Jeremiah 50 Cross References - WEB

¹ The word that Yahweh 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.’ ³ For 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 Yahweh, “the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping, and will seek Yahweh their God. ⁵ They will inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned toward it, saying, ‘Come, and join yourselves to Yahweh in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.’ ⁶ My 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. ⁷ All who found them have devoured them. Their adversaries said, ‘We are not guilty, because they have sinned against Yahweh, the habitation of righteousness, even Yahweh, 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. ⁹ For, 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. ¹⁰ Chaldea will be a prey. All who prey on her will be satisfied,” says Yahweh. 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; ¹² your 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. ¹³ Because of Yahweh’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. ¹⁴ Set yourselves in array against Babylon all around, all you who bend the bow; shoot at her. Spare no arrows; for she has sinned against Yahweh. ¹⁵ Shout against her all around. She has submitted herself. Her bulwarks have fallen. Her walls have been thrown down, for it is the vengeance of Yahweh. Take vengeance on her. As she has done, do to her. ¹⁶ Cut 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.” ¹⁸ Therefore Yahweh 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. ¹⁹ I 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. ²⁰ In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “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 Yahweh, “and do according to all that I have commanded you. ²² A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction. ²³ How the hammer of the whole earth is cut apart and broken! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations! ²⁴ I 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 Yahweh. ²⁵ Yahweh has opened his armory, and has brought out the weapons of his indignation; for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, has a work to do in the land of the Chaldeans. ²⁶ Come against her from the farthest border. Open her storehouses. Cast her up as heaps. Destroy her utterly. Let nothing of her be left. ²⁷ Kill all her bulls. Let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them! For their day has come, the time of their visitation. ²⁸ Listen to those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Yahweh 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 Yahweh, against the Holy One of Israel. ³⁰ Therefore her young men will fall in her streets. All her men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says Yahweh. ³¹ “Behold, I am against you, you proud one,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies; “for your day has come, the time that I will visit you. ³² The 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.” ³³ Yahweh 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. ³⁴ Their Redeemer is strong: Yahweh 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 Yahweh, “and on the inhabitants of Babylon, on her princes, and on her wise men. ³⁶ A sword is on the boasters, and they will become fools. A sword is on her mighty men, and they will be dismayed. ³⁷ A 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. ³⁸ A 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. ³⁹ Therefore the wild animals of the desert with the wolves will dwell there. The ostriches will dwell therein; and it will be inhabited no more forever; neither will it be lived in from generation to generation. ⁴⁰ As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and its neighbor cities,” says Yahweh, “so no man will dwell there, neither will any son of man live therein. ⁴¹ “Behold, a people comes from the north; and a great nation and many kings will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. ⁴² They 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. ⁴³ The 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. ⁴⁴ Behold, the enemy will come up like a lion from the pride 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?” ⁴⁵ Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh, 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. ⁴⁶ At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth trembles; and the cry is heard among the nations.

¹⁰ The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

³¹ Terah took Abram his son, Lot the son of Haran, his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife. They went from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan. They came to Haran and lived there.

² “Yahweh’s Spirit spoke by me. His word was on my tongue.

¹⁷ While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, “The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

⁸ Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, he will be happy who repays you, as you have done to us. ⁹ Happy shall he be, who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock.

¹ The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. ² Set 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. ³ I have commanded my consecrated ones; yes, I have called my mighty men for my anger, even my proudly exulting ones.

⁴ that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!”

¹ The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land. ² A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing. ³ Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have seized me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I am so dismayed that I can’t see. ⁴ My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me. ⁵ They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield! ⁶ For the Lord said to me, “Go, set a watchman. Let him declare what he sees. ⁷ When he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, he shall listen diligently with great attentiveness.” ⁸ He cried like a lion: “Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post. ⁹ Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs.” He answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground. ¹⁰ You are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!” That which I have heard from Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.

¹³ Behold, the land of the Chaldeans. This people didn’t exist. The Assyrians founded it for those who dwell in the wilderness. They set up their towers. They overthrew its palaces. They made it a ruin.

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. ² Take the millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs, and wade through the rivers. ³ Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.” ⁴ Our Redeemer, Yahweh 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. ⁶ I 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. ⁷ You 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.’ ⁹ But 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. ¹⁰ For 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.’ ¹¹ Therefore 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. ¹³ You 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. ¹⁴ Behold, 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. ¹⁵ The 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.

²⁶ and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are on the surface of the earth. The king of Sheshach will drink after them. ²⁷ “You shall tell them, ‘Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Drink, and be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.”’

⁷ All the nations will serve him, his son, and his son’s son, until the time of his own land comes. Then many nations and great kings will make him their bondservant.

¹ Yahweh says: “Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against those who dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind. ² I will send to Babylon strangers, who will winnow her. They will empty her land; for in the day of trouble they will be against her all around. ³ Against him who bends, let the archer bend his bow, also against him who lifts himself up in his coat of mail. Don’t spare her young men! Utterly destroy all her army! ⁴ They will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets. ⁵ For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, by his God, by Yahweh of Armies; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. ⁶ “Flee out of the middle of Babylon! Everyone save his own life! Don’t be cut off in her iniquity; for it is the time of Yahweh’s vengeance. He will render to her a recompense. ⁷ Babylon has been a golden cup in Yahweh’s hand, who made all the earth drunk. The nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations have gone mad. ⁸ Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed! Wail for her! Take balm for her pain. Perhaps she may be healed. ⁹ “We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her, and let’s each go into his own country; for her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. ¹⁰ ‘Yahweh has produced our righteousness: come, and let’s declare in Zion the work of Yahweh our God.’ ¹¹ “Make the arrows sharp! Hold the shields firmly! Yahweh 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 Yahweh, the vengeance of his temple. ¹² Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon! Make the watch strong! Set the watchmen, and prepare the ambushes; for Yahweh has both purposed and done that which he spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon. ¹³ You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your covetousness. ¹⁴ Yahweh of Armies has sworn by himself, saying, ‘Surely I will fill you with men, as with the canker worm; and they will lift up a shout against you.’

⁵ Yes, moreover, wine is treacherous: an arrogant man who doesn’t stay at home, who enlarges his desire as Sheol; he is like death, and can’t be satisfied, but gathers to himself all nations, and heaps to himself all peoples. ⁶ Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’ ⁷ Won’t your debtors rise up suddenly, and wake up those who make you tremble, and you will be their victim? ⁸ Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it. ⁹ Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil! ¹⁰ You have devised shame to your house, by cutting off many peoples, and have sinned against your soul. ¹¹ For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it. ¹² Woe to him who builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity! ¹³ Behold, isn’t it of Yahweh of Armies that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity? ¹⁴ For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Yahweh’s glory, as the waters cover the sea. ¹⁵ “Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring your inflaming wine until they are drunk, so that you may gaze at their naked bodies! ¹⁶ You are filled with shame, and not glory. You will also drink, and be exposed! The cup of Yahweh’s right hand will come around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. ¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals, which made them afraid, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them. ¹⁸ “What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols? ¹⁹ Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’ or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all within it. ²⁰ But Yahweh is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him!”

⁴ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldaeans and lived in Haran. From there, when his father was dead, God moved him into this land, where you are now living.

²¹ For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but holy men of God spoke, being moved by the Holy Spirit.

¹ After these things, I saw another angel coming down out of the sky, having great authority. The earth was illuminated with his glory. ² He 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 hateful bird! ³ For 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.” ⁴ I 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, ⁵ for her sins have reached to the sky, and God has remembered her iniquities. ⁶ Return 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. ⁷ However 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.’ ⁸ Therefore 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. ⁹ The 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, ¹⁰ standing 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.’ ¹¹ The merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise any more: ¹² merchandise 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; ¹³ and cinnamon, incense, perfume, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, sheep, horses, chariots, and people’s bodies and souls. ¹⁴ The 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. ¹⁵ The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, will stand far away for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning, ¹⁶ saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, she who was dressed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls! ¹⁷ For 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, ¹⁸ and cried out as they looked at the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like the great city?’ ¹⁹ They 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.” ²¹ A 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. ²² The 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. ²³ The 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. ²⁴ In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on the earth.”

⁹ All mankind shall be afraid. They shall declare the work of God, and shall wisely ponder what he has done.

³ Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples.

⁴ In that day you will say, “Give thanks to Yahweh! Call on his name. Declare his doings among the peoples. Proclaim that his name is exalted!

² Set 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.

⁹ Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs.” He answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground.

¹⁹ and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them.

¹ At that time, Merodach Baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah; for he heard that he had been sick, and had recovered.

¹ Bel bows down. Nebo stoops. Their idols are carried by animals, and on the livestock. The things that you carried around are heavy loads, a burden for the weary.

⁶ You have heard it. Now see all this. And you, won’t you declare it? “I have shown you new things from this time, even hidden things, which you have not known.

¹⁸ “For I know their works and their thoughts. The time comes that I will gather all nations and languages, and they will come, and will see my glory. ¹⁹ “I will set a sign among them, and I will send those who escape of them to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to far-away islands, who have not heard my fame, nor have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations.

¹⁶ “Tell the nations, behold, publish against Jerusalem, ‘Watchers come from a far country, and raise their voice against the cities of Judah.

¹⁸ Therefore hear, you nations, and know, congregation, what is among them.

¹⁰ “Hear Yahweh’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’

¹² I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt. He will burn them, and carry them away captive. He will array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd puts on his garment; and he will go out from there in peace. ¹³ He will also break the pillars of Beth Shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and he will burn the houses of the gods of Egypt with fire.’”

¹⁴ “Declare in Egypt, publish in Migdol, and publish in Memphis and in Tahpanhes: say, ‘Stand up, and prepare; for the sword has devoured around you.’

⁴⁶ At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth trembles; and the cry is heard among the nations.

⁸ Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed! Wail for her! Take balm for her pain. Perhaps she may be healed.

³¹ One runner will run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter.

⁴⁴ I 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.

⁴⁷ Therefore behold, the days come that I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole land will be confounded. All her slain will fall in the middle of her.

⁵² “Therefore behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will execute judgment on her engraved images; and through all her land the wounded will groan.

³¹ In the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evilmerodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and released him from prison.

¹¹ Yahweh will be awesome to them, for he will famish all the gods of the land. Men will worship him, everyone from his place, even all the shores of the nations.

⁶ I saw an angel flying in mid heaven, having an eternal Good News to proclaim to those who dwell on the earth, and to every nation, tribe, language, and people. ⁷ He said with a loud voice, “Fear the Lord, and give him glory; for the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and the springs of waters!” ⁸ Another, a second angel, followed, saying, “Babylon the great has fallen, which has made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her sexual immorality.”

² He 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 hateful bird!

⁷ Yahweh said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the surface of the ground—man, along with animals, creeping things, and birds of the sky—for I am sorry that I have made them.”

¹² For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and animal. I will execute judgments against all the gods of Egypt. I am Yahweh.

⁵ They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even Yahweh, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. ⁶ Wail, for Yahweh’s day is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. ⁷ Therefore all hands will be feeble, and everyone’s heart will melt. ⁸ They 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. ⁹ Behold, the day of Yahweh comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy its sinners out of it. ¹⁰ For 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.

¹⁷ Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who will not value silver, and as for gold, they will not delight in it. ¹⁸ Their 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. ¹⁹ Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be like when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ²⁰ It 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. ²¹ But 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. ²² Wolves will cry in their fortresses, and jackals in the pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged.

²² “I will rise up against them,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son’s son,” says Yahweh. ²³ “I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water. I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” says Yahweh of Armies. ²⁴ Yahweh of Armies has sworn, saying, “Surely, as I have thought, so shall it happen; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:

²⁰ Therefore the Lord Yahweh 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.”

⁶ I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and animal. They will die of a great pestilence.

⁹ For, 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.

¹² your 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. ¹³ Because of Yahweh’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.

³⁵ “A sword is on the Chaldeans,” says Yahweh, “and on the inhabitants of Babylon, on her princes, and on her wise men. ³⁶ A sword is on the boasters, and they will become fools. A sword is on her mighty men, and they will be dismayed. ³⁷ A 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. ³⁸ A 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. ³⁹ Therefore the wild animals of the desert with the wolves will dwell there. The ostriches will dwell therein; and it will be inhabited no more forever; neither will it be lived in from generation to generation. ⁴⁰ As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and its neighbor cities,” says Yahweh, “so no man will dwell there, neither will any son of man live therein. ⁴¹ “Behold, a people comes from the north; and a great nation and many kings will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth.

⁸ Babylon has suddenly fallen and been destroyed! Wail for her! Take balm for her pain. Perhaps she may be healed. ⁹ “We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her, and let’s each go into his own country; for her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

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

²⁵ “Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain,” says Yahweh, “which destroys all the earth. I will stretch out my hand on you, roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burned mountain. ²⁶ They won’t take a cornerstone from you, nor a stone for foundations; but you will be desolate forever,” says Yahweh. ²⁷ “Set up a standard in the land! Blow the trumpet among the nations! Prepare the nations against her! Call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz! Appoint a marshal against her! Cause the horses to come up as the rough canker worm!

³⁷ Babylon will become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant. ³⁸ They will roar together like young lions. They will growl as lions’ cubs. ³⁹ When they are heated, 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 Yahweh. 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! ⁴² The sea has come up on Babylon. She is covered with the multitude of its waves. ⁴³ Her 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. ⁴⁴ I 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.

⁴⁸ Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, will sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers will come to her from the north,” says Yahweh.

⁶² and say, ‘Yahweh, 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.’

³ I 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 Yahweh.

²¹ A 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. ²² The 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. ²³ The 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.

¹² But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ households, the old men who had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice. Many also shouted aloud for joy, ¹³ so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people; for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard far away.

⁴ Seek Yahweh and his strength. Seek his face forever more.

⁴ Restore our fortunes again, Yahweh, like the streams in the Negev. ⁵ Those who sow in tears will reap in joy. ⁶ He who goes out weeping, carrying seed for sowing, will certainly come again with joy, carrying his sheaves.

¹² He will set up a banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. ¹³ The envy also of Ephraim will depart, and those who persecute Judah will be cut off. Ephraim won’t envy Judah, and Judah won’t persecute Ephraim.

¹ For Yahweh will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land. The foreigner will join himself with them, and they will unite with the house of Jacob.

¹⁹ I have not spoken in secret, in a place of the land of darkness. I didn’t say to the offspring of Jacob, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I, Yahweh, speak righteousness. I declare things that are right.

⁶ Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call on him while he is near.

⁴ For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed has come.

¹⁶ It will come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land, in those days,” says Yahweh, “they will no longer say, ‘the ark of Yahweh’s covenant!’ It will not come to mind. They won’t remember it. They won’t miss it, nor will another be made. ¹⁷ At that time they will call Jerusalem ‘Yahweh’s Throne;’ and all the nations will be gathered to it, to Yahweh’s name, to Jerusalem. They will no longer walk after the stubbornness of their evil heart. ¹⁸ In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance to your fathers.

¹² You shall call on me, and you shall go and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You shall seek me, and find me, when you search for me with all your heart. ¹⁴ I will be found by you,” says Yahweh, “and I will turn again your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places where I have driven you, says Yahweh. I will bring you again to the place from where I caused you to be carried away captive.”

¹⁰ Therefore don’t be afraid, O Jacob my servant, says Yahweh. Don’t be dismayed, Israel. For, behold, I will save you from afar, and save your offspring from the land of their captivity. Jacob will return, and will be quiet and at ease. No one will make him afraid. ¹¹ For I am with you, says Yahweh, to save you; for I will make a full end of all the nations where I have scattered you, but I will not make a full end of you; but I will correct you in measure, and will in no way leave you unpunished.”

⁶ For there will be a day that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim cry, ‘Arise! Let’s go up to Zion to Yahweh our God.’” ⁷ For Yahweh says, “Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations. Publish, praise, and say, ‘Yahweh, save your people, the remnant of Israel!’

⁹ They will come with weeping. I will lead them with petitions. I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way in which they won’t stumble; for I am a father to Israel. Ephraim is my firstborn. ¹⁰ “Hear Yahweh’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’

³¹ “Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

⁶ ‘Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them; and I will reveal to them abundance of peace and truth. ⁷ I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. ⁸ I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against me. I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against me and by which they have transgressed against me.

¹⁵ “In those days and at that time, I will cause a Branch of righteousness to grow up to David. He will execute justice and righteousness in the land.

¹⁹ I 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. ²⁰ In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “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.

³³ Yahweh 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. ³⁴ Their Redeemer is strong: Yahweh 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.

⁴⁷ Therefore behold, the days come that I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole land will be confounded. All her slain will fall in the middle of her. ⁴⁸ Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, will sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers will come to her from the north,” says Yahweh.

¹⁶ “You, son of man, take one stick, and write on it, ‘For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions.’ Then take another stick, and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions.’ ¹⁷ Then join them for yourself to one another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand. ¹⁸ “When the children of your people speak to you, saying, ‘Won’t you show us what you mean by these?’ ¹⁹ tell them, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his companions; and I will put them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in my hand. ²⁰ The sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes.”’ ²¹ Say to them, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, where they have gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land. ²² I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. One king will be king to them all. They will no longer be two nations. They won’t be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.

²⁵ “Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Now I will reverse the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel. I will be jealous for my holy name.

¹¹ The children of Judah and the children of Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint themselves one head, and will go up from the land; for great will be the day of Jezreel.

⁵ Afterward the children of Israel shall return, and seek Yahweh their God, and David their king, and shall come with trembling to Yahweh and to his blessings in the last days.

¹² “Yet even now,” says Yahweh, “turn to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning.”

²¹ and the inhabitants of one shall go to another, saying, ‘Let’s go speedily to entreat the favor of Yahweh, and to seek Yahweh of Armies. I will go also.’ ²² Yes, many peoples and strong nations will come to seek Yahweh of Armies in Jerusalem, and to entreat the favor of Yahweh.” ²³ Yahweh of Armies says: “In those days, ten men will take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, they will take hold of the skirt of him who is a Jew, saying, ‘We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”

¹⁰ I will pour on David’s house, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for his firstborn.

⁹ Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.

⁷ I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your offspring after you.

⁵ Isn’t my house so with God? Yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, for it is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he doesn’t make it grow.

¹⁰ He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

¹⁴ He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

⁸ Good and upright is Yahweh, therefore he will instruct sinners in the way. ⁹ He will guide the humble in justice. He will teach the humble his way.

⁷ They go from strength to strength. Every one of them appears before God in Zion.

³ Many peoples shall go and say, “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the law shall go out of Zion, and Yahweh’s word from Jerusalem. ⁴ He will judge between the nations, and will decide concerning many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. ⁵ House of Jacob, come, and let’s walk in the light of Yahweh.

⁸ A highway will be there, a road, and it will be called “The Holy Way”. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it will be for those who walk in the Way. Wicked fools shall not go there.

³ Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

⁶ Also the foreigners who join themselves to Yahweh to serve him, and to love Yahweh’s name, to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath from profaning it, and holds fast my covenant, ⁷ I will bring these to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

¹⁶ Yahweh says, “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, ‘Where is the good way?’ and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

³¹ “Behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: ³² not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which covenant of mine they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says Yahweh. ³³ “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says Yahweh: “I will put my law in their inward parts, and I will write it in their heart. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴ They will no longer each teach his neighbor, and every man teach his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh;’ for they will all know me, from their least to their greatest,” says Yahweh: “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” ³⁵ Yahweh, who gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who stirs up the sea, so that its waves roar; Yahweh of Armies is his name, says: ³⁶ “If these ordinances depart from before me,” says Yahweh, “then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before me forever.”

⁴⁰ I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from following them, to do them good. I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me.

¹ But in the latter days, it will happen that the mountain of Yahweh’s temple will be established on the top of the mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills; and peoples will stream to it. ² Many nations will go and say, “Come! Let’s go up to the mountain of Yahweh, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the law will go out of Zion, and Yahweh’s word from Jerusalem;

¹⁷ If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God, or if I am speaking from myself.

²³ who, when he had come, and had seen the grace of God, was glad. He exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they should remain near to the Lord.

⁵ This was not as we had expected, but first they gave their own selves to the Lord, and to us through the will of God. ⁶ But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant, which on better promises has been given as law. ⁷ For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. ⁸ For finding fault with them, he said, “Behold, the days come”, says the Lord, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; ⁹ not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they didn’t continue in my covenant, and I disregarded them,” says the Lord. ¹⁰ “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days,” says the Lord; “I will put my laws into their mind, I will also write them on their heart. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

² He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.

⁷ You are my hiding place. You will preserve me from trouble. You will surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.

¹ A Prayer by Moses, the man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations.

¹ He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

⁷ Return to your rest, my soul, for Yahweh has dealt bountifully with you.

¹⁷⁶ I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I don’t forget your commandments.

⁷ Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you graze your flock, where you rest them at noon; for why should I be as one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions? ⁸ If you don’t know, most beautiful among women, follow the tracks of the sheep. Graze your young goats beside the shepherds’ tents.

¹⁵ For thus said the Lord Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, “You will be saved in returning and rest. Your strength will be in quietness and in confidence.” You refused,

² A man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the storm, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade of a large rock in a weary land.

⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

¹⁰ His watchmen are blind. They are all without knowledge. They are all mute dogs. They can’t bark— dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. ¹¹ Yes, the dogs are greedy. They can never have enough. They are shepherds who can’t understand. They have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter. ¹² “Come,” they say, “I will get wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow will be as today, great beyond measure.”

²⁰ “For long ago I broke off your yoke, and burst your bonds. You said, ‘I will not serve;’ for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.

³² “Can a virgin forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me for days without number.

⁶ Moreover, Yahweh said to me in the days of Josiah the king, “Have you seen that which backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain and under every green tree, and has played the prostitute there.

²³ Truly help from the hills, the tumult on the mountains, is in vain. Truly the salvation of Israel is in Yahweh our God.

²¹ For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not inquired of Yahweh. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks have scattered.

¹¹ for both prophet and priest are profane. Yes, in my house I have found their wickedness,” says Yahweh. ¹² Therefore their way will be to them as slippery places in the darkness. They will be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation,” says Yahweh. ¹³ “I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria. They prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. ¹⁴ In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.” ¹⁵ Therefore Yahweh of Armies says concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink poisoned water; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the 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.”

¹⁹ I 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.

⁴ You haven’t strengthened the diseased. You haven’t healed that which was sick. You haven’t bound up that which was broken. You haven’t brought back that which was driven away. You haven’t sought that which was lost, but you have ruled over them with force and with rigor. ⁵ They were scattered, because there was no shepherd. They became food to all the animals of the field, and were scattered. ⁶ My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill. Yes, my sheep were scattered on all the surface of the earth. There was no one who searched or sought.” ⁷ “‘Therefore, you shepherds, hear Yahweh’s word: ⁸ “As I live,” says the Lord Yahweh, “surely because my sheep became a prey, and my sheep became food to all the animals of the field, because there was no shepherd. My shepherds didn’t search for my sheep, but the shepherds fed themselves, and didn’t feed my sheep.” ⁹ Therefore, you shepherds, hear Yahweh’s word: ¹⁰ The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against the shepherds. I will require my sheep at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the sheep. The shepherds won’t feed themselves any more. I will deliver my sheep from their mouth, that they may not be food for them.” ¹¹ “‘For the Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I myself, even I, will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. ¹² As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so I will seek out my sheep. I will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

¹⁴ I will feed them with good pasture; and their fold will be on the mountains of the height of Israel. There they will lie down in a good fold. They will feed on fat pasture on the mountains of Israel.

²⁵ “‘I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause evil animals to cease out of the land. They will dwell securely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods. ²⁶ I will make them and the places around my hill a blessing. I will cause the shower to come down in its season. There will be showers of blessing. ²⁷ The tree of the field will yield its fruit, and the earth will yield its increase, and they will be secure in their land. Then they will know that I am Yahweh, when I have broken the bars of their yoke, and have delivered them out of the hand of those who made slaves of them. ²⁸ They will no more be a prey to the nations, neither will the animals of the earth devour them; but they will dwell securely, and no one will make them afraid.

⁴ Yahweh my God says: “Feed the flock of slaughter. ⁵ Their buyers slaughter them, and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be Yahweh, for I am rich;’ and their own shepherds don’t pity them. ⁶ For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land,” says Yahweh; “but, behold, I will deliver the men everyone into his neighbor’s hand, and into the hand of his king. They will strike the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them.” ⁷ So I fed the flock of slaughter, especially the oppressed of the flock. I took for myself two staffs. The one I called “Favor”, and the other I called “Union”, and I fed the flock. ⁸ I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me. ⁹ Then I said, “I will not feed you. That which dies, let it die; and that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let those who are left eat each other’s flesh.”

³⁶ But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and scattered, like sheep without a shepherd.

⁶ Rather, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

²⁴ But he answered, “I wasn’t sent to anyone but the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

¹⁰ See that you don’t despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven. ¹¹ For the Son of Man came to save that which was lost. ¹² “What do you think? If a man has one hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine, go to the mountains, and seek that which has gone astray? ¹³ If he finds it, most certainly I tell you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine which have not gone astray.

⁴ “Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? ⁵ When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶ When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ ⁷ I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

²⁵ For you were going astray like sheep; but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

⁴ Our fathers trusted in you. They trusted, and you delivered them. ⁵ They cried to you, and were delivered. They trusted in you, and were not disappointed.

⁷ for they have devoured Jacob, and destroyed his homeland.

¹² The Syrians in front, and the Philistines behind; and they will devour Israel with open mouth. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

⁶ I 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.

⁹ All you animals of the field, come to devour, all you animals in the forest.

³ Israel was holiness to Yahweh, the first fruits of his increase. All who devour him will be held guilty. Evil will come on them,”’ says Yahweh.”

⁷ “I have forsaken my house. I have cast off my heritage. I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies. ⁸ My heritage has become to me as a lion in the forest. She has uttered her voice against me. Therefore I have hated her. ⁹ Is my heritage to me as a speckled bird of prey? Are the birds of prey against her all around? Go, assemble all the animals of the field. Bring them to devour. ¹⁰ Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard. They have trodden my portion under foot. They have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. ¹¹ They have made it a desolation. It mourns to me, being desolate. The whole land is made desolate, because no one cares.

⁸ You hope of Israel, its Savior in the time of trouble, why should you be as a foreigner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to stay for a night?

²³ Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Yet again they will use this speech in the land of Judah and in its cities, when I reverse their captivity: ‘Yahweh bless you, habitation of righteousness, mountain of holiness.’

² The captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said to him, “Yahweh your God pronounced this evil on this place; ³ and Yahweh has brought it, and done according as he spoke. Because you have sinned against Yahweh, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore this thing has come on you.

³³ Yahweh 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.

⁶ We haven’t listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

¹⁶ Lord, according to all your righteousness, let your anger and please let your wrath be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all who are around us.

¹⁵ I am very angry with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little displeased, but they added to the calamity.”

⁵ Their buyers slaughter them, and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be Yahweh, for I am rich;’ and their own shepherds don’t pity them.

¹ Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ our hope;

²⁶ He spoke to the congregation, saying, “Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be consumed in all their sins!”

³¹ the greyhound; the male goat; and the king against whom there is no rising up.

²⁰ Leave Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! With a voice of singing announce this, tell it even to the end of the earth: say, “Yahweh has redeemed his servant Jacob!”

¹ Awake, awake! Put on your strength, Zion. Put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city: for from now on the uncircumcised and the unclean will no more come into you.

⁶ “Flee out of the middle of Babylon! Everyone save his own life! Don’t be cut off in her iniquity; for it is the time of Yahweh’s vengeance. He will render to her a recompense.

⁴⁵ “My people, go away from the middle of her, and each of you save yourselves from Yahweh’s fierce anger.

⁶ Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north,’ says Yahweh; ‘for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the sky,’ says Yahweh. ⁷ ‘Come, Zion! Escape, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon.’

¹⁷ Therefore “‘Come out from among them, and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing. I will receive you.

⁴ I 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,

²² From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, Jonathan’s bow didn’t turn back. Saul’s sword didn’t return empty.

¹ Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that Yahweh’s word by Jeremiah’s mouth might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, ² “Cyrus king of Persia says, ‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he has commanded me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

² Set 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. ³ I have commanded my consecrated ones; yes, I have called my mighty men for my anger, even my proudly exulting ones. ⁴ The 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! Yahweh of Armies is mustering the army for the battle. ⁵ They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even Yahweh, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.

¹⁷ Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who will not value silver, and as for gold, they will not delight in it. ¹⁸ Their 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.

² A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing.

²⁵ “I have raised up one from the north, and he has come, from the rising of the sun, one who calls on my name, and he shall come on rulers as on mortar, and as the potter treads clay.

¹ Yahweh says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, to subdue nations before him, and strip kings of their armor; to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut: ² “I will go before you and make the rough places smooth. I will break the doors of bronze in pieces and cut apart the bars of iron. ³ I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that it is I, Yahweh, who calls you by your name, even the God of Israel. ⁴ For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel my chosen, I have called you by your name. I have given you a title, though you have not known me.

¹⁴ I will make them to pass with your enemies into a land which you don’t know; for a fire is kindled in my anger, which will burn on you.”

³ For 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.

¹⁴ Set yourselves in array against Babylon all around, all you who bend the bow; shoot at her. Spare no arrows; for she has sinned against Yahweh.

²¹ “Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod. Kill and utterly destroy after them,” says Yahweh, “and do according to all that I have commanded you.

²⁶ Come against her from the farthest border. Open her storehouses. Cast her up as heaps. Destroy her utterly. Let nothing of her be left.

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 Yahweh, against the Holy One of Israel.

⁴¹ “Behold, a people comes from the north; and a great nation and many kings will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. ⁴² They 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.

¹ Yahweh says: “Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against those who dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind. ² I will send to Babylon strangers, who will winnow her. They will empty her land; for in the day of trouble they will be against her all around. ³ Against him who bends, let the archer bend his bow, also against him who lifts himself up in his coat of mail. Don’t spare her young men! Utterly destroy all her army! ⁴ They will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets.

²⁷ “Set up a standard in the land! Blow the trumpet among the nations! Prepare the nations against her! Call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz! Appoint a marshal against her! Cause the horses to come up as the rough canker worm! ²⁸ Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, its governors, and all its deputies, and all the land of their dominion!

⁴ Your plunder will be gathered as the caterpillar gathers. Men will leap on it as locusts leap.

²³ Your rigging is untied. They couldn’t strengthen the foot of their mast. They couldn’t spread the sail. Then the prey of a great plunder was divided. The lame took the prey.

³ I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that it is I, Yahweh, who calls you by your name, even the God of Israel.

¹² “It will happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” says Yahweh, “for their iniquity. I will make the land of the Chaldeans desolate forever.

¹⁶ The ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the prostitute, will make her desolate, will strip her naked, will eat her flesh, and will burn her utterly with fire.

¹⁵ But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned God who made him, and rejected the Rock of his salvation.

¹² Many bulls have surrounded me. Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.

² Remember your congregation, which you purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your inheritance: Mount Zion, in which you have lived. ³ Lift up your feet to the perpetual ruins, all the evil that the enemy has done in the sanctuary. ⁴ Your adversaries have roared in the middle of your assembly. They have set up their standards as signs. ⁵ They behaved like men wielding axes, cutting through a thicket of trees. ⁶ Now they break all its carved work down with hatchet and hammers. ⁷ They have burned your sanctuary to the ground. They have profaned the dwelling place of your Name. ⁸ They said in their heart, “We will crush them completely.” They have burned up all the places in the land where God was worshiped.

¹ A Psalm by Asaph. God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps. ² They have given the dead bodies of your servants to be food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your saints to the animals of the earth. ³ They have shed their blood like water around Jerusalem. There was no one to bury them. ⁴ We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and derision to those who are around us.

¹ A song. A Psalm by Asaph. God, don’t keep silent. Don’t keep silent, and don’t be still, God. ² For, behold, your enemies are stirred up. Those who hate you have lifted up their heads. ³ They conspire with cunning against your people. They plot against your cherished ones. ⁴ “Come,” they say, “let’s destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.” ⁵ For they have conspired together with one mind. They form an alliance against you.

⁵ Whoever mocks the poor reproaches his Maker. He who is glad at calamity shall not be unpunished.

⁶ I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me I will give him a command to take the plunder and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. ⁷ However he doesn’t mean so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off not a few nations.

⁸ They were as fed horses roaming at large. Everyone neighed after his neighbor’s wife.

²⁸ They have grown fat. They shine; yes, they excel in deeds of wickedness. They don’t plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they may prosper; and they don’t defend the rights of the needy.

²¹ Also her hired men in the middle of her are like calves of the stall; for they also are turned back. They have fled away together. They didn’t stand, for the day of their calamity has come on them, the time of their visitation.

²⁷ Kill all her bulls. Let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them! For their day has come, the time of their visitation.

³⁴ “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has, like a monster, swallowed me up. He has filled his mouth with my delicacies. He has cast me out. ³⁵ May the violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon!” the inhabitant of Zion will say; and, “May my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea!” will Jerusalem say.

²¹ “They have heard that I sigh. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble. They are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they will be like me.

¹⁵ All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city that men called ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth’?” ¹⁶ All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for. We have found it. We have seen it.”

²¹ Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, that dwells in the land of Uz. The cup will pass through to you also. You will be drunken, and will make yourself naked. ²² The punishment of your iniquity is accomplished, daughter of Zion. He will no more carry you away into captivity. He will visit your iniquity, daughter of Edom. He will uncover your sins.

³ Tell the children of Ammon, ‘Hear the word of the Lord Yahweh! The Lord Yahweh says, “Because you said, ‘Aha!’ against my sanctuary, when it was profaned; and against the land of Israel, when it was made desolate; and against the house of Judah, when they went into captivity: ⁴ therefore, behold, I will deliver you to the children of the east for a possession. They will set their encampments in you, and make their dwellings in you. They will eat your fruit and they will drink your milk. ⁵ I will make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the children of Ammon a resting place for flocks. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.” ⁶ For the Lord Yahweh says: “Because you have clapped your hands, stamped with the feet, and rejoiced with all the contempt of your soul against the land of Israel; ⁷ therefore, behold, I have stretched out my hand on you, and will deliver you for a plunder to the nations. I will cut you off from the peoples, and I will cause you to perish out of the countries. I will destroy you. Then you will know that I am Yahweh.” ⁸ “‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because Moab and Seir say, ‘Behold, the house of Judah is like all the nations;’

¹⁵ “‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because the Philistines have taken revenge, and have taken vengeance with contempt of soul to destroy with perpetual hostility;” ¹⁶ therefore the Lord Yahweh says, “Behold, I will stretch out my hand on the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites, and destroy the remnant of the sea coast. ¹⁷ I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes. Then they will know that I am Yahweh, when I lay my vengeance on them.”’”

² “Son of man, because Tyre has said against Jerusalem, ‘Aha! She is broken! She who was the gateway of the peoples has been returned to me. I will be replenished, now that she is laid waste;’ ³ therefore the Lord Yahweh says, ‘Behold, I am against you, Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against you, as the sea causes its waves to come up.

¹¹ Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh; so I will put a yoke on her beautiful neck. I will set a rider on Ephraim. Judah will plow. Jacob will break his clods.

¹ Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their husbands, “Bring us drinks!”

¹² But don’t look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and don’t rejoice over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Don’t speak proudly in the day of distress.

⁸ For Yahweh of Armies says: ‘For honor he has sent me to the nations which plundered you; for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye. ⁹ For, behold, I will shake my hand over them, and they will be a plunder to those who served them; and you will know that Yahweh of Armies has sent me.

¹ Behold, a day of Yahweh comes, when your plunder will be divided within you. ² For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city will be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go out into captivity, and the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. ³ Then Yahweh will go out and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.

¹² This will be the plague with which Yahweh will strike all the peoples who have fought against Jerusalem: their flesh will consume away while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will consume away in their sockets, and their tongue will consume away in their mouth.

²² “I will rise up against them,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son’s son,” says Yahweh.

²⁶ and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are on the surface of the earth. The king of Sheshach will drink after them.

² Therefore behold, the days come,” says Yahweh, “that I will cause an alarm of war to be heard against Rabbah of the children of Ammon; and it will become a desolate heap, and her daughters will be burned with fire: then Israel will possess those who possessed him,” says Yahweh.

³⁵ “A sword is on the Chaldeans,” says Yahweh, “and on the inhabitants of Babylon, on her princes, and on her wise men. ³⁶ A sword is on the boasters, and they will become fools. A sword is on her mighty men, and they will be dismayed. ³⁷ A 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. ³⁸ A 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. ³⁹ Therefore the wild animals of the desert with the wolves will dwell there. The ostriches will dwell therein; and it will be inhabited no more forever; neither will it be lived in from generation to generation. ⁴⁰ As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and its neighbor cities,” says Yahweh, “so no man will dwell there, neither will any son of man live therein.

²⁵ “Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain,” says Yahweh, “which destroys all the earth. I will stretch out my hand on you, roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burned mountain. ²⁶ They won’t take a cornerstone from you, nor a stone for foundations; but you will be desolate forever,” says Yahweh.

⁴³ Her 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.

⁶² and say, ‘Yahweh, 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.’ ⁶³ It will be, when you have finished reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the middle of the Euphrates. ⁶⁴ Then you shall say, ‘Thus will Babylon sink, and will not rise again because of the evil that I will bring on her; and they will be weary.’” Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

²⁶ But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

⁵ And on her forehead a name was written, “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE PROSTITUTES AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

²³ Men will clap their hands at him, and will hiss him out of his place.

⁴ that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!” ⁵ Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, ⁶ who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that no one restrained. ⁷ The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet. They break out in song. ⁸ Yes, the cypress trees rejoice with you, with the cedars of Lebanon, saying, “Since you are humbled, no lumberjack has come up against us.” ⁹ Sheol from beneath has moved for you to meet you at your coming. It stirs up the departed spirits for you, even all the rulers of the earth. It has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. ¹⁰ They all will answer and ask you, “Have you also become as weak as we are? Have you become like us?” ¹¹ Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, with the sound of your stringed instruments. Maggots are spread out under you, and worms cover you. ¹² How you have fallen from heaven, shining one, son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low! ¹³ You said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly, in the far north! ¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!” ¹⁵ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit. ¹⁶ Those who see you will stare at you. They will ponder you, saying, “Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms, ¹⁷ who made the world like a wilderness, and overthrew its cities, who didn’t release his prisoners to their home?”

¹⁶ to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished, and shake his head.

⁸ I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.

¹⁷ “Edom will become an astonishment. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished, and will hiss at all its plagues.

³⁷ Babylon will become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant.

⁶ Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, ‘Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who enriches himself by extortion! How long?’ ⁷ Won’t your debtors rise up suddenly, and wake up those who make you tremble, and you will be their victim? ⁸ Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it. ⁹ Woe to him who gets an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil! ¹⁰ You have devised shame to your house, by cutting off many peoples, and have sinned against your soul. ¹¹ For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it. ¹² Woe to him who builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity! ¹³ Behold, isn’t it of Yahweh of Armies that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity? ¹⁴ For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Yahweh’s glory, as the waters cover the sea. ¹⁵ “Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring your inflaming wine until they are drunk, so that you may gaze at their naked bodies! ¹⁶ You are filled with shame, and not glory. You will also drink, and be exposed! The cup of Yahweh’s right hand will come around to you, and disgrace will cover your glory. ¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals, which made them afraid, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them. ¹⁸ “What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols?

¹⁵ This is the joyous city that lived carelessly, that said in her heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.” How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in! Everyone who passes by her will hiss, and shake their fists.

²⁰ David rose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper, and took and went, as Jesse had commanded him. He came to the place of the wagons, as the army which was going out to the fight shouted for the battle.

⁹ Now when Joab saw that the battle was set against him before and behind, he chose of all the choice men of Israel, and put them in array against the Syrians.

⁴ Against you, and you only, I have sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight, so you may be proved right when you speak, and justified when you judge.

²⁸ whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses’ hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.

⁴ The 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! Yahweh of Armies is mustering the army for the battle.

⁹ Go up, you horses! Rage, you chariots! Let the mighty men go out: Cush and Put, who handle the shield; and the Ludim, who handle and bend the bow.

³⁵ “Yahweh of Armies says: ‘Behold, I will break the bow of Elam, the chief of their might.

⁷ All who found them have devoured them. Their adversaries said, ‘We are not guilty, because they have sinned against Yahweh, the habitation of righteousness, even Yahweh, the hope of their fathers.’

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;

⁴² They 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.

² I will send to Babylon strangers, who will winnow her. They will empty her land; for in the day of trouble they will be against her all around.

¹¹ “Make the arrows sharp! Hold the shields firmly! Yahweh 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 Yahweh, the vengeance of his temple. ¹² Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon! Make the watch strong! Set the watchmen, and prepare the ambushes; for Yahweh has both purposed and done that which he spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.

²⁷ “Set up a standard in the land! Blow the trumpet among the nations! Prepare the nations against her! Call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz! Appoint a marshal against her! Cause the horses to come up as the rough canker worm!

⁸ Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it.

¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals, which made them afraid, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them.

³⁵ Vengeance is mine, and recompense, at the time when their foot slides; for the day of their calamity is at hand. Their doom rushes at them.”

⁴¹ if I sharpen my glittering sword, my hand grasps it in judgment; I will take vengeance on my adversaries, and will repay those who hate me.

⁴³ Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will take vengeance on his adversaries, and will make atonement for his land and for his people.

⁵ It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the city wall shall fall down flat, and the people shall go up, every man straight in front of him.”

²⁰ So the people shouted and the priests blew the trumpets. When the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight in front of him, and they took the city.

⁶ But Adoni-Bezek fled. They pursued him, caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his big toes. ⁷ Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings, having their thumbs and their big toes cut off, scavenged under my table. As I have done, so God has done to me.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

³³ Samuel said, “As your sword has made women childless, so your mother will be childless among women!” Then Samuel cut Agag in pieces before Yahweh in Gilgal.

²⁴ All the princes, the mighty men, and also all of the sons of king David submitted themselves to Solomon the king.

⁸ Now don’t be stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to Yahweh, and enter into his sanctuary, which he has sanctified forever, and serve Yahweh your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you.

¹ Yahweh, you God to whom vengeance belongs, you God to whom vengeance belongs, shine out.

⁷ to execute vengeance on the nations, and punishments on the peoples;

¹⁷ He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a mantle.

² to proclaim the year of Yahweh’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn,

¹⁰ For that day is of the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge himself of his adversaries. The sword will devour and be satiated, and will drink its fill of their blood; for the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, has a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.

²⁸ Listen to those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Yahweh 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 Yahweh, against the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁴ Yahweh of Armies has sworn by himself, saying, ‘Surely I will fill you with men, as with the canker worm; and they will lift up a shout against you.’

²⁵ “Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain,” says Yahweh, “which destroys all the earth. I will stretch out my hand on you, roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burned mountain.

³⁶ Therefore Yahweh says: “Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry.

⁵⁸ Yahweh of Armies says: “The wide walls of Babylon will be utterly overthrown. Her high gates will be burned with fire. The peoples will labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they will be weary.”

⁶⁴ Then you shall say, ‘Thus will Babylon sink, and will not rise again because of the evil that I will bring on her; and they will be weary.’” Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

⁶ We have given our hands to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

¹⁸ For he has despised the oath by breaking the covenant; and behold, he had given his hand, and yet has done all these things. He won’t escape.

²² In his right hand was the lot for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounds, and to build forts.

² Yahweh is a jealous God and avenges. Yahweh avenges and is full of wrath. Yahweh takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he maintains wrath against his enemies.

² For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with whatever measure you measure, it will be measured to you.

²² For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.

⁵ But if our unrighteousness commends the righteousness of God, what will we say? Is God unrighteous who inflicts wrath? I speak like men do.

¹⁹ Don’t seek revenge yourselves, beloved, but give place to God’s wrath. For it is written, “Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord.”

⁸ punishing those who don’t know God, and to those who don’t obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus,

¹³ For judgment is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

⁶ For they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. They deserve this.”

⁶ Return 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.

² for his judgments are true and righteous. For he has judged the great prostitute, who corrupted the earth with her sexual immorality, and he has avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.”

¹⁴ It 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.

³⁸ He has left his covert, as the lion; for their land has become an astonishment because of the fierceness of the oppression, and because of his fierce anger.

¹⁶ He made many to stumble. Yes, they fell on one another. They said, ‘Arise! Let’s go again to our own people, and to the land of our birth, from the oppressing sword.’

⁹ “We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. Forsake her, and let’s each go into his own country; for her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

²³ With you I will break in pieces the shepherd and his flock. With you I will break in pieces the farmer and his yoke. With you I will break in pieces governors and deputies.

¹¹ Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished.

¹⁶ Therefore Yahweh, the God of Armies, the Lord, says: “Wailing will be in all the wide ways; and they will say in all the streets, ‘Alas! Alas!’ and they will call the farmer to mourning, and those who are skillful in lamentation to wailing.

²⁹ In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria.

⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. ⁷ It was so because the children of Israel had sinned against Yahweh their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, ⁸ and walked in the statutes of the nations whom Yahweh cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made. ⁹ The children of Israel secretly did things that were not right against Yahweh their God; and they built high places for themselves in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fortified city; ¹⁰ and they set up for themselves pillars and Asherah poles on every high hill, and under every green tree; ¹¹ and there they burned incense in all the high places, as the nations whom Yahweh carried away before them did; and they did wicked things to provoke Yahweh to anger; ¹² and they served idols, of which Yahweh had said to them, “You shall not do this thing.” ¹³ Yet Yahweh testified to Israel, and to Judah, by every prophet, and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets.” ¹⁴ Notwithstanding, they would not listen, but hardened their neck, like the neck of their fathers, who didn’t believe in Yahweh their God. ¹⁵ They rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified to them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom Yahweh had commanded them that they should not do like them. ¹⁶ They abandoned all the commandments of Yahweh their God, and made molten images for themselves, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshiped all the army of the sky, and served Baal. ¹⁷ They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight, to provoke him to anger. ¹⁸ Therefore Yahweh was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight. There was none left but the tribe of Judah only. ¹⁹ Also Judah didn’t keep the commandments of Yahweh their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. ²⁰ Yahweh rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight. ²¹ For he tore Israel from David’s house; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king; and Jeroboam drove Israel from following Yahweh, and made them sin a great sin. ²² The children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they didn’t depart from them ²³ until Yahweh removed Israel out of his sight, as he said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day.

⁹ In the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it. ¹⁰ At the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. ¹¹ The king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes, ¹² because they didn’t obey Yahweh their God’s voice, but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of Yahweh commanded, and would not hear it or do it. ¹³ Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah, and took them.

¹ In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years. Then he turned and rebelled against him. ² Yahweh sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to Yahweh’s word, which he spoke by his servants the prophets. ³ Surely at the commandment of Yahweh this came on Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did, ⁴ and also for the innocent blood that he shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and Yahweh would not pardon. ⁵ Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? ⁶ So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers, and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place. ⁷ The king of Egypt didn’t come out of his land any more; for the king of Babylon had taken, from the brook of Egypt to the river Euphrates, all that belonged to the king of Egypt.

¹ In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it around it. ² So the city was besieged until the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. ³ On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. ⁴ Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden (now the Chaldeans were against the city around it); and the king went by the way of the Arabah. ⁵ But the Chaldean army pursued the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him. ⁶ Then they captured the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they passed judgment on him. ⁷ They killed Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, then put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

²⁰ Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria came to him, and gave him trouble, but didn’t strengthen him.

¹ After these things and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, entered into Judah, and encamped against the fortified cities, and intended to win them for himself. ² When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come, and that he was planning to fight against Jerusalem, ³ he took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the springs which were outside of the city, and they helped him. ⁴ So, many people gathered together and they stopped all the springs and the brook that flowed through the middle of the land, saying, “Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find abundant water?” ⁵ He took courage, built up all the wall that was broken down, and raised it up to the towers, with the other wall outside, and strengthened Millo in David’s city, and made weapons and shields in abundance. ⁶ He set captains of war over the people, and gathered them together to him in the wide place at the gate of the city, and spoke encouragingly to them, saying, ⁷ “Be strong and courageous. Don’t be afraid or dismayed because of the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude who is with him; for there is a greater one with us than with him. ⁸ An arm of flesh is with him, but Yahweh our God is with us to help us and to fight our battles.” The people rested themselves on the words of Hezekiah king of Judah. ⁹ After this, Sennacherib king of Assyria sent his servants to Jerusalem, (now he was before Lachish, and all his power with him), to Hezekiah king of Judah, and to all Judah who were at Jerusalem, saying, ¹⁰ Sennacherib king of Assyria says, “In whom do you trust, that you remain under siege in Jerusalem? ¹¹ Doesn’t Hezekiah persuade you, to give you over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, ‘Yahweh our God will deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria?’ ¹² Hasn’t the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, ‘You shall worship before one altar, and you shall burn incense on it?’ ¹³ Don’t you know what I and my fathers have done to all the peoples of the lands? Were the gods of the nations of the lands in any way able to deliver their land out of my hand? ¹⁴ Who was there among all the gods of those nations which my fathers utterly destroyed, that could deliver his people out of my hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of my hand? ¹⁵ Now therefore don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you in this way. Don’t believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand?” ¹⁶ His servants spoke yet more against Yahweh God, and against his servant Hezekiah. ¹⁷ He also wrote letters insulting Yahweh, the God of Israel, and speaking against him, saying, “As the gods of the nations of the lands, which have not delivered their people out of my hand, so shall the God of Hezekiah not deliver his people out of my hand.” ¹⁸ They called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten them, and to trouble them; that they might take the city. ¹⁹ They spoke of the God of Jerusalem as of the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of men’s hands. ²⁰ Hezekiah the king and Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz, prayed because of this, and cried to heaven. ²¹ Yahweh sent an angel, who cut off all the mighty men of valor, and the leaders and captains, in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. When he had come into the house of his god, those who came out of his own body killed him there with the sword. ²² Thus Yahweh saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side. ²³ Many brought gifts to Yahweh to Jerusalem, and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah; so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from then on.

¹¹ Therefore Yahweh brought on them the captains of the army of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh in chains, bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

¹ Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and made him king in his father’s place in Jerusalem. ² Joahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. ³ The king of Egypt removed him from office at Jerusalem, and fined the land one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. ⁴ The king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. Neco took Joahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt. ⁵ Jehoiakim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. He did that which was evil in Yahweh his God’s sight. ⁶ Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against him, and bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon. ⁷ Nebuchadnezzar also carried some of the vessels of Yahweh’s house to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon. ⁸ Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and his abominations which he did, and that which was found in him, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah; and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his place. ⁹ Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem. He did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight. ¹⁰ At the return of the year, king Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon, with the valuable vessels of Yahweh’s house, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem. ¹¹ Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. ¹² He did that which was evil in Yahweh his God’s sight. He didn’t humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from Yahweh’s mouth. ¹³ He also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God; but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart against turning to Yahweh, the God of Israel. ¹⁴ Moreover all the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the nations; and they polluted Yahweh’s house which he had made holy in Jerusalem. ¹⁵ Yahweh, the God of their fathers, sent to them by his messengers, rising up early and sending, because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place; ¹⁶ but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until Yahweh’s wrath arose against his people, until there was no remedy. ¹⁷ Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed. He gave them all into his hand. ¹⁸ All the vessels of God’s house, great and small, and the treasures of Yahweh’s house, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon. ¹⁹ They burned God’s house, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all of its valuable vessels. ²⁰ He carried those who had escaped from the sword away to Babylon, and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia, ²¹ to fulfill Yahweh’s word by Jeremiah’s mouth, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. As long as it lay desolate, it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years. ²² Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that Yahweh’s word by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, ²³ “Cyrus king of Persia says, ‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given all the kingdoms of the earth to me; and he has commanded me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, Yahweh his God be with him, and let him go up.’”

¹⁷ Yahweh will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, even the king of Assyria. ¹⁸ It will happen in that day that Yahweh will whistle for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. ¹⁹ They shall come, and shall all rest in the desolate valleys, in the clefts of the rocks, on all thorn hedges, and on all pastures. ²⁰ In that day the Lord will shave with a razor that is hired in the parts beyond the River, even with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet; and it shall also consume the beard.

⁷ now therefore, behold, the Lord brings upon them the mighty flood waters of the River: the king of Assyria and all his glory. It will come up over all its channels, and go over all its banks. ⁸ It will sweep onward into Judah. It will overflow and pass through. It will reach even to the neck. The stretching out of its wings will fill the width of your land, Immanuel.

⁵ Alas Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation!

¹ Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all of the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. ² The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to king Hezekiah with a large army. He stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool in the fuller’s field highway. ³ Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder came out to him. ⁴ Rabshakeh said to them, “Now tell Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust? ⁵ I say that your counsel and strength for the war are only vain words. Now in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me? ⁶ Behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt, which if a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. ⁷ But if you tell me, ‘We trust in Yahweh our God,’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar?’” ⁸ Now therefore, please make a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. ⁹ How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? ¹⁰ Have I come up now without Yahweh against this land to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, “Go up against this land, and destroy it.”’” ¹¹ Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Don’t speak to us in the Jews’ language in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.” ¹² But Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you, to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?” ¹³ Then Rabshakeh stood, and called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! ¹⁴ The king says, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you. ¹⁵ Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in Yahweh, saying, “Yahweh will surely deliver us. This city won’t be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”’ ¹⁶ Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for the king of Assyria says, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and each of you eat from his vine, and each one from his fig tree, and each one of you drink the waters of his own cistern; ¹⁷ until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. ¹⁸ Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “Yahweh will deliver us.” Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? ²⁰ Who are they among all the gods of these countries that have delivered their country out of my hand, that Yahweh should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’” ²¹ But they remained silent, and said nothing in reply, for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.” ²² Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.

¹⁵ The young lions have roared at him and yelled. They have made his land waste. His cities are burned up, without inhabitant.

⁷ A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations. He is on his way. He has gone out from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.

⁶ Therefore a lion out of the forest will kill them. A wolf of the evenings will destroy them. A leopard will watch against their cities. Everyone who goes out there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many and their backsliding has increased.

¹ “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says Yahweh. ² Therefore Yahweh, the God of Israel, says against the shepherds who feed my people: “You have scattered my flock, driven them away, and have not visited them. Behold, I will visit on you the evil of your doings,” says Yahweh.

¹ In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem, and besieged it. ² In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city. ³ All the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, Nergal Sharezer, Samgarnebo, Sarsechim, Rabsaris, Nergal Sharezer, Rabmag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon. ⁴ When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled, and went out of the city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, through the gate between the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah. ⁵ But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. When they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he pronounced judgment on him. ⁶ Then the king of Babylon killed Zedekiah’s sons in Riblah before his eyes. The king of Babylon also killed all the nobles of Judah. ⁷ Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon. ⁸ The Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.

¹⁹ “Behold, he will come up like a lion from the pride of the Jordan against the strong habitation: for I will suddenly make them run away from it; and 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 will stand before me?”

⁶ My 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.

³⁸ They will roar together like young lions. They will growl as lions’ cubs.

¹ Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign. He reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

⁵ They were scattered, because there was no shepherd. They became food to all the animals of the field, and were scattered. ⁶ My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill. Yes, my sheep were scattered on all the surface of the earth. There was no one who searched or sought.”

¹² As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so I will seek out my sheep. I will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

²⁴ The king commanded, and they brought those men who had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions mauled them, and broke all their bones in pieces, before they came to the bottom of the den.

² I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will execute judgment on them there for my people, and for my heritage, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations. They have divided my land,

³⁶ But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were harassed and scattered, like sheep without a shepherd. ³⁷ Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest indeed is plentiful, but the laborers are few. ³⁸ Pray therefore that the Lord of the harvest will send out laborers into his harvest.”

⁴ “Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? ⁵ When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶ When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’

¹⁰ The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly. ¹¹ I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹² He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn’t own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep, and scatters them.

¹² Therefore it will happen that when the Lord has performed his whole work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the willful proud heart of the king of Assyria, and the insolence of his arrogant looks.

³⁶ Then Yahweh’s angel went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. ³⁷ So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, went away, returned to Nineveh, and stayed there. ³⁸ As he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place.

³ Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches, and with a forest-like shade, of high stature; and its top was among the thick boughs. ⁴ The waters nourished it. The deep made it to grow. Its rivers ran all around its plantation; and it sent out its channels to all the trees of the field. ⁵ Therefore its stature was exalted above all the trees of the field; and its boughs were multiplied. Its branches became long by reason of many waters, when it spread them out. ⁶ All the birds of the sky made their nests in its boughs. Under its branches, all the animals of the field gave birth to their young. All great nations lived under its shadow. ⁷ Thus it was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches; for its root was by many waters. ⁸ The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it. The cypress trees were not like its boughs. The pine trees were not as its branches; nor was any tree in the garden of God like it in its beauty. ⁹ I made it beautiful by the multitude of its branches, so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied it.’ ¹⁰ “Therefore thus said the Lord Yahweh: ‘Because you are exalted in stature, and he has set his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; ¹¹ I will even deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations. He will surely deal with him. I have driven him out for his wickedness. ¹² Strangers, the tyrants of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him. His branches have fallen on the mountains and in all the valleys and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the land. All the peoples of the earth have gone down from his shadow, and have left him. ¹³ All the birds of the sky will dwell on his ruin, and all the animals of the field will be on his branches; ¹⁴ to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves in their stature, and don’t set their top among the thick boughs. Their mighty ones don’t stand up on their height, even all who drink water; for they are all delivered to death, to the lower parts of the earth, among the children of men, with those who go down to the pit.’ ¹⁵ “The Lord Yahweh says: ‘In the day when he went down to Sheol I caused a mourning. I covered the deep for him, and I restrained its rivers. The great waters were stopped. I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. ¹⁶ I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit. All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth. ¹⁷ They also went down into Sheol with him to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were his arm, who lived under his shadow in the middle of the nations.

¹ A revelation about Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. ² Yahweh is a jealous God and avenges. Yahweh avenges and is full of wrath. Yahweh takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he maintains wrath against his enemies. ³ Yahweh is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. Yahweh has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

¹³ He will stretch out his hand against the north, destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, as dry as the wilderness. ¹⁴ Herds will lie down in the middle of her, all the animals of the nations. Both the pelican and the porcupine will lodge in its capitals. Their calls will echo through the windows. Desolation will be in the thresholds, for he has laid bare the cedar beams. ¹⁵ This is the joyous city that lived carelessly, that said in her heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.” How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in! Everyone who passes by her will hiss, and shake their fists.

¹ Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great multitude of livestock. They saw the land of Jazer, and the land of Gilead. Behold, the place was a place for livestock.

¹⁵ Joshua said to them, “If you are a numerous people, go up to the forest, and clear land for yourself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim; since the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for you.”

⁵ Turn away your eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Your hair is like a flock of goats, that lie along the side of Gilead.

⁹ The land mourns and languishes. Lebanon is confounded and withers away. Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.

² It will blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing. Lebanon’s glory will be given to it, the excellence of Carmel and Sharon. They will see Yahweh’s glory, the excellence of our God.

⁹ I will bring offspring out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains. My chosen will inherit it, and my servants will dwell there. ¹⁰ Sharon will be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down in, for my people who have sought me.

¹⁸ In those days the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance to your fathers.

³ “I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they will be fruitful and multiply.

⁶ For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again to this land. I will build them, and not pull them down. I will plant them, and not pluck them up. ⁷ I will give them a heart to know me, that I am Yahweh. They will be my people, and I will be their God; for they will return to me with their whole heart.

¹⁰ Therefore don’t be afraid, O Jacob my servant, says Yahweh. Don’t be dismayed, Israel. For, behold, I will save you from afar, and save your offspring from the land of their captivity. Jacob will return, and will be quiet and at ease. No one will make him afraid.

¹⁸ Yahweh says: “Behold, I will reverse the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have compassion on his dwelling places. The city will be built on its own hill, and the palace will be inhabited in its own place.

⁶ For there will be a day that the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim cry, ‘Arise! Let’s go up to Zion to Yahweh our God.’”

⁸ Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, along with the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her who travails with child together. They will return as a great company.

¹⁴ I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people will be satisfied with my goodness,” says Yahweh.

²⁵ For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.”

³⁷ “Behold, I will gather them out of all the countries where I have driven them in my anger, and in my wrath, and in great indignation; and I will bring them again to this place. I will cause them to dwell safely.

⁷ I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. ⁸ I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against me. I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against me and by which they have transgressed against me. ⁹ This city will be to me for a name of joy, for praise, and for glory, before all the nations of the earth, which will hear all the good that I do to them, and will fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I provide to it.’” ¹⁰ Yahweh says: “Yet again there will be heard in this place, about which you say, ‘It is waste, without man and without animal, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without animal,’ ¹¹ the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who say, ‘Give thanks to Yahweh of Armies, for Yahweh is good, for his loving kindness endures forever;’ who bring thanksgiving into Yahweh’s house. For I will cause the captivity of the land to be reversed as at the first,” says Yahweh. ¹² Yahweh of Armies says: “Yet again there will be in this place, which is waste, without man and without animal, and in all its cities, a habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.

⁴ “In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping, and will seek Yahweh their God. ⁵ They will inquire concerning Zion with their faces turned toward it, saying, ‘Come, and join yourselves to Yahweh in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.’

¹⁷ “Therefore say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.”

¹³ I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited places of the country. ¹⁴ I will feed them with good pasture; and their fold will be on the mountains of the height of Israel. There they will lie down in a good fold. They will feed on fat pasture on the mountains of Israel.

²⁴ “‘“For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land.

³³ “‘The Lord Yahweh says: “In the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited and the waste places will be built.

⁸ After many days you will be visited. In the latter years you will come into the land that is brought back from the sword, that is gathered out of many peoples, on the mountains of Israel, which have been a continual waste; but it is brought out of the peoples, and they will dwell securely, all of them.

²⁵ “Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Now I will reverse the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel. I will be jealous for my holy name. ²⁶ They will bear their shame, and all their trespasses by which they have trespassed against me, when they dwell securely in their land, and no one will make them afraid, ²⁷ when I have brought them back from the peoples, and gathered them out of their enemies’ lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations. ²⁸ They will know that I am Yahweh their God, in that I caused them to go into captivity among the nations, and have gathered them to their own land. Then I will leave none of them captive any more. ²⁹ I won’t hide my face from them any more; for I have poured out my Spirit on the house of Israel,’ says the Lord Yahweh.”

¹⁴ I will bring my people Israel back from captivity, and they will rebuild the ruined cities, and inhabit them; and they will plant vineyards, and drink wine from them. They shall also make gardens, and eat their fruit. ¹⁵ I will plant them on their land, and they will no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them,” says Yahweh your God.

¹⁷ But in Mount Zion, there will be those who escape, and it will be holy. The house of Jacob will possess their possessions. ¹⁸ The house of Jacob will be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble. They will burn among them, and devour them. There will not be any remaining to the house of Esau.” Indeed, Yahweh has spoken. ¹⁹ Those of the South will possess the mountain of Esau, and those of the lowland, the Philistines. They will possess the field of Ephraim, and the field of Samaria. Benjamin will possess Gilead. ²⁰ The captives of this army of the children of Israel, who are among the Canaanites, will possess even to Zarephath; and the captives of Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad, will possess the cities of the Negev. ²¹ Saviors will go up on Mount Zion to judge the mountains of Esau, and the kingdom will be Yahweh’s.

¹⁴ Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your heritage, who dwell by themselves in a forest, in the middle of fertile pasture land, let them feed; in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.

¹⁸ Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his anger forever, because he delights in loving kindness.

²¹ He has not seen iniquity in Jacob. Neither has he seen perverseness in Israel. Yahweh his God is with him. The shout of a king is among them.

¹² As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

⁹ Unless Yahweh of Armies had left to us a very small remnant, we would have been as Sodom. We would have been like Gomorrah.

¹ A shoot will come out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots will bear fruit. ² Yahweh’s Spirit will rest on him: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Yahweh.

²⁵ I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake; and I will not remember your sins.

²² I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions, and, as a cloud, your sins. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.

³⁴ They will no longer each teach his neighbor, and every man teach his brother, saying, ‘Know Yahweh;’ for they will all know me, from their least to their greatest,” says Yahweh: “for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

¹⁴ so that none of the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to live there, will escape or be left to return into the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return to dwell there; for no one will return except those who will escape.’”

⁴ “In those days, and in that time,” says Yahweh, “the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together; they will go on their way weeping, and will seek Yahweh their God.

¹⁹ He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities under foot; and you will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

¹⁹ “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, so that there may come times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord,

²⁶ God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to you first to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your wickedness.”

¹⁶ The gift is not as through one who sinned; for the judgment came by one to condemnation, but the free gift came of many trespasses to justification.

¹³ Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

³³ Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

⁶ And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.

²⁶ and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. ²⁷ This is my covenant with them, when I will take away their sins.”

¹⁰ “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days,” says the Lord; “I will put my laws into their mind, I will also write them on their heart. I will be their God, and they will be my people. ¹¹ They will not teach every man his fellow citizen, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all will know me, from their least to their greatest. ¹² For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.”

¹⁷ “I will remember their sins and their iniquities no more.” ¹⁸ Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.

¹⁵ Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you,

¹⁴ Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who came from the service of the war. ¹⁵ Moses said to them, “Have you saved all the women alive? ¹⁶ Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against Yahweh in the matter of Peor, and so the plague was among the congregation of Yahweh. ¹⁷ Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. ¹⁸ But all the girls, who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

³ Now go and strike Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and don’t spare them; but kill both man and woman, infant and nursing baby, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’”

¹¹ “It grieves me that I have set up Saul to be king; for he has turned back from following me, and has not performed my commandments.” Samuel was angry; and he cried to Yahweh all night. ¹² Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning; and Samuel was told, saying, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself, and turned, and passed on, and went down to Gilgal.” ¹³ Samuel came to Saul; and Saul said to him, “You are blessed by Yahweh! I have performed the commandment of Yahweh.” ¹⁴ Samuel said, “Then what does this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the cattle which I hear mean?” ¹⁵ Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the cattle, to sacrifice to Yahweh your God. We have utterly destroyed the rest.” ¹⁶ Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stay, and I will tell you what Yahweh said to me last night.” He said to him, “Say on.” ¹⁷ Samuel said, “Though you were little in your own sight, weren’t you made the head of the tribes of Israel? Yahweh anointed you king over Israel; ¹⁸ and Yahweh sent you on a journey, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ ¹⁹ Why then didn’t you obey Yahweh’s voice, but took the plunder, and did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight?” ²⁰ Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed Yahweh’s voice, and have gone the way which Yahweh sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. ²¹ But the people took of the plunder, sheep and cattle, the chief of the devoted things, to sacrifice to Yahweh your God in Gilgal.” ²² Samuel said, “Has Yahweh as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying Yahweh’s voice? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. ²³ For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because you have rejected Yahweh’s word, he has also rejected you from being king.” ²⁴ Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of Yahweh, and your words, because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.

¹¹ David said to Abishai, and to all his servants, “Behold, my son, who came out of my bowels, seeks my life. How much more this Benjamite, now? Leave him alone, and let him curse; for Yahweh has invited him.

²⁵ Have I now come up without Yahweh against this place to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, ‘Go up against this land, and destroy it.’”’”

²³ “Cyrus king of Persia says, ‘Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given all the kingdoms of the earth to me; and he has commanded me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, Yahweh his God be with him, and let him go up.’”

⁶ I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me I will give him a command to take the plunder and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

²⁸ Who says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure,’ even saying of Jerusalem, ‘She will be built;’ and of the temple, ‘Your foundation will be laid.’”

¹⁴ “Assemble yourselves, all of you, and hear! Who among them has declared these things? He whom Yahweh loves will do what he likes to Babylon, and his arm will be against the Chaldeans.

²² Behold, I will command,” says Yahweh, “and cause them to return to this city. They will fight against it, take it, and burn it with fire. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

¹⁰ “Cursed is he who does the work of Yahweh negligently; and cursed is he who keeps back his sword from blood.

¹⁵ Shout against her all around. She has submitted herself. Her bulwarks have fallen. Her walls have been thrown down, for it is the vengeance of Yahweh. Take vengeance on her. As she has done, do to her.

²³ the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, Shoa, Koa, and all the Assyrians with them; all of them desirable young men, governors and rulers, princes and men of renown, all of them riding on horses.

² A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing. ³ Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have seized me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I am so dismayed that I can’t see. ⁴ My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.

¹⁹ My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. ²⁰ Destruction on destruction is decreed, for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains gone in a moment. ²¹ How long will I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?

⁵⁴ “The sound of a cry comes from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! ⁵⁵ For Yahweh lays Babylon waste, and destroys out of her the great voice! Their waves roar like many waters. The noise of their voice is uttered. ⁵⁶ For the destroyer has come on her, even on Babylon. Her mighty men are taken. Their bows are broken in pieces, for Yahweh is a God of retribution. He will surely repay.

⁴ that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!” ⁵ Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, ⁶ who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that no one restrained.

²⁰ “You are my battle ax and weapons of war. With you I will break the nations into pieces. With you I will destroy kingdoms. ²¹ With you I will break in pieces the horse and his rider. ²² With you I will break in pieces the chariot and him who rides therein. With you I will break in pieces man and woman. With you I will break in pieces the old man and the youth. With you I will break in pieces the young man and the virgin. ²³ With you I will break in pieces the shepherd and his flock. With you I will break in pieces the farmer and his yoke. With you I will break in pieces governors and deputies. ²⁴ “I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight,” says Yahweh.

¹⁶ saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, she who was dressed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls!

³ Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and said to him, “This is what Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me.

⁴ God is wise in heart, and mighty in strength. Who has hardened himself against him and prospered?

² “Shall he who argues contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it.”

⁹ Or do you have an arm like God? Can you thunder with a voice like him?

¹² For man also doesn’t know his time. As the fish that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them.

¹¹ I 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.

³ Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have seized me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I am so dismayed that I can’t see. ⁴ My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me. ⁵ They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield!

⁹ Woe to him who strives with his Maker— a clay pot among the clay pots of the earth! Shall the clay ask him who fashions it, ‘What are you making?’ or your work, ‘He has no hands?’

³¹ One runner will run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter. ³² So the passages are seized. They have burned the reeds with fire. The men of war are frightened.” ³³ For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden. Yet a little while, and the time of harvest comes for her.” ³⁴ “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has, like a monster, swallowed me up. He has filled his mouth with my delicacies. He has cast me out. ³⁵ May the violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon!” the inhabitant of Zion will say; and, “May my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea!” will Jerusalem say. ³⁶ Therefore Yahweh says: “Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry. ³⁷ Babylon will become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant. ³⁸ They will roar together like young lions. They will growl as lions’ cubs. ³⁹ When they are heated, 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 Yahweh.

⁵⁷ I will make her princes, her wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men drunk. They will sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.

³⁰ In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean King was slain. ³¹ Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.

⁴ he who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God.

⁷ However 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.’ ⁸ Therefore 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.

³ Strap your sword on your thigh, mighty one: your splendor and your majesty.

⁵ Your arrows are sharp. The nations fall under you, with arrows in the heart of the king’s enemies.

⁷ When he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, he shall listen diligently with great attentiveness.” ⁸ He cried like a lion: “Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post. ⁹ Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs.” He answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground.

¹⁰ I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done. I say: My counsel will stand, and I will do all that I please. ¹¹ I call a ravenous bird from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. Yes, I have spoken. I will also bring it to pass. I have planned. I will also do it.

¹⁴ “Assemble yourselves, all of you, and hear! Who among them has declared these things? He whom Yahweh loves will do what he likes to Babylon, and his arm will be against the Chaldeans. ¹⁵ I, even I, have spoken. Yes, I have called him. I have brought him and he shall make his way prosperous.

³⁵ “A sword is on the Chaldeans,” says Yahweh, “and on the inhabitants of Babylon, on her princes, and on her wise men. ³⁶ A sword is on the boasters, and they will become fools. A sword is on her mighty men, and they will be dismayed. ³⁷ A 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. ³⁸ A 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.

²⁰ “You are my battle ax and weapons of war. With you I will break the nations into pieces. With you I will destroy kingdoms.

⁵⁵ For Yahweh lays Babylon waste, and destroys out of her the great voice! Their waves roar like many waters. The noise of their voice is uttered.

⁶ Does the trumpet alarm sound in a city, without the people being afraid? Does evil happen to a city, and Yahweh hasn’t done it?

⁸ Therefore 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.

²⁶ He will lift up a banner to the nations from far away, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly.

²³ “I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water. I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” says Yahweh of Armies.

¹⁰ For Yahweh’s hand will rest in this mountain. Moab will be trodden down in his place, even like straw is trodden down in the water of the dunghill.

³ “I have trodden the wine press alone. Of the peoples, no one was with me. Yes, I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood is sprinkled on my garments, and I have stained all my clothing. ⁴ For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my redeemed has come.

¹⁰ Chaldea will be a prey. All who prey on her will be satisfied,” says Yahweh.

¹³ Because of Yahweh’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.

²³ How the hammer of the whole earth is cut apart and broken! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations!

⁴¹ “Behold, a people comes from the north; and a great nation and many kings will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth.

²⁵ “Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain,” says Yahweh, “which destroys all the earth. I will stretch out my hand on you, roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burned mountain. ²⁶ They won’t take a cornerstone from you, nor a stone for foundations; but you will be desolate forever,” says Yahweh.

¹⁰ Then my enemy will see it, and shame will cover her who said to me, where is Yahweh your God? Then my enemy will see me and will cover her shame. Now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets.

¹⁹ The angel thrust his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vintage of the earth, and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God.

¹⁵ Out of his mouth proceeds a sharp, double-edged sword, that with it he should strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He treads the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty.

¹³ The Lord will laugh at him, for he sees that his day is coming.

⁷ The wild oxen will come down with them, and the young bulls with the mighty bulls; and their land will be drunken with blood, and their dust made greasy with fat.

⁴⁴ “He who flees from the terror will fall into the pit; and he who gets up out of the pit will be taken in the snare: for I will bring on him, even on Moab, the year of their visitation,” says Yahweh.

³¹ “Behold, I am against you, you proud one,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies; “for your day has come, the time that I will visit you.

⁵ “The Lord Yahweh says: ‘An evil! A unique evil! Behold, it comes. ⁶ An end has come. The end has come! It awakes against you. Behold, it comes. ⁷ Your doom has come to you, inhabitant of the land! The time has come! The day is near, a day of tumult, and not of joyful shouting, on the mountains.

¹⁷ “You, son of man, the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Speak to the birds of every sort, and to every animal of the field, “Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice on the mountains of Israel, that you may eat meat and drink blood. ¹⁸ You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan. ¹⁹ You shall eat fat until you are full, and drink blood until you are drunk, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. ²⁰ You shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war,” says the Lord Yahweh.’

¹⁷ The seventh poured out his bowl into the air. A loud voice came out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, “It is done!” ¹⁸ There were lightnings, sounds, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as has not happened since there were men on the earth, so great an earthquake, and so mighty. ¹⁹ The great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

¹⁰ standing 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.’

¹⁷ I saw an angel standing in the sun. He cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the sky, “Come! Be gathered together to the great supper of God,

⁶ May the high praises of God be in their mouths, and a two-edged sword in their hand, ⁷ to execute vengeance on the nations, and punishments on the peoples; ⁸ to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; ⁹ to execute on them the written judgment. All his saints have this honor. Praise Yah!

¹⁰ ‘Yahweh has produced our righteousness: come, and let’s declare in Zion the work of Yahweh our God.’ ¹¹ “Make the arrows sharp! Hold the shields firmly! Yahweh 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 Yahweh, the vengeance of his temple.

⁵⁰ You who have escaped the sword, go! Don’t stand still! Remember Yahweh from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.” ⁵¹ “We are confounded, because we have heard reproach. Confusion has covered our faces, for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of Yahweh’s house.”

¹⁰ The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things; for she has seen that the nations have entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly.

⁶ He has violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were a garden. He has destroyed his place of assembly. Yahweh has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion. In the indignation of his anger, he has despised the king and the priest. ⁷ The Lord has cast off his altar. He has abhorred his sanctuary. He has given the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in Yahweh’s house, as in the day of a solemn assembly.

³ Then 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. ⁴ They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of bronze, of iron, of wood, and of stone. ⁵ In 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.

²³ but 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.

² “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of reeling to all the surrounding peoples, and it will also be on Judah in the siege against Jerusalem. ³ It will happen in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All who burden themselves with it will be severely wounded, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against it.

¹³ You said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly, in the far north! ¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!”

²³ Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁰ For 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.’

¹⁴ Set yourselves in array against Babylon all around, all you who bend the bow; shoot at her. Spare no arrows; for she has sinned against Yahweh. ¹⁵ Shout against her all around. She has submitted herself. Her bulwarks have fallen. Her walls have been thrown down, for it is the vengeance of Yahweh. Take vengeance on her. As she has done, do to her.

²⁴ I 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 Yahweh.

³² The 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.”

⁵⁶ For the destroyer has come on her, even on Babylon. Her mighty men are taken. Their bows are broken in pieces, for Yahweh is a God of retribution. He will surely repay.

³⁷ Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase.

³⁶ “The king will do according to his will. He will exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and will speak marvelous things against the God of gods. He will prosper until the indignation is accomplished; for that which is determined will be done.

⁵ A mouth speaking great things and blasphemy was given to him. Authority to make war for forty-two months was given to him. ⁶ He opened his mouth for blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his dwelling, those who dwell in heaven.

¹⁵ Everyone who is found will be thrust through. Everyone who is captured will fall by the sword. ¹⁶ Their infants also will be dashed in pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be ransacked, and their wives raped.

²¹ For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.

²¹ Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless and widows. Let their men be killed and their young men struck by the sword in battle.

¹⁵ Moab is laid waste, and they have gone up into his cities, and his chosen young men have gone down to the slaughter,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.

²⁶ Therefore her young men will fall in her streets, and all the men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says Yahweh of Armies.

³⁶ A sword is on the boasters, and they will become fools. A sword is on her mighty men, and they will be dismayed.

⁵⁶ For the destroyer has come on her, even on Babylon. Her mighty men are taken. Their bows are broken in pieces, for Yahweh is a God of retribution. He will surely repay. ⁵⁷ I will make her princes, her wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men drunk. They will sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.

¹⁵ The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains.

¹⁸ that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, small and great.”

¹¹ Pour out the fury of your anger. Look at everyone who is proud, and bring him low. ¹² Look at everyone who is proud, and humble him. Crush the wicked in their place.

¹³ Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley, and of the rock of the plain,’ says Yahweh. ‘You that say, “Who would come down against us?” or “Who would enter into our homes?”

²⁹ “We have heard of the pride of Moab. He is very proud in his loftiness, his pride, his arrogance, and the arrogance of his heart.

¹⁶ As for your terror, the pride of your heart has deceived you, O you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, who hold the height of the hill, though you should make your nest as high as the eagle, I will bring you down from there,” says Yahweh.

⁸ therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I, even I, am against you; and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations.

³ Speak and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lies in the middle of his rivers, that has said, ‘My river is my own, and I have made it for myself.’

⁹ The land of Egypt will be a desolation and a waste. Then they will know that I am Yahweh. “‘“Because he has said, ‘The river is mine, and I have made it;’ ¹⁰ therefore, behold, I am against you, and against your rivers. I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from the tower of Seveneh even to the border of Ethiopia.

³ and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against you, Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal.

¹ “You, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against you, Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal.

³⁰ The king spoke and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?” ³¹ While the word was in the king’s mouth, a voice came from the sky, saying, “O king Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: ‘The kingdom has departed from you.

¹³ “Behold, I am against you,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions; and I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers will no longer be heard.”

⁵ “Behold, I am against you,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame.

⁴ Behold, his soul is puffed up. It is not upright in him, but the righteous will live by his faith. ⁵ Yes, moreover, wine is treacherous: an arrogant man who doesn’t stay at home, who enlarges his desire as Sheol; he is like death, and can’t be satisfied, but gathers to himself all nations, and heaps to himself all peoples.

⁶ But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

⁵ Likewise, you younger ones, be subject to the elder. Yes, all of you clothe yourselves with humility, to subject yourselves to one another; for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

²² For a fire is kindled in my anger, that burns to the lowest Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.

¹⁸ Pride goes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall.

¹² Before destruction the heart of man is proud, but before honor is humility.

¹² Therefore it will happen that when the Lord has performed his whole work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the willful proud heart of the king of Assyria, and the insolence of his arrogant looks. ¹³ For he has said, “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I have understanding. I have removed the boundaries of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures. Like a valiant man I have brought down their rulers. ¹⁴ My hand has found the riches of the peoples like a nest, and like one gathers eggs that are abandoned, I have gathered all the earth. There was no one who moved their wing, or that opened their mouth, or chirped.” ¹⁵ Should an ax brag against him who chops with it? Should a saw exalt itself above him who saws with it? As if a rod should lift those who lift it up, or as if a staff should lift up someone who is not wood.

¹³ You said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly, in the far north! ¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!” ¹⁵ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit.

¹⁴ I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says Yahweh; and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it will devour all that is around her.’”

²⁷ “I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad.”

²⁶ They won’t take a cornerstone from you, nor a stone for foundations; but you will be desolate forever,” says Yahweh.

² “Son of man, tell the prince of Tyre, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because your heart is lifted up, and you have said, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the middle of the seas;’ yet you are man, and not God, though you set your heart as the heart of God— ³ behold, you are wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that is hidden from you; ⁴ by your wisdom and by your understanding you have gotten yourself riches, and have gotten gold and silver into your treasures; ⁵ by your great wisdom and by your trading you have increased your riches, and your heart is lifted up because of your riches—” ⁶ “‘therefore the Lord Yahweh says: “Because you have set your heart as the heart of God, ⁷ therefore, behold, I will bring strangers on you, the terrible of the nations. They will draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom. They will defile your brightness. ⁸ They will bring you down to the pit. You will die the death of those who are slain in the heart of the seas. ⁹ Will you yet say before him who kills you, ‘I am God’? But you are man, and not God, in the hand of him who wounds you.

²⁰ But 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.

²³ but 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. ²⁴ Then the part of the hand was sent from before him, and this writing was inscribed. ²⁵ “This is the writing that was inscribed: ‘MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.’ ²⁶ “This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE: God has counted your kingdom, and brought it to an end. ²⁷ TEKEL: you are weighed in the balances, and are found wanting. ²⁸ PERES: your kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.” ²⁹ Then Belshazzar commanded, and they clothed Daniel with purple, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. ³⁰ In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean King was slain.

⁴ but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad.

⁷ but I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it will devour its palaces.

¹⁰ but I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, and it will devour its palaces.”

¹² but I will send a fire on Teman, and it will devour the palaces of Bozrah.”

¹⁴ But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it will devour its palaces, with shouting in the day of battle, with a storm in the day of the whirlwind;

² but I will send a fire on Moab, and it will devour the palaces of Kerioth; and Moab will die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet;

⁵ but I will send a fire on Judah, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem.”

² Pharaoh said, “Who is Yahweh, that I should listen to his voice to let Israel go? I don’t know Yahweh, and moreover I will not let Israel go.”

² If you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your borders with frogs.

² For if you refuse to let them go, and hold them still, ³ behold, Yahweh’s hand is on your livestock which are in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the herds, and on the flocks with a very grievous pestilence.

¹⁷ because you still exalt yourself against my people, that you won’t let them go. ¹⁸ Behold, tomorrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as has not been in Egypt since the day it was founded even until now.

¹⁷ who made the world like a wilderness, and overthrew its cities, who didn’t release his prisoners to their home?”

²⁴ Shall the plunder be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captives be delivered? ²⁵ But Yahweh says, “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the plunder retrieved from the fierce, for I will contend with him who contends with you and I will save your children. ²⁶ I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh; and they will be drunk on their own blood, as with sweet wine. Then all flesh shall know that I, Yahweh, am your Savior and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

²³ I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who have said to your soul, ‘Bow down, that we may walk over you;’ and you have laid your back as the ground, like a street to those who walk over.”

⁴ For the Lord Yahweh says: “My people went down at the first into Egypt to live there: and the Assyrian has oppressed them without cause. ⁵ “Now therefore, what do I do here,” says Yahweh, “seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them mock,” says Yahweh, “and my name is blasphemed continually all day long. ⁶ Therefore my people shall know my name. Therefore they shall know in that day that I am he who speaks. Behold, it is I.”

⁶ “Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen: to release the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke?

¹⁵ You had now turned, and had done that which is right in my eyes, in every man proclaiming liberty to his neighbor. You had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name; ¹⁶ but you turned and profaned my name, and every man caused his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom you had let go free at their pleasure, to return. You brought them into subjection, to be to you for servants and for handmaids.’” ¹⁷ Therefore Yahweh says: “You have not listened to me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbor. Behold, I proclaim to you a liberty,” says Yahweh, “to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine. I will make you be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth. ¹⁸ I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant, who have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between its parts:

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.” ¹⁸ Therefore Yahweh 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.

³⁴ “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has, like a monster, swallowed me up. He has filled his mouth with my delicacies. He has cast me out. ³⁵ May the violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon!” the inhabitant of Zion will say; and, “May my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea!” will Jerusalem say. ³⁶ Therefore Yahweh says: “Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry.

¹⁵ I am very angry with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little displeased, but they added to the calamity.” ¹⁶ Therefore Yahweh says: “I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy. My house shall be built in it,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and a line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem.”’

⁶ Therefore tell the children of Israel, ‘I am Yahweh, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great judgments.

¹ By David. Contend, Yahweh, with those who contend with me. Fight against those who fight against me.

¹ Vindicate me, God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation. Oh, deliver me from deceitful and wicked men.

²³ for Yahweh will plead their case, and plunder the life of those who plunder them.

¹¹ for their Defender is strong. He will plead their case against you.

³ It will happen in the day that Yahweh will give you rest from your sorrow, from your trouble, and from the hard service in which you were made to serve, ⁴ that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!” ⁵ Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, ⁶ who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that no one restrained. ⁷ The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet. They break out in song.

¹⁴ Don’t be afraid, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel. I will help you,” says Yahweh. “Your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁴ Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says: “For your sake, I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring all of them down as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships of their rejoicing.

⁶ This is what Yahweh, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies, says: “I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God.

²³ Sing, you heavens, for Yahweh has done it! Shout, you lower parts of the earth! Break out into singing, you mountains, O forest, all of your trees, for Yahweh has redeemed Jacob, and will glorify himself in Israel. ²⁴ Yahweh, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb says: “I am Yahweh, who makes all things; who alone stretches out the heavens; who spreads out the earth by myself;

⁴ Our Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies is his name, is the Holy One of Israel.

²² Your Lord Yahweh, your God who pleads the cause of his people, says, “Behold, I have taken out of your hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my wrath. You will not drink it any more.

⁵ For your Maker is your husband; Yahweh of Armies is his name. The Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer. He will be called the God of the whole earth.

²¹ “I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the terrible.”

¹⁹ The portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the former of all things; including the tribe of his inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is his name.

¹⁰ Be in pain, and labor to give birth, daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now you will go out of the city, and will dwell in the field, and will come even to Babylon. There you will be rescued. There Yahweh will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.

⁹ I will bear the indignation of Yahweh, because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my case, and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light. I will see his righteousness.

⁶ Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you, ⁷ and to give relief to you who are afflicted with us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire,

¹ After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Hallelujah! Salvation, power, and glory belong to our God; ² for his judgments are true and righteous. For he has judged the great prostitute, who corrupted the earth with her sexual immorality, and he has avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.” ³ A second said, “Hallelujah! Her smoke goes up forever and ever.”

²⁵ I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

¹¹ The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish. The counsel of the wisest counselors of Pharaoh has become stupid. How do you say to Pharaoh, “I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?” ¹² Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you now; and let them know what Yahweh of Armies has purposed concerning Egypt. ¹³ The princes of Zoan have become fools. The princes of Memphis are deceived. They have caused Egypt to go astray, who are the cornerstone of her tribes.

¹⁴ therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will be hidden.”

²⁵ who frustrates the signs of the liars, and makes diviners mad; who turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish;

¹³ You 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. ¹⁴ Behold, 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.

¹⁶ For Yahweh will execute judgment by fire and by his sword on all flesh; and those slain by Yahweh will be many.

⁹ The wise men are disappointed. They are dismayed and trapped. Behold, they have rejected Yahweh’s word. What kind of wisdom is in them?

⁷ Who shouldn’t fear you, King of the nations? For it belongs to you. Because among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is no one like you.

⁶ “‘You sword of Yahweh, how long will it be before you are quiet? Put yourself back into your scabbard; rest, and be still.’

³⁰ Therefore her young men will fall in her streets. All her men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says Yahweh.

³⁹ When they are heated, 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 Yahweh.

² Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,

¹ Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. ² Belshazzar, 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.

⁷ The 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.” ⁸ Then 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.

³⁰ In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean King was slain.

⁶ The sword will fall on their cities, and will destroy the bars of their gates, and will put an end to their plans.

¹⁷ Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock! The sword will be on his arm, and on his right eye. His arm will be completely withered, and his right eye will be totally blinded!”

³¹ Someone told David, saying, “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” David said, “Yahweh, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.”

¹⁴ Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel.” For Yahweh had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that Yahweh might bring evil on Absalom.

¹⁶ As he talked with him, the king said to him, “Have we made you one of the king’s counselors? Stop! Why should you be struck down?” Then the prophet stopped, and said, “I know that God has determined to destroy you, because you have done this, and have not listened to my counsel.”

³⁰ I know his wrath,” says Yahweh, “that it is nothing; his boastings have done nothing.

²² Behold, he will come up and fly as the eagle, and spread out his wings against Bozrah. The heart of the mighty men of Edom at that day will be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.

³⁰ The mighty men of Babylon have stopped fighting, they remain in their strongholds. Their might has failed. They have become as women. Her dwelling places are set on fire. Her bars are broken.

³² So the passages are seized. They have burned the reeds with fire. The men of war are frightened.”

⁸ But Nineveh has been from of old like a pool of water, yet they flee away. “Stop! Stop!” they cry, but no one looks back.

⁷ It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?”

¹³ Behold, your troops among you are women. The gates of your land are set wide open to your enemies. The fire has devoured your bars.

¹⁷ Your guards are like the locusts, and your officials like the swarms of locusts, which settle on the walls on a cold day, but when the sun appears, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are. ¹⁸ Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them.

⁹ even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, ¹⁰ and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. ¹¹ Because of this, God sends them a working of error, that they should believe a lie;

² through the hypocrisy of men who speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron,

⁴ he is conceited, knowing nothing, but obsessed with arguments, disputes, and word battles, from which come envy, strife, insulting, evil suspicions,

²⁰ The beast was taken, and with him the false prophet who worked the signs in his sight, with which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.

⁸ But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

¹⁵ Outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

⁷ Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we trust in the name of Yahweh our God. ⁸ They are bowed down and fallen, but we rise up, and stand upright.

⁹ He makes wars cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow, and shatters the spear. He burns the chariots in the fire.

⁶ At your rebuke, God of Jacob, both chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep.

¹⁶ In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will tremble and fear because of the shaking of Yahweh of Armies’s hand, which he shakes over them.

²⁰ and all the mixed people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, all the kings of the Philistines, Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod;

²⁴ and all the kings of Arabia, all the kings of the mixed people who dwell in the wilderness;

⁴¹ Kerioth is taken, and the strongholds are seized. The heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day will be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.

²¹ With you I will break in pieces the horse and his rider.

⁵ “‘“Ethiopia, Put, Lud, all the mixed people, Cub, and the children of the land that is allied with them, will fall with them by the sword.”

²⁰ You shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war,” says the Lord Yahweh.’

² For Yahweh restores the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel; for the destroyers have destroyed them, and ruined their vine branches. ³ The shield of his mighty men is made red. The valiant men are in scarlet. The chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation, and the pine spears are brandished. ⁴ The chariots rage in the streets. They rush back and forth in the wide ways. Their appearance is like torches. They run like the lightnings.

²² I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations. I will overthrow the chariots, and those who ride in them. The horses and their riders will come down, everyone by the sword of his brother.

²⁷ who says to the deep, ‘Be dry,’ and ‘I will dry up your rivers;’

¹ Bel bows down. Nebo stoops. Their idols are carried by animals, and on the livestock. The things that you carried around are heavy loads, a burden for the weary. ² They stoop and they bow down together. They could not deliver the burden, but they have gone into captivity. ³ “Listen to me, house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, that have been carried from their birth, that have been carried from the womb. ⁴ Even to old age I am he, and even to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear. Yes, I will carry, and will deliver. ⁵ “To whom will you compare me, and consider my equal, and compare me, as if we were the same? ⁶ Some pour out gold from the bag, and weigh silver in the balance. They hire a goldsmith, and he makes it a god. They fall down— yes, they worship. ⁷ They bear it on their shoulder. They carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands there. It cannot move from its place. Yes, one may cry to it, yet it can not answer. It cannot save him out of his trouble.

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.’

¹² your 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.

⁷ Babylon has been a golden cup in Yahweh’s hand, who made all the earth drunk. The nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations have gone mad.

³² So the passages are seized. They have burned the reeds with fire. The men of war are frightened.” ³³ For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says: “The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden. Yet a little while, and the time of harvest comes for her.”

¹ Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits, and its width six cubits. He set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. ² Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the local governors, the deputies, and the governors, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. ³ Then the local governors, the deputies, and the governors, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, were gathered together to the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. ⁴ Then the herald cried aloud, “To you it is commanded, peoples, nations, and languages, ⁵ that whenever you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up. ⁶ Whoever doesn’t fall down and worship shall be cast into the middle of a burning fiery furnace the same hour.” ⁷ Therefore at that time, when all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, all the peoples, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. ⁸ Therefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and brought accusation against the Jews. ⁹ They answered Nebuchadnezzar the king, “O king, live for ever! ¹⁰ You, O king, have made a decree, that every man that hears the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image; ¹¹ and whoever doesn’t fall down and worship shall be cast into the middle of a burning fiery furnace. ¹² There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, have not respected you. They don’t serve your gods, and don’t worship the golden image which you have set up.” ¹³ Then Nebuchadnezzar in rage and fury commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. Then these men were brought before the king. ¹⁴ Nebuchadnezzar answered them, “Is it on purpose, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you don’t serve my god, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? ¹⁵ Now if you are ready whenever you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music to fall down and worship the image which I have made, good; but if you don’t worship, you shall be cast the same hour into the middle of a burning fiery furnace. Who is that god that will deliver you out of my hands?” ¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. ¹⁷ If it happens, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. ¹⁸ But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up.” ¹⁹ Then Nebuchadnezzar was full of fury, and the form of his appearance was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He spoke, and commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated. ²⁰ He commanded certain mighty men who were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. ²¹ Then these men were bound in their pants, their tunics, and their mantles, and their other clothes, and were cast into the middle of the burning fiery furnace. ²² Therefore because the king’s commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceedingly hot, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. ²³ These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the middle of the burning fiery furnace. ²⁴ Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste. He spoke and said to his counselors, “Didn’t we cast three men bound into the middle of the fire?” They answered the king, “True, O king.” ²⁵ He answered, “Look, I see four men loose, walking in the middle of the fire, and they are unharmed. The appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.” ²⁶ Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace. He spoke and said, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the middle of the fire. ²⁷ The local governors, the deputies, and the governors, and the king’s counselors, being gathered together, saw these men, that the fire had no power on their bodies. The hair of their head wasn’t singed. Their pants weren’t changed, the smell of fire wasn’t even on them. ²⁸ Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel, and delivered his servants who trusted in him, and have changed the king’s word, and have yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God. ²⁹ Therefore I make a decree, that every people, nation, and language, which speak anything evil against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill; because there is no other god who is able to deliver like this.” ³⁰ Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

⁴ They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of bronze, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

¹⁸ “What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols? ¹⁹ Woe to him who says to the wood, ‘Awake!’ or to the mute stone, ‘Arise!’ Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all within it.

¹⁶ Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols.

¹² The sixth poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates. Its water was dried up, that the way might be prepared for the kings that come from the sunrise.

¹⁵ He said to me, “The waters which you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and languages. ¹⁶ The ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the prostitute, will make her desolate, will strip her naked, will eat her flesh, and will burn her utterly with fire.

¹¹ But the pelican and the porcupine will possess it. The owl and the raven will dwell in it. He will stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness. ¹² They shall call its nobles to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all its princes shall be nothing. ¹³ Thorns will come up in its palaces, nettles and thistles in its fortresses; and it will be a habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches. ¹⁴ The wild animals of the desert will meet with the wolves, and the wild goat will cry to his fellow. Yes, the night creature shall settle there, and shall find herself a place of rest. ¹⁵ The arrow snake will make her nest there, and lay, hatch, and gather under her shade. Yes, the kites will be gathered there, every one with her mate. ¹⁶ Search in the book of Yahweh, and read: not one of these will be missing. None will lack her mate. For my mouth has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them. ¹⁷ He has cast the lot for them, and his hand has divided it to them with a measuring line. They shall possess it forever. From generation to generation they will dwell in it.

³⁷ Babylon will become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant. ³⁸ They will roar together like young lions. They will growl as lions’ cubs.

²⁴ Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky. ²⁵ He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground.

²³ that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath.

¹⁹ Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be like when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ²⁰ It 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.

¹⁸ As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and its neighbor cities,” says Yahweh, “no man will dwell there, neither will any son of man live therein.

⁸ “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within me, my compassion is aroused. ⁹ I will not execute the fierceness of my anger. I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One among you; and I will not come in wrath.

¹¹ “I have overthrown some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick plucked out of the fire; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says Yahweh.

⁹ Therefore as I live, says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, surely Moab will be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, a possession of nettles, and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation. The remnant of my people will plunder them, and the survivors of my nation will inherit them.

²⁸ Likewise, even as it was in the days of Lot: they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; ²⁹ but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from the sky and destroyed them all. ³⁰ It will be the same way in the day that the Son of Man is revealed.

⁶ and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, having made them an example to those who would live in an ungodly way;

⁷ Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, having in the same way as these given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are shown as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.

⁸ Their dead bodies will be in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

⁸ Therefore 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. ⁹ The 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,

²² Yahweh says, “Behold, a people comes from the north country. A great nation will be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. ²³ They take hold of bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Zion.”

¹⁴ For many nations and great kings will make bondservants of them, even of them. I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.”

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.’ ³ For 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.

¹ Yahweh says: “Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against those who dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind. ² I will send to Babylon strangers, who will winnow her. They will empty her land; for in the day of trouble they will be against her all around.

² Therefore we won’t be afraid, though the earth changes, though the mountains are shaken into the heart of the seas; ³ though its waters roar and are troubled, though the mountains tremble with their swelling. Selah.

⁶ The nations raged. The kingdoms were moved. He lifted his voice and the earth melted.

²⁰ Honor your covenant, for haunts of violence fill the dark places of the earth.

³⁰ They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.

⁶ who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that no one restrained.

¹⁶ The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan. The whole land trembles at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they have come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it, the city and those who dwell therein.”

³ At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers don’t look back to their children for feebleness of hands;

⁶ For, behold, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, that march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. ⁷ They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. ⁸ Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour.

¹⁴ The armies which are in heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in white, pure, fine linen. ¹⁵ Out of his mouth proceeds a sharp, double-edged sword, that with it he should strike the nations. He will rule them with an iron rod. He treads the wine press of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty. ¹⁶ He has on his garment and on his thigh a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” ¹⁷ I saw an angel standing in the sun. He cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the sky, “Come! Be gathered together to the great supper of God, ¹⁸ that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, small and great.”

⁶ Wail, for Yahweh’s day is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. ⁷ Therefore all hands will be feeble, and everyone’s heart will melt. ⁸ They 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.

²⁴ Damascus has grown feeble, she turns herself to flee, and trembling has seized her. Anguish and sorrows have taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail.

⁵ In 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. ⁶ Then 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.

¹¹ Who is like you, Yahweh, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?

⁵ He said to Korah and to all his company, “In the morning, Yahweh will show who are his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near to him. Even him whom he shall choose, he will cause to come near to him.

¹⁰ None is so fierce that he dare stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me? ¹¹ Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Everything under the heavens is mine.

⁶ For who in the skies can be compared to Yahweh? Who among the sons of the heavenly beings is like Yahweh,

⁸ Yahweh, God of Armies, who is a mighty one, like you? Yah, your faithfulness is around you.

¹⁸ To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to him?

²⁵ “To whom then will you liken me? Who is my equal?” says the Holy One.

¹⁰ “You are my witnesses,” says Yahweh, “With my servant whom I have chosen; that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he. Before me there was no God formed, neither will there be after me.

⁹ Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me.

¹¹ I call a ravenous bird from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. Yes, I have spoken. I will also bring it to pass. I have planned. I will also do it.

¹⁹ “Behold, he will come up like a lion from the pride of the Jordan against the strong habitation: for I will suddenly make them run away from it; and 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 will stand before me?” ²⁰ Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh, that he has taken against Edom; and his purposes, that he has purposed against the inhabitants of Teman: Surely they will drag them away, the little ones of the flock. Surely he will make their habitation desolate over them. ²¹ The earth trembles at the noise of their fall; there is a cry, the noise which is heard in the Red Sea.

¹⁰ Yahweh brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He makes the thoughts of the peoples to be of no effect. ¹¹ The counsel of Yahweh stands fast forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.

²⁴ Yahweh of Armies has sworn, saying, “Surely, as I have thought, so shall it happen; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: ²⁵ that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and tread him under foot on my mountains. Then his yoke will leave them, and his burden leave their shoulders. ²⁶ This is the plan that is determined for the whole earth. This is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. ²⁷ For Yahweh of Armies has planned, and who can stop it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?”

¹⁰ For though you had struck the whole army of the Chaldeans who fight against you, and only wounded men remained among them, they would each rise up in his tent and burn this city with fire.’”

²⁰ Therefore hear the counsel of Yahweh, that he has taken against Edom; and his purposes, that he has purposed against the inhabitants of Teman: Surely they will drag them away, the little ones of the flock. Surely he will make their habitation desolate over them.

²⁸ to do whatever your hand and your council foreordained to happen.

¹¹ We were also assigned an inheritance in him, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will,

¹⁶ The ten horns which you saw, and the beast, these will hate the prostitute, will make her desolate, will strip her naked, will eat her flesh, and will burn her utterly with fire. ¹⁷ For God has put in their hearts to do what he has in mind, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God should be accomplished.

⁹ Sheol from beneath has moved for you to meet you at your coming. It stirs up the departed spirits for you, even all the rulers of the earth. It has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. ¹⁰ They all will answer and ask you, “Have you also become as weak as we are? Have you become like us?”

²¹ The earth trembles at the noise of their fall; there is a cry, the noise which is heard in the Red Sea.

¹⁸ Now the islands will tremble in the day of your fall. Yes, the islands that are in the sea will be dismayed at your departure.’

¹⁶ I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit. All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth.

¹⁰ Yes, I will make many peoples amazed at you, and their kings will be horribly afraid for you, when I brandish my sword before them. They will tremble at every moment, every man for his own life, in the day of your fall.”

⁹ The 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, ¹⁰ standing 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.’ ¹¹ The merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise any more: ¹² merchandise 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; ¹³ and cinnamon, incense, perfume, frankincense, wine, olive oil, fine flour, wheat, sheep, horses, chariots, and people’s bodies and souls. ¹⁴ The 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. ¹⁵ The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, will stand far away for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning, ¹⁶ saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, she who was dressed in fine linen, purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls! ¹⁷ For 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, ¹⁸ and cried out as they looked at the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What is like the great city?’ ¹⁹ They 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.