Jeremiah 25:26

⁴¹“How Sheshach is taken! How the praise of the whole earth is seized! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations!

⁹behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says the LORD, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

¹After these things, I saw another angel coming down out of the sky, having great authority. The earth was illuminated with his glory. ²He cried with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and she has become a habitation of demons, a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hated bird! ³For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her sexual immorality, the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from the abundance of her luxury.”

⁴I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, that you have no participation in her sins, and that you don’t receive of her plagues, ⁵for her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities. ⁶Return to her just as she returned, and repay her double as she did, and according to her works. In the cup which she mixed, mix to her double. ⁷However much she glorified herself and grew wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning. For she says in her heart, ‘I sit a queen, and am no widow, and will in no way see mourning.’ ⁸Therefore in one day her plagues will come: death, mourning, and famine; and she will be utterly burned with fire, for the Lord God who has judged her is strong.

⁹The kings of the earth who committed sexual immorality and lived wantonly with her will weep and wail over her, when they look at the smoke of her burning, ¹⁰standing far away for the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For your judgment has come in one hour.’ ¹¹The merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise any more: ¹²merchandise of gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, purple, silk, scarlet, all expensive wood, every vessel of ivory, every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble; ¹³and cinnamon, incense, perfume, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle, sheep, horses, chariots, and people’s bodies and souls. ¹⁴The fruits which your soul lusted after have been lost to you. All things that were dainty and sumptuous have perished from you, and you will find them no more at all. ¹⁵The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, will stand far away for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning, ¹⁶saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, she who was dressed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls! ¹⁷For in an hour such great riches are made desolate.’ Every ship master, and everyone who sails anywhere, and mariners, and as many as gain their living by sea, stood far away, ¹⁸and cried out as they looked at the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like the great city?’ ¹⁹They cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and mourning, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had their ships in the sea were made rich by reason of her great wealth!’ For she is made desolate in one hour.

²⁰“Rejoice over her, O heaven, you saints, apostles, and prophets, for God has judged your judgment on her.”

²¹A mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying, “Thus with violence will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down, and will be found no more at all. ²²The voice of harpists, minstrels, flute players, and trumpeters will be heard no more at all in you. No craftsman of whatever craft will be found any more at all in you. The sound of a mill will be heard no more at all in you. ²³The light of a lamp will shine no more at all in you. The voice of the bridegroom and of the bride will be heard no more at all in you, for your merchants were the princes of the earth; for with your sorcery all the nations were deceived. ²⁴In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on the earth.”

¹“Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate. ²Take the millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs, and wade through the rivers. ³Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.” ⁴Our Redeemer, the LORD of Armies is his name, is the Holy One of Israel. ⁵“Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you shall no longer be called the mistress of kingdoms. ⁶I was angry with my people. I profaned my inheritance and gave them into your hand. You showed them no mercy. You laid a very heavy yoke on the aged. ⁷You said, ‘I will be a princess forever,’ so that you didn’t lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the results. ⁸“Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me. I won’t sit as a widow, neither will I know the loss of children.’ ⁹But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day: the loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in their full measure, in the multitude of your sorceries, and the great abundance of your enchantments. ¹⁰For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you. You have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’ ¹¹Therefore disaster will come on you. You won’t know when it dawns. Mischief will fall on you. You won’t be able to put it away. Desolation will come on you suddenly, which you don’t understand. ¹²“Stand now with your enchantments and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth, as if you might profit, as if you might prevail. ¹³You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you. ¹⁴Behold, they are like stubble. The fire will burn them. They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by. ¹⁵The things that you labored in will be like this: those who have trafficked with you from your youth will each wander in his own way. There will be no one to save you.

³⁰“There are the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Sidonians, who have gone down with the slain. They are put to shame in the terror which they caused by their might. They lie uncircumcised with those who are slain by the sword, and bear their shame with those who go down to the pit.

¹The word that the LORD spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet. ²“Declare among the nations and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and don’t conceal; say, ‘Babylon has been taken, Bel is disappointed, Merodach is dismayed! Her images are disappointed. Her idols are dismayed.’ ³For a nation comes up out of the north against her, which will make her land desolate, and no one will dwell in it. They have fled. They are gone, both man and animal. ⁴“In those days, and in that time,” says the LORD, “the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping, and will seek the LORD their God. ⁵They will inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned toward it, saying, ‘Come, and join yourselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.’ ⁶My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have caused them to go astray. They have turned them away on the mountains. They have gone from mountain to hill. They have forgotten their resting place. ⁷All who found them have devoured them. Their adversaries said, ‘We are not guilty, because they have sinned against the LORD, the habitation of righteousness, even the LORD, the hope of their fathers.’ ⁸“Flee out of the middle of Babylon! Go out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the male goats before the flocks. ⁹For, behold, I will stir up and cause to come up against Babylon a company of great nations from the north country; and they will set themselves in array against her. She will be taken from there. Their arrows will be as of an expert mighty man. None of them will return in vain. ¹⁰Chaldea will be a prey. All who prey on her will be satisfied,” says the LORD. ¹¹“Because you are glad, because you rejoice, O you who plunder my heritage, because you are wanton as a heifer that treads out the grain, and neigh as strong horses, ¹²your mother will be utterly disappointed. She who bore you will be confounded. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert. ¹³Because of the LORD’s wrath she won’t be inhabited, but she will be wholly desolate. Everyone who goes by Babylon will be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues. ¹⁴Set yourselves in array against Babylon all around, all you who bend the bow; shoot at her. Spare no arrows, for she has sinned against the LORD. ¹⁵Shout against her all around. She has submitted herself. Her bulwarks have fallen. Her walls have been thrown down, for it is the vengeance of the LORD. Take vengeance on her. As she has done, do to her. ¹⁶Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him who handles the sickle in the time of harvest. For fear of the oppressing sword, they will each return to their own people, and they will each flee to their own land. ¹⁷“Israel is a hunted sheep. The lions have driven him away. First, the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.”

¹⁸Therefore the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria. ¹⁹I will bring Israel again to his pasture, and he will feed on Carmel and Bashan. His soul will be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead. ²⁰In those days, and in that time,” says the LORD, “the iniquity of Israel will be sought for, and there will be none, also the sins of Judah, and they won’t be found; for I will pardon them whom I leave as a remnant. ²¹“Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod. Kill and utterly destroy after them,” says the LORD, “and do according to all that I have commanded you. ²²A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction. ²³How the hammer of the whole earth is cut apart and broken! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations! ²⁴I have laid a snare for you, and you are also taken, Babylon, and you weren’t aware. You are found, and also caught, because you have fought against the LORD. ²⁵The LORD has opened his armory, and has brought out the weapons of his indignation; for the Lord, GOD ^[+] of Armies, has a work to do in the land of the Chaldeans. ²⁶Come against her from the farthest border. Open her storehouses. Cast her up as heaps. Destroy her utterly. Let nothing of her be left. ²⁷Kill all her bulls. Let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them! For their day has come, the time of their visitation. ²⁸Listen to those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God, the vengeance of his temple. ²⁹“Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow. Encamp against her all around. Let none of it escape. Pay her back according to her work. According to all that she has done, do to her; for she has been proud against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel. ³⁰Therefore her young men will fall in her streets. All her men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says the LORD. ³¹“Behold, I am against you, you proud one,” says the Lord, GOD of Armies; “for your day has come, the time that I will visit you. ³²The proud one will stumble and fall, and no one will raise him up. I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it will devour all who are around him.” ³³The LORD of Armies says: “The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together. All who took them captive hold them fast. They refuse to let them go. ³⁴Their Redeemer is strong. The LORD of Armies is his name. He will thoroughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the earth, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon. ³⁵“A sword is on the Chaldeans,” says the LORD, “and on the inhabitants of Babylon, on her princes, and on her wise men. ³⁶A sword is on the boasters, and they will become fools. A sword is on her mighty men, and they will be dismayed. ³⁷A sword is on their horses, on their chariots, and on all the mixed people who are in the middle of her; and they will become as women. A sword is on her treasures, and they will be robbed. ³⁸A drought is on her waters, and they will be dried up; for it is a land of engraved images, and they are mad over idols. ³⁹Therefore the wild animals of the desert with the wolves will dwell there. The ostriches will dwell therein. It will be inhabited no more forever, neither will it be lived in from generation to generation. ⁴⁰As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and its neighbor cities,” says the LORD, “so no man will dwell there, neither will any son of man live therein. ⁴¹“Behold, a people comes from the north. A great nation and many kings will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. ⁴²They take up bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea. They ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Babylon. ⁴³The king of Babylon has heard the news of them, and his hands become feeble. Anguish has taken hold of him, pains as of a woman in labor. ⁴⁴Behold, the enemy will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan against the strong habitation; for I will suddenly make them run away from it. Whoever is chosen, I will appoint him over it, for who is like me? Who will appoint me a time? Who is the shepherd who can stand before me?” ⁴⁵Therefore hear the counsel of the LORD that he has taken against Babylon; and his purposes that he has purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely they will drag them away, even the little ones of the flock. Surely he will make their habitation desolate over them. ⁴⁶The earth trembles at the noise of the taking of Babylon. The cry is heard among the nations.

¹The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.

²Set up a banner on the bare mountain! Lift up your voice to them! Wave your hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. ³I have commanded my consecrated ones; yes, I have called my mighty men for my anger, even my proudly exulting ones. ⁴The noise of a multitude is in the mountains, as of a great people; the noise of an uproar of the kingdoms of the nations gathered together! The LORD of Armies is mustering the army for the battle. ⁵They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.

⁶Wail, for the LORD’s day is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. ⁷Therefore all hands will be feeble, and everyone’s heart will melt. ⁸They will be dismayed. Pangs and sorrows will seize them. They will be in pain like a woman in labor. They will look in amazement one at another. Their faces will be faces of flame. ⁹Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy its sinners out of it. ¹⁰For the stars of the sky and its constellations will not give their light. The sun will be darkened in its going out, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. ¹¹I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will humble the arrogance of the terrible. ¹²I will make people more rare than fine gold, even a person than the pure gold of Ophir. ¹³Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place in the LORD of Armies’ wrath, and in the day of his fierce anger. ¹⁴It will happen that like a hunted gazelle and like sheep that no one gathers, they will each turn to their own people, and will each flee to their own land.

¹Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. ²Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded that the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem be brought to him, that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink from them. ³Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of God’s house which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, drank from them. ⁴They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of bronze, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

⁵In the same hour, the fingers of a man’s hand came out and wrote near the lamp stand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace. The king saw the part of the hand that wrote. ⁶Then the king’s face was changed in him, and his thoughts troubled him; and the joints of his thighs were loosened, and his knees struck one against another.

⁷The king cried aloud to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. The king spoke and said to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing and shows me its interpretation shall be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.”

⁸Then all the king’s wise men came in; but they could not read the writing, and couldn’t make known to the king the interpretation. ⁹Then King Belshazzar was greatly troubled, and his face was changed in him, and his lords were perplexed.

¹⁰The queen by reason of the words of the king and his lords came into the banquet house. The queen spoke and said, “O king, live forever; don’t let your thoughts trouble you, nor let your face be changed. ¹¹There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him. The king, Nebuchadnezzar, your father—yes, the king, your father—made him master of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and soothsayers, ¹²because an excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding, interpreting of dreams, showing of dark sentences, and dissolving of doubts were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will show the interpretation.”

¹³Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Are you that Daniel of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought out of Judah? ¹⁴I have heard of you, that the spirit of the gods is in you and that light, understanding, and excellent wisdom are found in you. ¹⁵Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me, that they should read this writing, and make known to me its interpretation; but they could not show the interpretation of the thing. ¹⁶But I have heard of you, that you can give interpretations and dissolve doubts. Now if you can read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, you shall be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold around your neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.”

¹⁷Then Daniel answered before the king, “Let your gifts be to yourself, and give your rewards to another. Nevertheless, I will read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation.

¹⁸“To you, king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father the kingdom, and greatness, and glory, and majesty. ¹⁹Because of the greatness that he gave him, all the peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. He killed whom he wanted to, and he kept alive whom he wanted to. He raised up whom he wanted to, and he put down whom he wanted to. ²⁰But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him. ²¹He was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the animals’, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of the sky, until he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and that he sets up over it whomever he will.

²²“You, his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, ²³but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines, have drunk wine from them. You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which don’t see, or hear, or know; and you have not glorified the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways. ²⁴Then the part of the hand was sent from before him, and this writing was inscribed.