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Judgement on Babylon

50The word that the Lord spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by the prophet Jeremiah:
² Declare among the nations and proclaim,
   set up a banner and proclaim,
   do not conceal it, say:
Babylon is taken,
   Bel is put to shame,
   Merodach is dismayed.
Her images are put to shame,
   her idols are dismayed.

3 For out of the north a nation has come up against her; it shall make her land a desolation, and no one shall live in it; both human beings and animals shall flee away.

4 In those days and at that time, says the Lord, the people of Israel shall come, they and the people of Judah together; they shall come weeping as they seek the Lord their God. ⁵They shall ask the way to Zion, with faces turned towards it, and they shall come and join^* themselves to the Lord by an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.

6 My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray, turning them away on the mountains; from mountain to hill they have gone, they have forgotten their fold. ⁷All who found them have devoured them, and their enemies have said, ‘We are not guilty, because they have sinned against the Lord, the true pasture, the Lord, the hope of their ancestors.’

8 Flee from Babylon, and go out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be like male goats leading the flock. ⁹For I am going to stir up and bring against Babylon a company of great nations from the land of the north; and they shall array themselves against her; from there she shall be taken. Their arrows are like the arrows of a skilled warrior who does not return empty-handed. ¹⁰Chaldea shall be plundered; all who plunder her shall be sated, says the Lord.

¹¹ Though you rejoice, though you exult,
   O plunderers of my heritage,
though you frisk about like a heifer on the grass,
   and neigh like stallions,
¹² your mother shall be utterly shamed,
   and she who bore you shall be disgraced.
Lo, she shall be the last of the nations,
   a wilderness, dry land, and a desert.
¹³ Because of the wrath of the Lord she shall not be inhabited,
   but shall be an utter desolation;
everyone who passes by Babylon shall be appalled
   and hiss because of all her wounds.
¹⁴ Take up your positions around Babylon,
   all you that bend the bow;
shoot at her, spare no arrows,
   for she has sinned against the Lord.
¹⁵ Raise a shout against her from all sides,
   ‘She has surrendered;
her bulwarks have fallen,
   her walls are thrown down.’
For this is the vengeance of the Lord:
   take vengeance on her,
   do to her as she has done.
¹⁶ Cut off from Babylon the sower,
   and the wielder of the sickle in time of harvest;
because of the destroying sword
   all of them shall return to their own people,
   and all of them shall flee to their own land.

17 Israel is a hunted sheep driven away by lions. First the king of Assyria devoured it, and now at the end King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon has gnawed its bones. ¹⁸Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I punished the king of Assyria. ¹⁹I will restore Israel to its pasture, and it shall feed on Carmel and in Bashan, and on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead its hunger shall be satisfied. ²⁰In those days and at that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and none shall be found; for I will pardon the remnant that I have spared.