¹Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I am rousing a destroying wind against Babylon, and against the dwellers of Leb-qamai.

²And I will send to Babylon foreigners, and they will winnow her and empty her land; for they will be against her on every side in the day of misery.

³Let the bender not bend his bow; and let him not lift himself up in his armor; and do not spare her young men, devote her whole host to destruction.

⁴And they will fall slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and struck through in her streets.

⁵For Israel and Judah are not forsaken by his God, from Yahweh of hosts, though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel.

⁶Flee from the middle of Babylon, and let each man deliver his being; do not be destroyed in her guilt; for it is a time of vengeance for Yahweh; he is repaying her a recompense.

⁷Babylon was a cup of gold in the hand of Yahweh, making drunk all the land; of her wine the nations have drunk, therefore the nations act madly.

⁸Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken. Wail over her; take balm for her pain; perhaps she may be healed.

⁹We healed Babylon, but she was not healed; leave her, and let us go, each man to his own land; for her justice has reached to the skies and been lifted up as far as the clouds.

¹⁰Yahweh brought out our righteousness; come, and let us recount in Zion the work of Yahweh our God.

¹¹Polish the arrows, fill the shields; Yahweh has roused the breath of the kings of Media, for his scheme against Babylon is to ruin it; for it is the vengeance of Yahweh, the vengeance of his temple.

¹²Lift a banner against the walls of Babylon; make strong the watch; set up the watchmen; prepare the ambushers; for Yahweh has both schemed and done what he spoke concerning those who dwell in Babylon.

¹³O you who dwell by many waters, abounding in treasures; your end has come, the measure of your gain.

¹⁴Yahweh of hosts has sworn by his own being: Surely I will fill you with men like the locust, and they will shout over you a shout.

¹⁵He is the one who made the land by his strength, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the skies.

¹⁶When he gives his voice, there is a roar of waters in the skies; he brings up rising mists from the end of the land; he makes lightning for the rain, and brings out the wind from his storehouses.

¹⁷Every human being is brutish, without knowledge; every smelter is put to shame by the idol, for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁸They are vapor, a work of delusions; in the time of their punishment, they will perish.

¹⁹Not like these is the portion of Jacob, for he formed everything, including the tribe of his inheritance; Yahweh of hosts is his name.

²⁰You are a war club for me, weapons of war; with you I shattered nations, and with you I ruined kingdoms.

²¹And with you I shattered the horse and its rider; and with you I shattered the chariot and its rider.

²²And in you I shattered man and woman; and in you I shattered old and boy; and in you I shattered young man and virgin.

²³And in you I will shatter the shepherd and his flock; and in you I will shatter the farmer and his pair; and in you I will shatter governors and officials.

²⁴And I will repay Babylon and all who dwell in Chaldea for all their evil that they did in Zion before your eyes, the utterance of Yahweh.

²⁵Look, I am against you, O mountain of destruction, the utterance of Yahweh, you who ruin all the land; and I will stretch out my hand against you, roll you down from the crags, and make you into a mountain of burning.

²⁶And they will not take from you a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; for you will be wastes forever, the utterance of Yahweh.

²⁷Lift a banner in the land, blow the horn among the nations; set apart nations against her; make the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz hear against her; appoint a marshal against her; bring up horses like the bristling locust.

²⁸Set apart nations against her: the kings of Media, her governors, and all her officials, and all the land of his dominion.

²⁹And the land quaked and writhed, for the plans of Yahweh rose against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a waste, without a dweller.

³⁰The warriors of Babylon have ceased fighting; they dwell in the strongholds; their strength has dried up; they have become women; her dwellings are set on fire, her bars are broken.

³¹A runner will run to meet a runner, and one who tells to meet one who tells, to tell the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end.

³²The fords have been seized; they have burned the marshes with fire; and the men of war are terrified.

³³For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is trodden down; yet a little, and the time of harvest will come for her.

³⁴Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me, has thrown me into confusion, has set me down as an empty vessel, has swallowed me down like a sea monster, has filled his belly with my delights, and has rinsed me out.

³⁵The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, she who dwells in Zion will say; and my blood be upon those who dwell in Chaldea, Jerusalem will say.

³⁶Therefore thus says Yahweh: Look, I am contending for you in your dispute; I will avenge your vengeance; I will parch her sea, and I will make dry her spring.

³⁷And Babylon will become heaps of stones, a dwelling place of jackals, a desolation and a hissing, with no one dwelling.

³⁸Together they roar like young lions; they growl like cubs of lions.

³⁹When they are heated, I will set their feast and make them drunk, so that they exult; and they will sleep a forever sleep and not wake, the utterance of Yahweh.

⁴⁰I will bring them down like lambs to slaughter, like rams with goats.

⁴¹How Sheshach is captured, and the praise of all the land is seized! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations!

⁴²The sea came up over Babylon; she is covered with the tumult of its waves.

⁴³Her cities have become a desolation, a parched land and a desert plain, a land where no one dwells in them, and no human being passes through them.

⁴⁴I will visit punishment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth what he has swallowed; nations will no longer stream to him; even the wall of Babylon has fallen.

⁴⁵Come out of her midst, my people, and let each one save his being from the burning anger of Yahweh.

⁴⁶Lest your heart grow weak and you be afraid at the report that is heard in the land; the report will come in one year, and after it, in the next year, the report, and violence will be in the land, with ruler against ruler.

⁴⁷Therefore, look, days are coming when I will visit punishment on the idols of Babylon, and all her land will be ashamed, and all her slain will fall in her midst.

⁴⁸And the skies and the land, and all that is in them, will cry out for joy over Babylon; for from the north those who devastate will come to her, the utterance of Yahweh.

⁴⁹Babylon too must fall because of the slain of Israel, just as for Babylon the slain of all the land have fallen.

⁵⁰You refugees from the sword, go, do not stand still; remember Yahweh from afar, and let Jerusalem come up into your heart.

⁵¹We are ashamed, for we have heard reproach; disgrace has covered our faces, for foreigners have come into the holy places of the house of Yahweh.

⁵²Therefore, look, days are coming, the utterance of Yahweh, when I will visit punishment on her idols, and in all her land the slain will groan.

⁵³Even if Babylon should go up to the skies, and even if she should fortify the height of her strength, from me devastators will come to her, the utterance of Yahweh.

⁵⁴The sound of a cry of distress from Babylon, and a great crash from the land of the Chaldeans!

⁵⁵For Yahweh is devastating Babylon and will make a great sound perish from her; their waves will roar like many waters; the uproar of their voice is given forth.

⁵⁶For a destroyer has come upon her, upon Babylon, and her mighty men are captured, their bows shattered; for Yahweh is a God of recompenses, he will surely repay.

⁵⁷I will make her officials and her wise ones, her governors, her prefects, and her mighty men drunk, and they will sleep a forever sleep and not wake, the utterance of the king, Yahweh of hosts is his name.

⁵⁸Thus says Yahweh of hosts: The broad walls of Babylon will be utterly laid bare, and her high gates will be set on fire; peoples will toil only for emptiness, and communities will grow weary only for fire.

⁵⁹The word that Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign; and Seraiah was an official of the resting place.

⁶⁰And Jeremiah wrote all the disaster that was to come to Babylon into one scroll, all these words that are written concerning Babylon.

⁶¹And Jeremiah said to Seraiah: When you come to Babylon, you will see, and you will read aloud all these words.

⁶²And you will say: Yahweh, you have spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, so that there will be no inhabitant in it, from human beings to livestock; for it will be a wasteland forever.

⁶³And when you finish reading aloud this scroll, you will tie a stone to it, and you will throw it into the middle of the Euphrates.

⁶⁴And you will say: So Babylon will sink and not rise from the face of the disaster that I am bringing upon her; and they will grow weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.