¹The word that Yahweh spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by the hand of Jeremiah the prophet:

²Tell it among the nations, and make it heard; lift up a banner, make it heard, do not hide it; say: Babylon is captured, Bel is ashamed, Marduk is shattered; her idols are ashamed, her log-idols are shattered.

³For a nation has come up against her out of the north; it will make her land a desolation, and there will be no inhabitant in it, from man to livestock; they have fled, they have gone.

⁴In those days and at that time, the utterance of Yahweh, the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; going and weeping they will go, and they will seek Yahweh their God.

⁵They will ask the way to Zion, their faces turned hither: Come, and let us join ourselves to Yahweh in a covenant forever that will not be forgotten.

⁶My people have become lost sheep; their shepherds made them wander, turned them away on the mountains; from mountain to hill they went, they forgot their resting place.

⁷All who found them ate them, and their adversaries said, We are not guilty, because they sinned against Yahweh, the pasture of righteousness, and the hope of their fathers, Yahweh.

⁸Flee from the midst of Babylon, and go out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be like male goats before the flock.

⁹For behold, I am rousing and bringing up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the land of the north, and they will draw up in battle order against her; from there she will be captured. Their arrows are like a mighty man who acts wisely, who does not return empty-handed.

¹⁰And Chaldea will become plunder; all who plunder her will be satisfied, the utterance of Yahweh.

¹¹Because you rejoice, because you exult, O plunderers of my inheritance, because you skip about like a heifer threshing, and you neigh like the mighty.

¹²Your mother is exceedingly ashamed; she who gave birth to you is abashed; behold, the latter end of the nations is a wilderness, a drought, and a desert plain.

¹³Because of the wrath of Yahweh it will not be dwelt in, but all of it will be a wasteland; everyone who passes by Babylon will be appalled and hiss at all her blows.

¹⁴Draw up in battle order against Babylon all around, all you who bend the bow; shoot at her, do not spare the arrow; for she has sinned against Yahweh.

¹⁵Shout out against her all around; she has given her hand, her buttresses have fallen, her walls are torn down; for it is the vengeance of Yahweh; avenge yourselves on her; just as she has done, do to her.

¹⁶Cut off the sower from Babylon, and the one who wields the sickle in the time of harvest; from before the oppressing sword, each man will turn to his people, and each man will flee to his land.

¹⁷Israel is a scattered sheep; lions have driven it away; the first one ate it, the king of Assyria, and this last one, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has gnawed its bones.

¹⁸Therefore, thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am about to punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I punished the king of Assyria.

¹⁹And I will bring Israel back to his pasture, and he will graze on Carmel and Bashan, and on the hill country of Ephraim and Gilead his being will be satisfied.

²⁰In those days and at that time, the utterance of Yahweh, the guilt of Israel will be sought, and there will be none; and the sins of Judah, and they will not be found; for I will forgive those whom I leave as a remnant.

²¹Against the land of Merathaim, go up against it, and against the dwellers of Pekod: lay waste and devote to destruction what comes after them, the utterance of Yahweh, and do according to all that I have commanded you.

²²The sound of war is in the land, and a great crash!

²³How the hammer of all the land has been cut off and broken! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations!

²⁴I laid a snare for you, and also you were captured, O Babylon, and you did not know; you were found and also seized, because you stirred up strife with Yahweh.

²⁵Yahweh has opened his treasury, and has brought out the weapons of his indignation; for there is a work for the Adonai Yahweh of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans.

²⁶Come to her from the end; open her storehouses; mound her up like heaps, and devote her to destruction; let there be no remnant for her.

²⁷Lay waste all her young bulls; let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them! For their day has come, the time of their punishment.

²⁸The sound of those fleeing and escapees from the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Yahweh our God, the vengeance of his temple.

²⁹Call out the archers against Babylon, all who bend the bow; camp against her all around; let her have no escape. Repay her according to her deed; according to all that she has done, do to her; for she has acted with presumption against Yahweh, against the Holy One of Israel.

³⁰Therefore her young men will fall in her broad places, and all her men of war will be silenced on that day, the utterance of Yahweh.

³¹Behold, I am against you, O arrogant one, the utterance of the Adonai Yahweh of hosts; for your day has come, the time I visit you.

³²And the arrogant one will stumble and fall, and there is no one to raise him up; and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it will devour all around him.

³³Thus says Yahweh of hosts: The children of Israel are oppressed, and the children of Judah together; and all who took them captive hold fast to them; they have refused to let them go.

³⁴Their redeemer is mighty; Yahweh of hosts is his name. He will surely contend in their dispute, so that he may give rest to the land, but he will cause to quake the dwellers of Babylon.

³⁵A sword against the Chaldeans, the utterance of Yahweh, and against the dwellers of Babylon, and against her officials, and against her wise ones.

³⁶A sword against the empty talkers, and they will become fools; a sword against her mighty men, and they will be shattered.

³⁷A sword against his horses, and against his chariotry, and against all the mixed company who are in her midst, and they will become women; a sword against her treasuries, and they will be taken as spoil.

³⁸A drought against her waters, and they will dry up; for it is a land of idols, and in terrors they will act madly.

³⁹Therefore desert-dwellers will dwell with jackals, and the daughters of the ostrich will dwell in it; and it will not be dwelt in again forever, nor will it be settled from generation to generation.

⁴⁰As in God's overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and its neighbors, the utterance of Yahweh, no one will dwell there, and no son of man will sojourn in it.

⁴¹Behold, a people is coming from the north, a great nation and many kings will be roused from the flanks of the land.

⁴²They take hold of bow and javelin; they are cruel, and will not show compassion; their sound roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, set in array like one man for war against you, O daughter of Babylon.

⁴³The king of Babylon heard the report of them, and his hands went slack; distress seized him, pangs like a woman giving birth.

⁴⁴Behold, like a lion he comes up from the majesty of the Jordan to the ever-flowing pasture, for suddenly I will make them run away from it; and whoever is chosen I will appoint over her. For who is like me, and who will summon me, and who is this shepherd who will stand before my face?

⁴⁵Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh, which he resolved against Babylon, and his purposes which he reckoned against the land of the Chaldeans: surely they will drag them away, the little ones of the flock; surely he will devastate the pasture over them.

⁴⁶At the sound that Babylon was seized, the land shook, and an outcry was heard among the nations.