Jeremiah 51
51
1 Thus says the Lord: "Behold, I will raise up, over Babylon and over its inhabitants, who have lifted up their heart against me, something like a pestilent wind.
2 And I will send winnowers into Babylon, and they will winnow her, and they will demolish her land. For they will overwhelm her from every side in the day of her affliction.
3 Let him who draws the bow, not draw his bow. And let him who wears armor, not rise up. Do not spare her young men. Destroy her entire military.
4 And the slain will fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and the wounded in its regions.
5 Yet Israel and Judah have not been widowed by their God, the Lord of hosts, though their land has been filled with transgression against the Holy One of Israel.
6 Flee from the midst of Babylon! And let each one save his own life. Do not be silent about her iniquity. For it is the time of revenge from the Lord. He himself will repay her, in her turn.
7 Babylon is a gold cup in the hand of the Lord, inebriating the entire earth. The nations have drunk from her wine, and therefore they have staggered.
8 Suddenly, Babylon has fallen and been crushed. Wail over her! Take a balm to her pain, if perhaps she may be healed."
9 "We would have cured Babylon, but there is no cure. Let us abandon her, and let each one of us go to his own land. For her judgment has reached even to the heavens, and has been lifted up even to the clouds.
10 The Lord has brought forth our justices. Come and let us describe in Zion the work of the Lord our God."
11 Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers. The Lord has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes. And his mind is against Babylon, so that he may destroy her. For this is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance of his temple.
12 Upon the walls of Babylon, lift up a sign. Increase the watch! Rouse the watchmen! Prepare ambushes! For the Lord has planned and has accomplished all that he has spoken, against the inhabitants of Babylon.
13 You who live above many waters, rich in treasures: your end has arrived, your measure has been cut short.
14 The Lord of hosts has sworn by himself, saying: "For I will fill you with men as with locusts, and they will sing a rhythmic chant against you."
15 The One who made the earth by his strength, who prepared the world by his wisdom, and who stretched out the heavens by his prudence:
16 when he utters his voice, the waters will be multiplied in the heavens. The One who lifts up the clouds from the ends of the earth: he has turned lightning into rain, and he has brought forth wind from his storehouses.
17 Each man has become foolish before his own knowledge. Each sculptor has been confounded by his own sculpture. For what he has formed of them is a lie, and there is no spirit in them.
18 They are empty works, deserving of ridicule. In the time of their visitation, they will perish.
19 The portion of Jacob is not like their portion. For the One who made all things is his portion, and Israel is the scepter of his inheritance. The Lord of hosts is his name:
20 "For me, you strike together the instruments of war; and with you, I will strike together nations; and with you, I will scatter the kingdoms.
21 And with you, I will strike together the horse and his rider; and with you, I will strike together the chariot and its rider.
22 And with you, I will strike together man and woman; and with you, I will strike together the old man and the boy; and with you, I will strike together the young man and the virgin.
23 And with you, I will strike together the pastor and his flock; and with you, I will strike together the farmer and his yoke of oxen; and with you, I will strike together military leaders and civil leaders.
24 And I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil that they have done in Zion, before your eyes, says the Lord.
25 Behold, I am against you, you pestilent mountain, says the Lord, for you are corrupting the entire earth. And I will extend my hand over you, and I will roll you down from the rocks, and I will make you into a burning mountain.
26 And they will not take from you a stone for the corner, nor a stone for the foundations. Instead, you will be destroyed unto eternity," says the Lord.
27 Lift up a sign in the land! Sound the trumpet among the nations! Sanctify the nations against her. Announce against her the kings of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Number against her Taphsar. Lead in the horse, like the stinging locust.
28 Sanctify the nations against her: the kings of Media, their military leaders, and all their civil leaders, and the entire land under their authority.
29 And the earth will be shaken and will be disturbed. For the plan of the Lord against Babylon will awaken, so that he may make the land of Babylon desolate and uninhabitable.
30 The strong ones of Babylon have ceased to do battle. They have lived in fortresses. Their health has been devoured, and they have become like women. Her tabernacles have been set ablaze; her bars have been broken.
31 Runner will go forth to meet runner, and messenger will meet messenger, so as to tell the king of Babylon that his city has been captured, from one end to the other,
32 and that the fords were seized in advance, and that the marshes have been burned with fire, and that the men of war have been set in disarray.
33 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor. This is the time of her threshing. A little while longer, and the time of her harvest will arrive."
34 "Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, has consumed me, has devoured me. He has made me like an empty vessel. He has swallowed me like a dragon. He has filled his belly with my tender ones, and he has cast me out.
35 This iniquity is against me, and so my flesh is upon Babylon," says the habitation of Zion. "And my blood is upon the inhabitants of Chaldea," says Jerusalem.
36 Because of this, thus says the Lord: "Behold, I will judge your case, and I will avenge your vengeance, and I will make her sea into a desert, and I will dry up her spring.
37 And Babylon will become a tumult, the habitation of dragons, an astonishment, and a hissing, because there is no inhabitant.
38 They will roar together, like lions, they will shake their manes, like young lions.
39 In their heat, I will give them a drink, and I will inebriate them, so that they become drowsy, and sleep an everlasting sleep, and do not rise up, says the Lord.
40 I will lead them away, like lambs to the slaughter, and like rams with young goats.
41 How was Sesac captured, and how was the renowned one of all the earth seized? How has Babylon become an astonishment among the nations?
42 The sea has ascended over Babylon; she has been covered by the multitude of its waves.
43 Her cities have become an astonishment, an uninhabited and desolate land, a land in which no one may live, nor may a son of man pass through it.
44 And I will visit against Bel in Babylon, and I will cast from his mouth what he has swallowed. And the nations will no longer flow together before him. For even the wall of Babylon will also fall.
45 Go forth from her midst, my people, so that each one may save his life from the wrath of the fury of the Lord.
46 For otherwise, your heart may faint, and you may be afraid at the news that is heard in the land. And the news will arrive within a year, and after that year more news will arrive. And iniquity will be in the land, and one ruler will be over another ruler.
47 Because of this, behold, the days are approaching, when I will visit against the graven images of Babylon. And her entire land will be confounded, and all her slain will fall in her midst.
48 And the heavens and the earth, and all the things that are in them, will give praise over Babylon. For despoilers will approach her from the north, says the Lord.
49 And in the manner that Babylon has caused the slain to fall in Israel, so the slain of Babylon will fall over the entire earth.
50 You who have fled from the sword, approach, do not stand still. Remember from afar the Lord, and let Jerusalem rise up in your heart.
51 We have been confounded, for we heard reproach. Shame has covered our faces, for strangers have overwhelmed the holiness of the house of the Lord.
52 Because of this, behold, the days are approaching, says the Lord, when I will visit against her graven images, and within all her land the wounded will groan.
53 If Babylon were to ascend to heaven, and establish her strength on high, her despoilers would go forth from me, says the Lord."
54 A voice of outcry from Babylon, and great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!
55 For the Lord has despoiled Babylon, and he has perished the great voice from her. And their wave will make a sound like many waters. Their voice has uttered a noise.
56 For the despoiler has overwhelmed her, that is, Babylon, and her strong ones have been apprehended, and their bow has been weakened. For the Lord, the powerful revenger, will certainly repay.
57 "And I will inebriate her leaders, and her wise ones, and her military rulers, and her civil rulers, and her strong ones. And they will sleep an everlasting sleep, and they will not awaken," says the King: the Lord of hosts is his name.
58 Thus says the Lord of hosts: "That very wide wall of Babylon will be utterly overturned, and her exalted gates will be burned with fire, and the labors of the people will be as nothing, and the labors of the nations will be sent into the fire and will perish."
59 The word that Jeremiah, the prophet, instructed to Seraiah, the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he traveled with king Zedekiah into Babylon, in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was the leader of the prophets.
60 And Jeremiah wrote in one book all the evil that was to overwhelm Babylon; all these words were written against Babylon.
61 And Jeremiah said to Seraiah: "When you will enter into Babylon, and you will see and read all these words,
62 you will say: 'O Lord, you have spoken against this place so that you may destroy it, so that there would not be anyone, from man even to beast, who may live in it, and so that it may be desolate forever.'
63 And when you will have completed reading this book, you will tie a stone to it, and you will cast it into the midst of the Euphrates.
64 And you will say: 'So shall Babylon be submerged! And she will not rise up before the face of the affliction that I will lead over her. And she will be broken.' " The words of Jeremiah thus far.
Currently Selected:
Jeremiah 51: CPDV
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Jeremiah 51
51
The Destruction of Babylon
1#Jer 4:11–12; Hos 13:15Thus says the Lord:
I will raise up against Babylon,
and against those who dwell in Leb Kamai,
the spirit of a destroyer.
2#Jer 15:7; Mt 3:12 And I will send foreigners to Babylon
that they may winnow her and empty her land.
For in the day of trouble
they will be against her all around.
3#Jer 46:4; 50:14 Let not him who bends his bow bend it,
and let him not rise up in his scale-armor,
and do not spare her young men;
utterly destroy all her host.
4#Jer 49:26; Isa 13:15 Thus the slain will fall in the land of the Chaldeans,
and those who are thrust through in her streets.
5#Hos 4:1; Jer 33:24–26 For Israel has not been forsaken, nor Judah,
by his God, the Lord of Hosts,
though their land was filled with sin
against the Holy One of Israel.
6#Jer 50:8; 50:15; 50:28 Flee out of the midst of Babylon,
and each of you deliver his soul!
Do not be cut off in her punishment,
for this is the time of the vengeance of the Lord;
He will render to her a recompense.
7#Rev 14:8; 17:4; 17:2 Babylon has been a golden cup in the hand of the Lord,
that made all the earth drunk.
The nations have drunk of her wine;
therefore the nations are mad.
8#Isa 21:9; Jer 46:11 Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed.
Howl for her.
Take balm for her pain;
perhaps she may be healed.
9#Isa 13:14; Jer 50:16 We applied healing to Babylon,
but she is not healed.
Forsake her, and let us each go into his own country;
for her judgment reaches to heaven
and is lifted up even to the skies.
10#Jer 50:28; Ps 37:6 The Lord has brought forth our righteousness.
Come, and let us declare in Zion
the work of the Lord our God.
11#Jer 46:4; 50:45 Sharpen the arrows.
Gather the shields.
The Lord has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes.
For His device is against Babylon, to destroy it;
because it is the vengeance of the Lord,
the vengeance of His temple.
12#Isa 13:2; Jer 51:11 Set up the standard against the walls of Babylon,
make the watch strong,
set up the watchmen,
prepare the ambushes.
For the Lord has both devised and done
that which He spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon.
13#Rev 17:1; Isa 45:3 O you who dwell by many waters,
abundant in treasures,
your end has come,
and the measure of your end.
14#Jer 49:13; 50:15 The Lord of Hosts has sworn by Himself,
saying: Surely I will fill you with men, as with locusts,
and they will lift up shouts of victory against you.
15#Job 9:8; Jer 10:12–16 He has made the earth by His power;
He has established the world by His wisdom,
and has stretched out the heaven by His understanding.
16#Ps 135:7; 18:13; Jnh 1:4 When He utters His voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens,
and He causes the clouds to ascend from the remote parts of the earth;
He makes lightning with rain,
and brings out the wind from His storehouses.
17#Jer 10:14; Hab 2:18–19 Every man is ignorant by His knowledge;
every founder is humiliated by the graven image,
for his molded image is falsehood,
and there is no breath in them.
18They are vanity, the work of errors;
in the time of their punishment they will perish.
19#Jer 10:16; Ps 73:26 The portion of Jacob is not like them,
for He is the former of all things,
and Israel is the rod of His inheritance.
The Lord of Hosts is His name.
20#Isa 10:5; 41:15–16 He says: You are My battle-ax
and weapon of war:
for with you I will break in pieces the nations,
and with you I will destroy kingdoms;
21#Ex 15:1 and with you I will break in pieces the horse and his rider;
and with you I will break in pieces the chariot and his rider.
22#2Ch 36:17; Isa 13:18 With you also I will break in pieces man and woman;
and with you I will break in pieces old and young;
and with you I will break in pieces the young man and the young woman.
23I will also break in pieces with you the shepherd and his flock;
and with you I will break in pieces the farmer and his yoke of oxen;
and with you I will break in pieces captains and rulers.
24#Jer 50:15I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, says the Lord.
25#Rev 8:8; Zec 4:7; Isa 13:2 I am against you, O destroying mountain,
says the Lord,
who destroys all the earth.
And I will stretch out My hand against you,
and roll you down from the rocks,
and will make you a burned mountain.
26#Isa 13:19–22; Jer 50:12–13 They will not take of you a stone for a corner,
or a stone for foundations,
but you will be desolate forever,
says the Lord.
27#Ge 8:4; 10:3 Set 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 captain against her.
Cause the horses to come up as the rough locusts.
28#Jer 51:11 Prepare against her the nations,
the kings of the Medes,
the captains, and all the rulers,
and every land of their dominion.
29#Jer 8:16; 51:43 So the land trembles and sorrows,
for the purposes of the Lord will be performed against Babylon,
to make the land of Babylon a desolation
without an inhabitant.
30#Na 3:13; La 2:9; Isa 13:7–8 The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting;
they have remained in their strongholds.
Their might has failed;
they became as women.
They have burned her dwelling places;
the bars of her gates are broken.
31#2Sa 18:19–31; 2Ch 30:6 One courier will run to meet another,
and one messenger to meet another,
to show the king of Babylon
that his city has been captured from end to end,
32and the passages have been seized,
and they have burned the reeds with fire,
and the men of war are terrified.
33#Isa 21:10; Hos 6:11For thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel:
The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor,
it is time to thresh her;
yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come.
34#Jer 50:17; 51:44 “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon
has devoured me and crushed me;
he has made me an empty vessel.
He has swallowed me up like a dragon;
he has filled his belly with my delicacies,
he has cast me out.
35May the violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon,”
the inhabitant of Zion will say;
and, “May my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
Jerusalem will say.
36#Jer 50:38; Ps 140:12Therefore thus says the Lord:
I will plead your cause,
and take vengeance for you.
And I will dry up her sea,
and make her springs dry.
37#Rev 18:2; Jer 18:16 Babylon will become heaps,
a dwelling place for jackals,
an astonishment, and a hissing,
without an inhabitant.
38#Jer 2:15 They will roar together like young lions;
they will growl as lions’ whelps.
39#Jer 51:57; 25:27 When they become heated up,
I will make their feasts,
and I will make them drunk,
that they may rejoice,
and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake,
says the Lord.
40#Jer 50:27 I will bring them down
like lambs to the slaughter,
like rams with male goats.
41#Jer 25:26; Isa 13:19 How Sheshak has been captured!
And how the praise of the whole earth has been seized!
How Babylon has become an astonishment
among the nations!
42#Isa 8:7–8; Da 9:26 The sea has come up over Babylon;
she has been covered with the multitude of the waves.
43#Isa 13:20; Jer 2:6 Her cities have become a desolation,
a dry land and a wilderness,
a land in which no man dwells,
through which no son of man passes.
44#Jer 51:34; 51:58 I will punish Bel in Babylon,
and I will bring forth from his mouth what he has swallowed up;
and the nations will not flow together any more to him.
Indeed, the wall of Babylon will fall.
45#Jer 51:6; Isa 48:20 My people, go out of her midst,
and deliver every man his soul
from the fierce anger of the Lord,
46#2Ki 19:7; Isa 13:3–5 lest your heart grows faint, and you are afraid
for the report that will be heard in the land—
for the report will come one year, and after that in another year will come another report,
and violence will be in the land,
ruler against ruler—
47#Jer 50:2; Isa 46:1–2 therefore the days are coming
when I will punish the graven images of Babylon;
and her whole land will be humiliated,
and all her slain will fall in her midst.
48#Isa 44:23; Rev 18:20 Then the heaven and the earth, and all that is in it,
shall sing for joy over Babylon;
for the destroyers will come to her
from the north,
says the Lord.
49#Jer 50:29; 51:24 As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall,
so at Babylon the slain of all the earth will fall.
50#Jer 44:28; Dt 4:29–31 You who have escaped the sword,
go away, do not stand still.
Remember the Lord afar off,
and let Jerusalem come into your mind.
51#La 1:10; Ps 44:13–16 We are humiliated
because we have heard reproach.
Shame has covered our faces,
for strangers have come into
the holy places of the house of the Lord.
52#Jer 51:47; 50:38 Therefore, surely the days are coming, says the Lord,
when I will punish her graven images,
and the mortally wounded shall groan
through all her land.
53#Jer 49:16; Ge 11:4 Though Babylon should mount up to heaven,
and though she should fortify the height of her strength,
yet from Me will destroyers come to her,
says the Lord.
54#Jer 50:22; 48:3–5 A sound of an outcry comes from Babylon,
and great destruction
from the land of the Chaldeans,
55because the Lord has devastated Babylon,
and destroyed the great voice out of her.
When her waves roar like great waters,
a noise of their voice is uttered.
56#Ps 46:9; 94:1–2 Because the destroyer is coming against her, even upon Babylon,
and her mighty men will be captured,
every one of their bows are broken.
For the Lord is a God of recompense;
He will completely repay.
57#Jer 46:18; 25:27 I will make her officials drunk, and her wise men,
her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men;
and they will sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake,
says the King whose name is the Lord of Hosts.
58#Jer 51:64; Hab 2:13Thus says the Lord of Hosts:
The broad wall of Babylon will be utterly broken,
and her high gates will be burned with fire;
and the peoples will labor in vain,
and the nations become exhausted only for fire.
Jeremiah’s Command to Seraiah
59#Jer 32:12; 36:4The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah into Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was a quartermaster. 60#Isa 30:8; Jer 30:2–3So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon. 61Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you come to Babylon, then see that you read aloud all these words, 62#Jer 50:3; 50:13and say, ‘O Lord, You have spoken against this place to cut it off, that no one will remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate forever.’ 63#Jer 19:10–11; Rev 18:21It will be that when you have made an end of reading this scroll that you will bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates, 64#Jer 51:58; Job 31:40and say, ‘Thus Babylon will sink and not rise from the disaster that I will bring upon her, and they will become weary.’ ”
Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.
Currently Selected:
:
Highlight
Share
Copy
Want to have your highlights saved across all your devices? Sign up or sign in
Military Bible Association