Jeremiah 51:24-56

“Before your very eyes, I will repay Babylon and all the residents of Chaldea for all their evil they have done in Zion.”  This is the Lord’s declaration. Look, I am against you, devastating mountain. This is the  Lord’s declaration. You devastate the whole earth. I will stretch out my hand against you,  roll you down from the cliffs, and turn you into a charred mountain. No one will be able to retrieve a cornerstone or a foundation stone from you, because you will become desolate forever. This is the  Lord’s declaration. Raise a signal flag  in the land; blow a ram’s horn among the nations;  set apart the nations against her.  Summon kingdoms against her — Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a marshal against her; bring up horses like a swarm  of locusts. Set apart the nations for battle against her — the kings of Media, her governors and all her officials, and all the lands they rule. The earth quakes  and trembles because the Lord’s intentions against Babylon stand: to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant. Babylon’s warriors have stopped fighting; they sit in their strongholds. Their might is exhausted; they have become like women.  Babylon’s homes have been set ablaze, her gate bars are shattered.  Messenger races to meet messenger,  and herald to meet herald, to announce to the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end.  The fords have been seized,  the marshes set on fire, and the fighting men are terrified. 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.  In just a little while her harvest time will come.  “King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me. He has set me aside like an empty dish; he has swallowed me like a sea monster;  he filled his belly with my delicacies; he has vomited me out.  Let the violence done to me and my family be done to Babylon,” says the inhabitant of Zion. “Let my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea,” says Jerusalem. Therefore, this is what the Lord says: I am about to champion your cause  and take vengeance on your behalf; I will dry up her sea  and make her fountain run dry. Babylon will become a heap of rubble, a jackals’ den, a desolation and an object of scorn,  without inhabitant.  They will roar together like young lions; they will growl like lion cubs. While they are flushed with heat, I will serve them a feast, and I will make them drunk so that they celebrate.  , Then they will fall asleep forever and never wake up. This is the  Lord’s declaration. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams together with male goats.  How Sheshak  , has been captured,  the praise  of the whole earth seized. What a horror Babylon has become among the nations!  The sea has risen over Babylon;  she is covered with its tumultuous waves. Her cities have become a desolation,  an arid desert, a land where no one lives, where no human being even passes through. I will punish Bel  in Babylon. I will make him vomit what he swallowed.  The nations will no longer stream to him;  even Babylon’s wall will fall. Come out from among her, my people!  Save your lives, each of you,  from the Lord’s burning anger. May you not become cowardly and fearful when the report is proclaimed in the land, for the report will come one year, and then another the next year. There will be violence in the land with ruler against ruler. Therefore, look, the days are coming  when I will punish Babylon’s carved images.  Her entire land will suffer shame, and all her slain will lie fallen within her.  Heaven and earth and everything in them will shout for joy  over Babylon because the destroyers from the north  will come against her. This is the  Lord’s declaration. Babylon must fall because of the slain of Israel, even as the slain of the whole earth fell because of Babylon. You who have escaped the sword,  go and do not stand still! Remember the  Lord from far away, and let Jerusalem come to your mind. We are ashamed because we have heard insults.  Humiliation covers our faces because foreigners have entered the holy places of the  Lord’s temple.  Therefore, look, the days are coming — this is the  Lord’s declaration — when I will punish her carved images, and the wounded will groan throughout her land. Even if Babylon should ascend to the heavens  and fortify her tall fortresses, destroyers will come against her from me. This is the  Lord’s declaration. The sound of a cry from Babylon!  The sound of terrible destruction  from the land of the Chaldeans! For the Lord is going to devastate Babylon; he will silence her mighty voice. Their waves roar like a huge torrent; the tumult of their voice resounds, for a destroyer is coming against her, against Babylon. Her warriors will be captured, their bows shattered, for the Lord is a God of retribution; he will certainly repay.