| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | Christian Standard Bible |
| 1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1This is the word the LORD spoke about Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, through the prophet Jeremiah: |
| 2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2Announce to the nations; proclaim and raise up a signal flag; proclaim, and hide nothing. Say, "Babylon is captured; Bel is put to shame; Marduk is terrified." Her idols are put to shame; her false gods, devastated. |
| 3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3For a nation from the north will attack her; it will make her land desolate. No one will be living in it--both people and animals will escape. |
| 4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4In those days and at that time--this is the LORD's declaration--the Israelites and Judeans will come together, weeping as they come, and will seek the LORD their God. |
| 5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5They will ask about Zion, turning their faces to this road. They will come and join themselves to the LORD in a permanent covenant that will never be forgotten. |
| 6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6My people were lost sheep; their shepherds led them astray, guiding them the wrong way in the mountains. They wandered from mountain to hill; they forgot their resting place. |
| 7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7Whoever found them devoured them. Their adversaries said, "We're not guilty; instead, they have sinned against the LORD, their righteous grazing land, the hope of their ancestors, the LORD." |
| 8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8Escape from Babylon; depart from the Chaldeans' land. Be like the rams that lead the flock. |
| 9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9For I will soon stir up and bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country. They will line up in battle formation against her; from there she will be captured. Their arrows will be like a skilled warrior who does not return empty-handed. |
| 10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10The Chaldeans will become plunder; all Babylon's plunderers will be fully satisfied. This is the LORD's declaration. |
| 11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11Because you rejoice, because you celebrate--you who plundered my inheritance--because you frolic like a young cow treading grain and neigh like stallions, |
| 12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 12your mother will be utterly humiliated; she who bore you will be put to shame. Look! She will lag behind all the nations--an arid wilderness, a desert. |
| 13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13Because of the LORD's wrath, she will not be inhabited; she will become a desolation, every bit of her. Everyone who passes through Babylon will be appalled and scoff because of all her wounds. |
| 14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14Line up in battle formation around Babylon, all you archers! Shoot at her! Do not spare an arrow, for she has sinned against the LORD. |
| 15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15Raise a war cry against her on every side! She has thrown up her hands in surrender; her defense towers have fallen; her walls are demolished. Since this is the LORD's vengeance, take your vengeance on her; as she has done, do the same to her. |
| 16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16Cut off the sower from Babylon as well as him who wields the sickle at harvest time. Because of the oppressor's sword, each will turn to his own people, each will flee to his own land. |
| 17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17Israel is a stray lamb, chased by lions. The first who devoured him was the king of Assyria; the last who crushed his bones was King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. |
| 18[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 18Therefore, this is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: I am about to punish the king of Babylon and his land just as I punished the king of Assyria. |
| 19[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 19I will return Israel to his grazing land, and he will feed on Carmel and Bashan; he will be satisfied in the hill country of Ephraim and of Gilead. |
| 20[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 20In those days and at that time--this is the LORD's declaration--one will search for Israel's iniquity, but there will be none, and for Judah's sins, but they will not be found, for I will forgive those I leave as a remnant. |
| 21[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 21Attack the land of Merathaim, and those living in Pekod. Put them to the sword; completely destroy them--this is the LORD's declaration--do everything I have commanded you. |
| 22[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 22The sound of war is in the land--a crushing blow! |
| 23[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 23How the hammer of the whole earth is cut down and smashed! What a horror Babylon has become among the nations! |
| 24[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 24Babylon, I laid a trap for you, and you were caught, but you did not even know it. You were found and captured because you pitted yourself against the LORD. |
| 25[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 25The LORD opened his armory and brought out his weapons of wrath, because it is a task of the Lord GOD of Armies in the land of the Chaldeans. |
| 26[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 26Come against her from the most distant places. Open her granaries; pile her up like mounds of grain and completely destroy her. Leave her no survivors. |
| 27[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 27Put all her young bulls to the sword; let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them because their day has come, the time of their punishment. |
| 28[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 28There is a voice of fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon. The voice announces in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God, the vengeance for his temple. |
| 29[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 29Summon the archers to Babylon, all who string the bow; camp all around her; let none escape. Repay her according to her deeds; just as she has done, do the same to her, for she has acted arrogantly against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel. |
| 30[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 30Therefore, her young men will fall in her public squares; all the warriors will perish in that day. This is the LORD's declaration. |
| 31[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 31Look, I am against you, you arrogant one--this is the declaration of the Lord GOD of Armies--for your day has come, the time when I will punish you. |
| 32[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 32The arrogant will stumble and fall with no one to pick him up. I will set fire to his cities, and it will consume everything around him. |
| 33[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 33This is what the LORD of Armies says: Israelites and Judeans alike have been oppressed. All their captors hold them fast; they refuse to release them. |
| 34[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 34Their Redeemer is strong; the LORD of Armies is his name. He will fervently champion their cause so that he might bring rest to the earth but turmoil to those who live in Babylon. |
| 35[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 35A sword is over the Chaldeans--this is the LORD's declaration--against those who live in Babylon, against her officials, and against her sages. |
| 36[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 36A sword is against the diviners, and they will act foolishly. A sword is against her heroic warriors, and they will be terrified. |
| 37[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 37A sword is against his horses and chariots and against all the foreigners among them, and they will be like women. A sword is against her treasuries, and they will be plundered. |
| 38[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 38A drought will come on her waters, and they will be dried up. For it is a land of carved images, and they go mad because of terrifying things. |
| 39[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 39Therefore, desert creatures will live with hyenas, and ostriches will also live in her. It will never again be inhabited or lived in through all generations. |
| 40[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 40Just as God demolished Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns--this is the LORD's declaration--so no one will live there; no human being will stay in it even temporarily as a temporary resident. |
| 41[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 41Look! A people comes from the north. A great nation and many kings will be stirred up from the remote regions of the earth. |
| 42[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 42They grasp bow and javelin. They are cruel and show no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, lined up like men in battle formation against you, Daughter Babylon. |
| 43[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 43The king of Babylon has heard about them; his hands have become weak. Distress has seized him--pain, like a woman in labor. |
| 44[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 44"Look, it will be like a lion coming from the thickets of the Jordan to the watered grazing land. I will chase Babylon away from her land in a flash. I will appoint whoever is chosen for her. For who is like me? Who will issue me a summons? Who is the shepherd who can stand against me?" |
| 45[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 45Therefore, hear the plans that the LORD has drawn up against Babylon and the strategies he has devised against the land of the Chaldeans: Certainly the flock's little lambs will be dragged away; certainly the grazing land will be made desolate because of them. |
| 46[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 46At the sound of Babylon's conquest the earth will quake; a cry will be heard among the nations. |
| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. |
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