1Thus says Yehovah: Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against those who dwell in Leb-kamai, a destroying wind. 2And I will send to Babylon strangers, who shall winnow her; and they shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her all around. 3Against him who bends let the archer bend his bow, and against him who lifts himself up in his coat of mail: and do not spare her young men; utterly destroy all her host. 4And they shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets. 5For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, of his God, of Yehovah of hosts; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. 6Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; do not be cut off in her iniquity: for it is the time of Yehovah’s vengeance; he will render to her a recompense. 7Babylon has been a golden cup in Yehovah’s hand, that made all the earth drunk: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad. 8Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed: wail for her; take balm for her pain, perhaps she may be healed. 9We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country; for her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. 10Yehovah has brought out our righteousness: come, and let us declare in Zion the work of Yehovah our God. 11Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: Yehovah has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; because his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the vengeance of Yehovah, the vengeance of his temple. 12Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set the watchmen, prepare the ambushes; for Yehovah has both purposed and done that which he spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon. 13O you who dwell upon many waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your covetousness. 14Yehovah of hosts has sworn by himself, saying, Surely I will fill you with men, as with the creeping locust; and they shall lift up a shout against you. 15He has made the earth by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding he has stretched out the heavens. 16When he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasuries. 17Every man has become brutish and is without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them. 18They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish. 19The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance: Yehovah of hosts is his name. 20You are my battle axe and weapons of war: and with you I will break in pieces the nations; and with you I will destroy kingdoms; 21and with you I will break in pieces the horse and his rider; 22and with you I will break in pieces the chariot and him who rides in it; and with you I will break in pieces man and woman; and with you I will break in pieces the old man and the youth; and with you I will break in pieces the young man and the virgin; 23and with you I will break in pieces 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 governors and deputies. 24And I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, says Yehovah. 25Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, says Yehovah, which destroys all the earth; and I will stretch out my hand upon you, and roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burnt mountain. 26And they shall not take from you a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but you shall be desolate forever, says Yehovah. 27Set 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 marshal against her; cause the horses to come up as the bristling locust. 28Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, their governors, and all their deputies, and all the land of their dominion. 29And the land trembles and is in pain; for the purposes of Yehovah against Babylon stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant. 30The mighty men of Babylon have ceased to fight, they remain in their strongholds; their might has failed; they have become as women: her dwelling places are set on fire; her bars are broken. 31One runner shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to tell the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every side: 32and the passages are seized, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are terrified. 33For thus says Yehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for her. 34Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me, he has made me an empty vessel, he has, like a monster, swallowed me up, 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 shall say; and, May my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, Jerusalem shall say. 36Therefore thus says Yehovah: Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you; and I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry. 37And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant. 38They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as lions’ whelps. 39When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, says Yehovah. 40I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats. 41How Sheshach is taken! and the praise of the whole earth seized! how Babylon has become a desolation among the nations! 42The sea has come up upon Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of its waves. 43Her cities have become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no man dwells, nor does any son of man pass by it. 44And I will execute judgment upon Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up; and the nations shall not flow any more to him: indeed, the wall of Babylon shall fall. 45My people, go out of the midst of her, and save yourselves every man from the fierce anger of Yehovah. 46And do not let your heart faint, nor fear for the news that shall be heard in the land; for news shall come one year, and after that in another year shall come news, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler. 47Therefore, behold, the days are coming, when I will execute judgment upon the graven images of Babylon; and her whole land shall be confounded; and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her. 48Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them, shall sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers shall come to her from the north, says Yehovah. 49As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon the slain of all the land shall fall. 50You who have escaped the sword, go, do not stand still; remember Yehovah from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind. 51We are confounded, because we have heard reproach; confusion has covered our faces: for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of Yehovah’s house. 52Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says Yehovah, when I will execute judgment upon her graven images; and through all her land the wounded shall groan. 53Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me destroyers shall come to her, says Yehovah. 54The sound of a cry from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! 55For Yehovah lays Babylon waste, and destroys out of her the great voice; and their waves roar like many waters; the noise of their voice is uttered: 56for the destroyer has come upon her, even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows are broken in pieces; for Yehovah is a God of recompense, he will surely repay. 57And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, says the King, whose name is Yehovah of hosts. 58Thus says Yehovah of hosts: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the peoples shall labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary. 59The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was chief chamberlain. 60And Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning Babylon. 61And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words, 62and say, O Yehovah, you have spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, so that no one shall dwell in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate forever. 63And it shall be, when you have made an end of reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates: 64and you shall say, Thus Babylon shall sink, and shall not rise again because of the evil that I will bring upon her; and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.