Jeremy 51

¹Thus saith our Lord: Behold I will raise upon Babylon and upon the inhabitants thereof, which have lifted up their heart against me, as it were a pestilent wind.

²And I will send upon Babylon fanners, and they shall fan it, and shall destroy her land: because they are come upon her on every side in the day of her affliction.

³Let not him that bendeth bend his bow, and let not him go up that is in a brigandine, spare not her young men, kill all her host.

⁴And the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldees, and the wounded in the countries thereof.

⁵Because Israel and Juda have not been left as a widow of their God the Lord of hosts: but their land hath been replenished with sin from the holy one of Israel.

⁶Flee ye out of the midst of Babylon, and let every one save his own life, hold not your peace upon her iniquity: because it is the time of revenge from our Lord, he will requite her the like.

⁷Babylon is a golden cup in the hand of our Lord, inebriating all the earth: of her wine have the Nations drunk, and therefore they are in commotion.

⁸Babylon is fallen suddenly, and is destroyed: howl ye upon her, take resin for her sorrow, if perhaps she may be healed.

⁹We have cured Babylon, & she is not healed: let us forsake her, and let us go every man to his own land: because her judgement hath reached even to the heavens, & is lifted up unto the clouds.

¹⁰Our Lord hath brought forth our justices: come, and let us tell in Sion the work of the Lord our God.

¹¹Make sharp the arrows, fill the quivers: our Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: and against Babylon his mind is to destroy it, because it is the revenge of our Lord, the revenge of his temple.

¹²Upon the walls of Babylon lift up the ensign, increase the watch: set up watchmen, prepare embushments: because our Lord hath meant, and hath done whatsoever he spake against the inhabitants of Babylon.

¹³Thou that dwellest upon many waters, rich in treasures: thine end is come within a foot of thy cutting off.

¹⁴The Lord of hosts hath sworn by his soul: that I will replenish thee with men as it were with the locust, and upon thee shall the merry shout be sung.

¹⁵He that made the earth in his strength, hath prepared the world in his wisdom, and with his prudence stretched out the heavens.

¹⁶He giving a voice, the waters are multiplied in heaven: who lifteth up the clouds from the extreme part of the earth, lightnings he hath turned into rain: and he hath brought forth the wind out of his treasures.

¹⁷Every man is become a fool by knowledge: every metal caster is confounded in his sculptile, because his casting is counterfeit, neither is there spirit in them.

¹⁸They are vain works, and worthy to be laughed at, in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

¹⁹The portion of Jacob is not as these things: because he that made all things he it is, and Israel is the sceptre of his inheritance: the Lord of hosts is his name.

²⁰Thou doest knock together the vessels of war for me, and I will knock together in thee the Gentiles, and I will destroy in thee kingdoms:

²¹And I will break in thee the horse, & his rider: and I will knock together in thee the chariot, and the rider thereof.

²²And I will knock together in thee man and woman, and I will knock together in thee the old man and the child, and I will knock together in thee the young man & the virgin:

²³and I will knock together in thee the Pastor and his flock, and I will knock together in thee the husbandman and his drawing cattle, and I will knock together in thee Dukes and Magistrates.

²⁴And I will render to Babylon, and to all the inhabitants of Chaldee all their evil, that they have done in Sion, before your eyes, saith our Lord.

²⁵Behold I to thee thou pestiferous mountain, saith our Lord, which corruptest the whole earth: and I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and will roll thee out of the rocks, & will give thee to be a mountain of burning.

²⁶And they shall not take of thee a stone for the corner, and a stone for foundations, but thou shalt be destroyed for ever, saith our Lord.

²⁷Lift ye up an ensign in the land: sound with the trumpet among the Gentiles: sanctify the Gentiles upon her: declare against her to the kings of Ararat, Menni, and Ascenez: number Taphsar against her, bring the horse as the stinging locust.

²⁸Sanctify the Gentiles against her, the kings of Media, the Dukes thereof, & all the Magistrates thereof, and all the land of his dominion.

²⁹And the land shall be in a commotion, and shall be troubled: because the cogitation of our Lord shall awake against Babylon, to lay the Land of Babylon desert and inhabitable.

³⁰The valiants of Babylon have ceased from battle, they have dwelt in holds: their strength is devoured, and they are become as women: her tabernacles are burnt, her bars are broken.

³¹A runner shall come to meet the runner, and messenger to meet messenger: to tell the king of Babylon that his city is taken from one end to the other:

³²and the fords are taken beforehand, and the fens be burnt with fire, and the men of war be troubled.

³³Because thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is as a barn floor, the time of her threshing: yet a little, and the time of her reaping shall come.

³⁴Nabuchodonosor the king of Babylon hath eaten me, he hath devoured me: he hath made me as an empty vessel: he hath swallowed me up as a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my tenderness, and hath cast me out.

³⁵Iniquity against me, and my flesh upon Babylon, saith the habitation of Sion: and my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldee, saith Jerusalem.

³⁶Therefore thus saith our Lord: Behold I will judge thy cause, and will revenge thy vengeance, & I will make her sea desolate, & will dry up her vein.

³⁷And Babylon shall be into heaps, the habitation of dragons, astonishment, and hissing, because there is not an inhabiter.

³⁸They shall roar together as lions, they shall shake the manes as the whelps of lions,

³⁹In their heat I will set their drink: and I will make them drunk, that they may be drowsy, and sleep an everlasting sleep, and not arise, saith our Lord.

⁴⁰I will lead them as lambs to be a victim, and as rams with kids.

⁴¹How is Sesach taken, and the noble one of all the earth apprehended? How is Babylon become an astonishment among the Gentiles?

⁴²The sea is come up over Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

⁴³Her cities are become an astonishment: a land inhabitable and desolate, a land wherein none can dwell, nor son of man may pass by it.

⁴⁴And I will visit upon Bel in Babylon, and I will cast out of his mouth that which he had swallowed: and the Gentiles shall no more run together unto him, for the wall also of Babylon shall fall.

⁴⁵Go out of the midst of her my people: that every one may save his life from the wrath of the fury of our Lord.

⁴⁶And lest perhaps your hearts faint, and ye fear the bruit, that shall be heard in the land: and there shall come a bruit in the year, & after this year a bruit: and iniquity in the land, & ruler upon ruler.

⁴⁷Therefore behold the days come, and I will visit upon the sculptiles of Babylon: and all her land shall be confounded and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

⁴⁸And the heavens and the earth shall praise upon Babylon, & all things that are in them: because spoilers shall come to her from the North, saith our Lord.

⁴⁹And as Babylon caused that there should fall slain in Israel: so of Babylon there shall fall slain in the whole land.

⁵⁰You that have escaped the sword, come, stand not: remember our Lord a far off, and let Jerusalem ascend upon your heart.

⁵¹We are confounded, because we have heard reproach: ignominy hath covered our faces: because strangers are come upon the sanctification of the house of our Lord.

⁵²Therefore behold the days come, saith our Lord: & I will visit upon her sculptiles, and in all her land the wounded shall roar.

⁵³If Babylon shall ascend up into heaven, and stablish her strength on high, from me there shall come wasters of her, saith our Lord.

⁵⁴A voice of crying from Babylon, and great destruction from the Land of the Chaldees:

⁵⁵because our Lord hath wasted Babylon, and destroyed out of it the great voice: & their waves shall sound as many waters: their voice hath given a sound.

⁵⁶Because the spoiler is come upon her, that is, upon Babylon, & her valiants are apprehended, & their bow is weakened: because the strong revenger our Lord rendering will repay.

⁵⁷And I will inebriate her Princes, & her wise men, & her Dukes, and her magistrates, and her valiants: and they shall sleep an everlasting sleep, and shall not awake, saith the King, the Lord of hosts is his name.

⁵⁸Thus saith the Lord of hosts: That most broad wall of Babylon by undermining shall be undermined, and her high gates shall be burnt with fire, and the labours of the peoples shall come to nothing, and of the nations shall be into the fire, & shall perish.

⁵⁹The word that Jeremy the Prophet commanded Saraias the son of Nerias, the son of Maasias, when he went with Sedecias the king into Babylon, in the fourth year of his kingdom: and Saraias was the Prince of Prophecy.

⁶⁰And Jeremy wrote all the evil, that was to come upon Babylon in one Book: all these words, that are written against Babylon.

⁶¹And Jeremy said to Saraias: When thou shalt come into Babylon, and shalt see, & shalt read all these words,

⁶²thou shalt say: Lord thou hast spoken against this place to destroy it: that there be none to inhabit it from man even unto beast, and that it be a perpetual wilderness.

⁶³And when thou shalt have finished reading this Book, thou shalt tie a stone to it, and shalt throw it into the midst of Euphrates:

⁶⁴and thou shalt say: So shall Babylon be drowned, and she shall not rise up from the face of the affliction, that I will bring upon her, and she shall be dissolved. Hitherto the words of Jeremy.