51:1  Thus says the LORD: "Behold, I will arouse against Babylon And against the inhabitants of Leb-kamai The spirit of a destroyer.

51:2  "I will dispatch foreigners to Babylon that they may winnow her And may devastate her land; For on every side they will oppose her In the day of her calamity.

51:3  "Let not him who bends his bow bend it, Nor let him rise up in his scale-armor; So do not spare her young men; Devote all her army to destruction.

51:4  "They will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, And pierced through in their streets."

51:5  For neither Israel nor Judah I have forsaken By his God, the LORD of hosts, Although their land has filled with guilt Before the Holy One of Israel.

51:6   Flee from the midst of Babylon, And each of you save his life! Do not suffer her destruction and punishment, For this we identify as the LORD'S time of vengeance; He intends to render recompense to her.

51:7  Babylon has served as a golden cup in the hand of the LORD, Intoxicating all the earth The nations have drunk of her wine; Therefore the nations have gone mad.

51:8  Suddenly Babylon has fallen and has broken; Wail over her! Bring balm for her pain; Perhaps she may receive healing.

51:9  We applied healing to Babylon, but she did not receive healing; Forsake her and let us each go to his own country, For her judgment has reached to heaven And towers up to the very skies.

51:10  The LORD has brought about our vindication; Come and let us recount in Zion The work of the LORD our God!

51:11   Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers! The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, Because His purpose focuses against Babylon to destroy it; For it represents the vengeance of the LORD, vengeance for His temple.

51:12   Lift up a signal against the walls of Babylon; Post a strong guard, Station sentries, Place men in ambush! For the LORD has both purposed and performed What He spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.

51:13  O you who dwell by many waters, Abundant in treasures, Your end has come, The measure of your end.

51:14  The LORD of hosts has sworn by Himself:"Surely I will fill you with a population like locusts, And they will cry out with shouts of victory over you."

51:15   He made the earth by His power, Who established the world by His wisdom, And by His understanding He stretched out the heavens.

51:16  When He utters His voice, there appears a tumult of waters in the heavens, And He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth; He makes lightning for the rain And brings forth the wind from His storehouses.

51:17  All mankind remains stupid, devoid of knowledge; Every goldsmith falls into shame by his idols, For his molten images seem deceitful, And they have no breath in them.

51:18  They appear worthless, a work of mockery; In the time of their punishment they will perish.

51:19  The portion of Jacob we do not regard like these; For God makes them all, And of the tribe of His inheritance; The LORD of hosts we acknowledge as His name.

51:20  He says, "You resemble My war-club, My weapon of war; And with you I shatter nations, And with you I destroy kingdoms.

51:21  "With you I shatter the horse and his rider, And with you I shatter the chariot and its rider,

51:22  And with you I shatter man and woman, And with you I shatter old man and youth, And with you I shatter young man and virgin,

51:23  And with you I shatter the shepherd and his flock, And with you I shatter the farmer and his team, And with you I shatter governors and prefects.

51:24  "But I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil that they have done in Zion before your eyes," declares the LORD.

51:25  "Behold, I fight against you, O destroying mountain, Who destroys the whole earth," declares the LORD, "And I will stretch out My hand against you, And roll you down from the crags, And I will make you a burnt out mountain.

51:26  "They will not take from you even a stone for a corner Nor a stone for foundations, But you will remain desolate forever," declares the LORD.

51:27   Lift up a signal in the land, Blow a trumpet among the nations! Consecrate the nations against her, Summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz; Appoint a marshal against her, Bring up the horses like bristly locusts.

51:28  Consecrate the nations against her, The kings of the Medes, Their governors and all their prefects, And every land of their dominion.

51:29  So the land quakes and writhes, For the purposes of the LORD against Babylon stand, To make the land of Babylon A desolation without inhabitants.

51:30  The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting,They stay in the strongholds; Their strength has become exhausted, They have become like women; Their dwelling places I set on fire, The bars of her gates have broken.

51:31  One courier runs to meet another, And one messenger to meet another, To tell the king of Babylon That his city has fallen into captivity from end to end;

51:32  The fords the enemies also have seized, And they have burned the marshes with fire, And the men of war feel terror.

51:33  For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "The daughter of Babylon resembles a threshing floor At the time it has become stamped firm; Yet in a little while the time of harvest will come for her."

51:34  "Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me and crushed me, He has set me down like an empty vessel; He has swallowed me like a monster, He has filled his stomach with my delicacies; He has washed me away.

51:35  "May the violence done to me and to my flesh fall upon Babylon," The inhabitant of Zion will say; And, "May someone pour my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea," Jerusalem will say.

51:36  Therefore thus says the LORD, "Behold, I intend to plead your case And exact full vengeance for you; And I will dry up her sea And make her fountain dry.

51:37  " Babylon will become a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, An object of horror and hissing, without inhabitants.

51:38  "They will roar together like young lions, They will growl like lions' cubs.

51:39  "When they become heated up, I will serve them their banquet And make them drunk, that they may become jubilant And may sleep a perpetual sleep And not wake up," declares the LORD.

51:40  "I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, Like rams together with male goats.

51:41  "How Sheshak has fallen into captivity, And the praise of the whole earth has become seized! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations!

51:42  "The sea has come up over Babylon; She has become engulfed with its tumultuous waves.

51:43  "Her cities have become an object of horror, A parched land and a desert, A land in which no man lives And through which no son of man passes.

51:44  " I will punish Bel in Babylon, And I will make what he has swallowed come out of his mouth; And the nations will no longer stream to him Even the wall of Babylon has fallen down!

51:45  " Come forth from her midst, My people, And each of you save yourselves From the fierce anger of the LORD.

51:46  "Now so that your heart does not grow faint, And you have no fear at the report that people will hear in the land-- For the report will come one year, And after that another report in another year, And violence will occur in the land With ruler against ruler--

51:47  Therefore behold, days will come When I will punish the idols of Babylon; And her whole land will fall into shame And all her slain will fall in her midst.

51:48  "Then heaven and earth and all that dwells in them Will shout for joy over Babylon, For the destroyers will come to her from the north," Declares the LORD.

51:49   Indeed Babylon will fall for the slain of Israel, As also for Babylon the slain of all the earth have fallen.

51:50  You who have escaped the sword, Depart! Do not stay! Remember the LORD from afar, And let Jerusalem come to your mind.

51:51   We feel shame because we have heard reproach; Disgrace has covered our faces, For aliens have entered The holy places of the LORD'S house.

51:52  "Therefore behold, the days will come," declares the LORD, "When I will punish her idols, And the mortally wounded will groan throughout her land.

51:53  "Though Babylon should ascend to the heavens, And though she should fortify her lofty stronghold, From Me destroyers will come to her," declares the LORD.

51:54  The sound of an outcry from Babylon, And of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

51:55  For the LORD intends to destroy Babylon, And He will make her loud noise vanish from her. And their waves will roar like many waters; The tumult of their voices sounds forth.

51:56  For the destroyer comes against her, against Babylon, And her mighty men will fall into captivity, Their bows shatter; For the LORD serve as a God of recompense, He will fully repay.

51:57  "I will make her princes and her wise men drunk, Her governors, her prefects and her mighty men, That they may sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake up," Declares the King, whose name we identify as the LORD of hosts.

51:58  Thus says the LORD of hosts, "The broad wall of Babylon will completely collapse And her high gates will burn; So the peoples will toil for nothing, And the nations become exhausted only for fire."

51:59  The message which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the grandson of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. (Now Seraiah served as quartermaster.)

51:60  So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll all the calamity which would come upon Babylon, namely, all these words which I have written concerning Babylon.

51:61  Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, "As soon as you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words aloud,

51:62  and say, 'You, O LORD, have promised concerning this place to cut it off, so that nothing will dwell in it, whether man or beast, but it will fall into a perpetual desolation.'

51:63  "And as soon as you finish reading this scroll, you will tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates,

51:64  and say, 'Just so shall Babylon sink down and not rise again because of the calamity that I intend to bring upon her; and they will become exhausted '" Thus far we record the words of Jeremiah.