Jeremiah 50:3

¹¹“Make the arrows sharp! Hold the shields firmly! The LORD 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 the LORD, the vengeance of his temple.

³I will sweep away man and animal. I will sweep away the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, and the heaps of rubble with the wicked. I will cut off man from the surface of the earth, says the LORD.

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.

⁶²and say, ‘LORD, you have spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that no one will dwell in it, neither man nor animal, but that it will be desolate forever.’

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.

³⁷Babylon will become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant. ³⁸They will roar together like young lions. They will growl as lions’ cubs. ³⁹When they are inflamed, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says the LORD. ⁴⁰“I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats. ⁴¹“How Sheshach is taken! How the praise of the whole earth is seized! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations! ⁴²The sea has come up on 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. No son of man passes by it. ⁴⁴I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up. The nations will not flow any more to him. Yes, the wall of Babylon will fall.

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.

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.

²⁰Therefore the Lord GOD says: “Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, on man, on animal, on the trees of the field, and on the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and will not be quenched.”

¹⁷Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who will not value silver, and as for gold, they will not delight in it. ¹⁸Their bows will dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb. Their eyes will not spare children. ¹⁹Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be like when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ²⁰It will never be inhabited, neither will it be lived in from generation to generation. The Arabian will not pitch a tent there, neither will shepherds make their flocks lie down there. ²¹But wild animals of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of jackals. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will frolic there. ²²Hyenas will cry in their fortresses, and jackals in the pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged.