest.”
34 “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon devoured me and crushed me; he left me like an empty vessel. He swallowed me like a sea monster, filled his belly with my delicacies, and then spit me out.”
35 “May the violence done to me and my flesh fall on Babylon!” the inhabitant of Zion will say. “May my blood fall on the people of Chaldea!” Jerusalem will say.
36 Therefore, this is what the LORD says: “Look, I will defend your cause and carry out your vengeance. I will dry up her sea and make her spring run dry.
37 Babylon will become heaps of ruins, a haunt for jackals, an object of horror and scorn, without an inhabitant.
38 Together they roar like young lions; they growl like lion cubs.”
39 “When they are heated with wine, I will prepare a feast for them and make them drunk, so they may celebrate, then sleep forever and never wake,” declares the LORD.
40 “I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and goats.”
41 How Sheshach has been captured, the pride of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations!
42 The sea has surged over Babylon; she is covered by its many waves.
43 Her cities have become an object of horror, a dry and desert land, a land where no one lives and no human being passes through.
44 I will punish Bel in Babylon and take from his mouth what he has swallowed. The nations will no longer stream to him; even Babylon’s wall has fallen.
45 Come out of her, my people! Let each of you save your life from the LORD’s fierce anger.
46 Do not lose heart or be afraid of the report heard in the land: one report comes this year, another the next; there is violence in the land, with one ruler against another.
47 Therefore, look, the days are coming when I will punish Babylon’s carved images. Her whole land will be put to shame, and all her slain will fall within her.
48 Then heaven and earth and everything in them will sing for joy over Babylon, for destroyers will come against her from the north, declares the LORD.
49 Just as Babylon caused Israel’s slain to fall, so the slain of the whole earth have fallen because of Babylon.
50 You who escaped the sword, go! Do not linger! Remember the LORD from far away, and let Jerusalem rise in your hearts.
51 “We are ashamed, for we have heard the insult; disgrace covers our faces, because foreigners have entered the holy places of the LORD’s house.”
52 “Therefore, look, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will punish her carved images, and the wounded will groan throughout her land.
53 Though Babylon rises to the heavens and fortifies her lofty stronghold, destroyers will come against her from me,” declares the LORD.
54 A cry is heard from Babylon, great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans.
55 For the LORD is destroying Babylon and silencing her loud voice. Their waves roar like mighty waters; the sound of their voices resounds.
56 For a destroyer has come against her, against Babylon; her warriors have been captured and their bows broken. For the LORD is a God who repays; he repays in full.
57 “I will make her officials and wise men drunk, her governors, officials, and warriors. They will sleep forever and never wake,” declares the King, whose name is the LORD of Armies.
58 This is what the LORD of Armies says: “Babylon’s broad walls will be utterly demolished, and her lofty gates will be burned with fire. The peoples wear themselves out for nothing; the nations exhaust themselves for the fire.”
59 This is the message that the prophet Jeremiah gave to Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Seraiah was the quartermaster.
60 Jeremiah wrote in one scroll all the disaster that would come upon Babylon, all these words written against Babylon.
61 Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you arrive in Babylon, see that you read all these words aloud.
62 Then say, ‘LORD, you have spoken about this place: you will destroy it, so that no one, human or animal, will live in it, and it will be desolate forever.’
63 When you finish reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates.
64 Then say, ‘This is how Babylon will sink and never rise again, because of the disaster I am bringing on her; they will be exhausted.’” This is the end of Jeremiah’s words.
Read and listen to this chapter in the Shalem app, free: narration, chapter video and reading progress. Get the app