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Jeremiah 51
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Chapter 51
Yahweh makes war on Babylon
1
Yahweh says this: [*a]Against the citizens of Leb-kamai I will rouse a destroying spirit;
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I will send winnowers to Babylon to winnow her and leave her country bare: for they will beleaguer her from every side in the day of disaster.
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Let no archer bend his bow! Let no man swagger in his coat of mail! – No quarter for her young warriors! Vow her whole army to the ban!
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In the country of the Chaldaeans the slaughtered will fall, in the streets of Babylon, those whom the sword runs through.
51:5a But Israel is not bereft of his God, Yahweh Sabaoth.
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Escape out of Babylon (save your lives, each one of you); do not perish yourselves in her punishment, for this is the time of Yahweh’s vengeance: he is paying her her reward!
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Babylon was a golden cup in Yahweh’s hand, she made the whole world drunk, the nations drank her wine and then went mad.
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Babylon has suddenly fallen, is broken: lament for her! Go and fetch balm for her wounds, perhaps she can be cured!
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– ‘We tried to cure Babylon; she has got no better. Leave her alone and let us each go to his own country.’ Yes, her sentence reaches to the sky, rises to the very clouds.
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Yahweh has vindicated our integrity. Come, let us tell in Zion what Yahweh our God has done.
11
Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers! Yahweh has roused the spirit of the king of the Medes[*b], because he has a plan against Babylon to destroy it; this is the vengeance of Yahweh, the revenge for his Temple.
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Against the walls of Babylon display the standard! Strengthen the guard! Post the sentries! Take up concealed positions! For Yahweh made a plan, and he has treated the citizens of Babylon as he promised he would.
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Enthroned beside abundant waters, rich in treasures, you now meet your end, the finish of your pillaging.
14
By his own self Yahweh Sabaoth has sworn: had I filled you with men as plentiful as locusts, the war cry would still have been raised against you!
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By his power he made the earth, by his wisdom set the world firm, by his discernment spread out the heavens.
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When he thunders there is a tumult of water in the heavens; he raises clouds from the boundaries of earth, makes the lightning flash for the downpour, and brings the wind from his storehouse.
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At this all men stand stupefied, uncomprehending, every goldsmith blushes for the idol he has made, since his images are nothing but delusion, with no breath in them.
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They are a Nothing, a laughable production, when the time comes for them to be punished, they will vanish.
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‘The portion of Jacob’ is not like these, for he has formed everything, and Israel is the tribe that is his heritage. His name is Yahweh Sabaoth.
The hammer of Yahweh and the giant mountain
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You were my mace, a weapon of war. With you I crushed the nations, struck kingdoms down,
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with you crushed horse and rider, chariot and charioteer,
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with you crushed man and woman, old man and young, youth and maid,
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with you crushed shepherd and flock, ploughman and team, governors and nobles,
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but I will let you see how I make Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldaea pay for all the wrongs they have done to Zion. It is Yahweh who speaks.
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My quarrel is with you, Mountain of destruction – it is Yahweh who speaks – destroyer of the whole world! I will stretch out my hand against you and send you tumbling from the crags and make you a mountain scorched.
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Never a cornerstone will be taken from you, never a foundation-stone either, for you will be a desert for ever, it is Yahweh who speaks.
The end of Babylon is imminent
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Display the standard throughout the world, sound the trumpet among the nations! Prepare nations to make war on her; summon kingdoms against her: Ararat, Minni, Ashkenaz;[*c] call the roll of her enemies, officer! Bring up the cavalry, bristling like locusts.
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Prepare nations to make war on her: the king of Media with his governors and dignitaries and the whole territory under his rule.
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Then the earth trembled and writhed, for Yahweh’s plan against Babylon was going forward: to change the country of Babylon into an unpopulated desert.
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The warriors of Babylon have done with fighting, they have taken to their strongholds; their strength has gone: they are like women now. Her houses are on fire, her gates are shattered.
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Courier follows close on courier, messenger on messenger, to tell the king of Babylon that his city has been stormed from every side:
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the fords occupied, the bastions burnt down, the fighting men thrown into panic.
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For Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of Israel, says this: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor when it is being trodden: a little while, and there the grain will lie that has been harvested.
The vengeance of Yahweh
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‘He has devoured, consumed me, that king of Babylon; he has left me like an empty dish, like a dragon he has swallowed me whole, he has filled his belly with my delicacies.’
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‘May her violence to me, and all my sufferings, be avenged on Babylon!’ say the people of Zion; ‘On the inhabitants of Chaldaea be my blood!’ says Jerusalem.
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Therefore – Yahweh says this: See, I myself am taking up your cause to make sure you are avenged. I will dry her river up. make her springs run dry,
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and turn Babylon into a heap of stones, a lair for jackals, a thing of horror and of scorn, with no one living in it.
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Like lions they roar together, they growl like lions’ whelps
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Are they feverish? I will prepare them a drink and make them drink until they grow drowsy and fall into an everlasting sleep, never to wake up; it is Yahweh who speaks.
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I will take them down to the slaughter-house like lambs, like rams and he-goats.
An elegy for Babylon
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What! Is she captured and conquered, the admiration of all the world? What! Babylon become a thing of horror, throughout the nations?
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The sea has risen over Babylon, she sinks under its boisterous waves.
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Her towns have been turned into desert, a parched land, a wilderness: no one lives in them, no man goes that way.
Yahweh punishes the idols
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I will punish Bel in Babylon and take from his mouth what he has swallowed. In future the nations will stream to him no more. The wall of Babylon has fallen.
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Go out of her, my people; save your lives, each one of you, from the fierce anger of Yahweh.
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But do not be faint-hearted! Do not take fright at rumours hawked round the country: one rumour spreads one year, next year another follows; violence rules on earth and one tyrant cancels out another.
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See, the days are coming when I am going to punish the idols of Babylon. Her whole country shall be put to shame, with all her slaughtered lying in her midst.
48
Then heaven and earth and all within them shall shout for joy over Babylon, because the destroyers from the North are coming against her – it is Yahweh who speaks.
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Babylon in her turn must fall because of those who were slaughtered in Israel, just as through Babylon there fell men slaughtered over all the world.
50
You who have escaped her sword, get away, do not wait there! Remember Yahweh in that distant country, let Jerusalem be in your mind.
51
– ‘We were ashamed when we heard of the outrage, our face was covered with confusion: because foreigners had entered the holy places of the Temple of Yahweh.’
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– See, the days are coming, it is Yahweh who speaks, when I will punish her idols, and the stricken shall groan throughout her country.
53
Were Babylon to scale the heavens, or reinforce her towering citadel, destroyers would still fall on her at my command, it is Yahweh who speaks.
54
Listen to the shouting from Babylon, the mighty crash from the country of the Chaldaeans!
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That is Yahweh as he lays Babylon waste and silences her monstrous din; well may her waves roar like mighty waters and their tumultuous voice resound:
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for a destroyer is sweeping down on Babylon, her warriors are taken captive, their bows are broken. Yes, Yahweh is a God of retribution, he pays in full.
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I will make her nobles and her sages drink, her governors, her officials and her warriors; they shall fall into an everlasting sleep and not wake up; it is the King who speaks, whose name is Yahweh Sabaoth.
Babylon razed to the ground
58
Yahweh Sabaoth says this: The wide ramparts of Babylon will be razed to the ground, and her high gates will be burnt down. Thus the labouring of the peoples comes to nothing the toiling of the nations ends in fire.
The written oracle thrown into the Euphrates
59
This is the order that the prophet Jeremiah gave to Seraiah son of Mahseiah when the latter left for Babylon at the command of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year of his reign.
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Now Jeremiah had written down the entire disaster that was to befall Babylon in a special book, all these words recorded here as regards Babylon.
61
Jeremiah then said to Seraiah, ‘When you reach Babylon, make a point of reading out every one of these words.
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Then say, “Yahweh, you yourself have proclaimed that this place will be destroyed, that no one will live here ever again, neither man nor beast, but that it will remain desolate for ever”.
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When you have finished reading this book, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates,
64
with the words, “So shall Babylon sink, never to rise again from the disaster with which I am going to overwhelm her”.’ Here end the words of Jeremiah.
Chapters of Jeremiah
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
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