The Book of Jeremiah (WEB)
51: 1Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against those who dwell in
Leb-kamai, a destroying wind. 51:2I will send to Babylon strangers, who shall winnow her; and they
shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about. 51:3Against him
who bends let the archer bend his bow, and against him who lifts himself up in his coat of mail:
and don't you spare her young men; destroy you utterly all her host. 51:4They shall fall down slain in
the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets. 51:5For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah,
of his God, of Yahweh of Hosts; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel.
51:6Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; don't be cut off in her iniquity: for
it is the time of Yahweh's vengeance; he will render to her a recompense. 51:7Babylon has been a
golden cup in Yahweh's hand, who made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her
wine; therefore the nations are mad. 51:8Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: wail for her; take
balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed. 51:9We would have healed Babylon, but she is not
healed: forsake her, and let us go everyone into his own country; for her judgment reaches to
heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. 51:10Yahweh has brought forth our righteousness: come,
and let us declare in Zion the work of Yahweh our God. 51:11Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the
shields: Yahweh has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; because his purpose is against
Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the vengeance of Yahweh, the vengeance of his temple. 51:12Set up a
standard against the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set the watchmen, prepare the
ambushes; for Yahweh has both purposed and done that which he spoke concerning the
inhabitants of Babylon. 51:13You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures, your end is
come, the measure of your covetousness. 51:14Yahweh of Hosts has sworn by himself, saying,
Surely I will fill you with men, as with the canker-worm; and they shall lift up a shout against you.
51:15He has made the earth by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and by his
understanding has he stretched out the heavens: 51:16when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of
waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he makes
lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasuries. 51:17Every man is become
brutish and is without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his image; for his molten
image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. 51:18They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the
time of their visitation they shall perish. 51:19The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the
former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance: Yahweh of Hosts is his name. 51:20You
are my battle-ax and weapons of war: and with you will I break in pieces the nations; and with you
will I destroy kingdoms; 51:21and with you will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; 51:22and with
you will I break in pieces the chariot and him who rides therein; and with you will I break in
pieces man and woman; and with you will I break in pieces the old man and the youth; and with
you will I break in pieces the young man and the virgin; 51:23and with you will I break in pieces the
shepherd and his flock; and with you will I break in pieces the farmer and his yoke of oxen; and
with you will I break in pieces governors and deputies. 51:24I will render to Babylon and to all the
inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, says Yahweh.
51:25Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain, says Yahweh, which destroy all the earth; and I
will stretch out my hand on you, and roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burnt
mountain. 51:26They shall not take of you a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but you
shall be desolate for ever, says Yahweh. 51:27Set you up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet
among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of
Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz: appoint a marshal against her; cause the horses to come up as the
rough canker-worm. 51:28Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, the governors of
it, and all the deputies of it, and all the land of their dominion. 51:29The land trembles and is in pain;
for the purposes of Yahweh against Babylon do stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation,
without inhabitant. 51:30The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they remain in their
strongholds; their might has failed; they are become as women: her dwelling-places are set on fire;
her bars are broken. 51:31One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to met another, to
show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter: 51:32and the passages are seized,
and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are frightened. 51:33For thus says
Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time
when it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for her. 51:34Nebuchadrezzar
the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me, he has made me an empty vessel, he
has, like a monster, swallowed me up, he has filled his maw with my delicacies; he has cast me
out. 51:35The violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say;
and, My blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say. 51:36Therefore thus says
Yahweh: Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you; and I will dry up her sea,
and make her fountain dry. 51:37Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for jackals, an
astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant. 51:38They shall roar together like young lions; they
shall growl as lions' whelps. 51:39When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make
them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, says Yahweh. 51:40I
will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats. 51:41How is Sheshach
taken! and the praise of the whole earth seized! how is Babylon become a desolation among the
nations! 51:42The sea is come up on Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of the waves of it.
51:43Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no man dwells,
neither does any son of man pass thereby. 51:44I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will
bring forth out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up; and the nations shall not flow any
more to him: yes, the wall of Babylon shall fall. 51:45My people, go you out of the midst of her, and
save yourselves every man from the fierce anger of Yahweh. 51:46Don't let your heart faint, neither
fear for the news that shall be heard in the land; for news shall come one year, and after that in
another year shall come news, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler. 51:47Therefore, behold,
the days come, that I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole
land shall be confounded; and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her. 51:48Then the heavens and
the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers shall come to
her from the north, says Yahweh. 51:49As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at
Babylon shall fall the slain of all the land. 51:50You who have escaped the sword, go you, don't
stand still; remember Yahweh from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind. 51:51We are
confounded, because we have heard reproach; confusion has covered our faces: for strangers are
come into the sanctuaries of Yahweh's house. 51:52Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh,
that I will execute judgment on her engraved images; and through all her land the wounded shall
groan. 51:53Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, and though she should fortify the height of
her strength, yet from me shall destroyers come to her, says Yahweh. 51:54The sound of a cry from
Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! 51:55For Yahweh lays Babylon
waste, and destroys out of her the great voice; and their waves roar like many waters; the noise of
their voice is uttered: 51:56for the destroyer is come on her, even on Babylon, and her mighty men
are taken, their bows are broken in pieces; for Yahweh is a God of recompenses, he will surely
requite. 51:57I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and
her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up, says the King, whose
name is Yahweh of Hosts. 51:58Thus says Yahweh of hosts: The broad walls of Babylon shall be
utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the peoples shall labor for
vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary. 51:59The word which 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 chief chamberlain.
51:60Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come on Babylon, even all these words that
are written concerning Babylon. 51:61Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, then see
that you read all these words, 51:62and say, Yahweh, you have spoken concerning this place, to cut it
off, that none shall dwell therein, neither man nor animal, but that it shall be desolate forever. 51:63It
shall be, when you have made an end of reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and
cast it into the midst of the Euphrates: 51:64and you shall say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not
rise again because of the evil that I will bring on her; and they shall be weary. Thus far are the
words of Jeremiah.
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