Babylon will be destroyed

51 This is what Yahweh says:

“I will inspire/motivate an army to destroy Babylon like a powerful wind [MET],

and also to destroy the people of Babylonia.

2 I will send a foreign army to come to get rid of Babylonia

like a strong wind that blows away chaff.

They will attack from every direction

on that day of disaster.

3 I will tell them, ‘Do not allow the archers of Babylon to have time to put on their armor

or draw their bows.

Do not spare the young men of Babylon.

Completely destroy their army.’

4 Their soldiers will fall dead in Babylonia;

they will die after being wounded in the streets.

5 I, the Commander of the armies of angels, the Israelis’ God, have not abandoned Israel and Judah.

Even though their land was full of people who sinned against me, the Holy God of Israel,

I am still their God.

6 You people of Israel and Judah, flee from Babylon!

Run away from there!

Do not stay there and be killed when I punish the people of Babylon!

It will be the time when I will get revenge;

I will do to them what they deserve.

7 Babylon has been like [MET] a gold cup in my hand, a cup that is full of wine

that caused people all over the earth who drank some of it to become drunk.

It is as though the rulers of the nations drank the wine from Babylon,

and it caused them to become crazy.

8 But suddenly Babylon will be conquered.

You foreigners who live in Babylon, weep for its people.

Give them medicine for their wounds;

perhaps they can be healed.”

9 We foreigners would have tried to heal them,

but now they cannot be healed.

So we will not try to help them; we will abandon them,

and return to our own lands,

because it is as though the punishment they are receiving is so great that it reaches up to the clouds in sky,

so great that no one can measure it.

10 Yahweh has ◄vindicated us/shown that we were right►;

so let’s proclaim in Jerusalem everything that Yahweh our God has done for us.

11 You enemy soldiers, sharpen your arrows!

Lift up your shields,

because Yahweh has incited your kings of Media and Persia to march with their armies to Babylon and to destroy it.

That is how Yahweh will get revenge on those foreigners who entered his temple in Jerusalem and defiled it.

12 Lift up a battle flag close to the walls of Babylon!

◄Reinforce the/Appoint more► guards,

and tell the watchmen to stand in their positions!

Prepare an ambush,

because Yahweh is about to accomplish all that he has planned to do to the people of Babylon.

13 Babylon is a city near the great Euphrates River,

a city in which there are many rich people,

but it is time for Babylon to be finished;

the time for the city to exist is ended.

14 The Commander of the armies of angels has solemnly promised, using his own name,

“Your cities will be filled with your enemies;

I will cause them to be like [SIM] a swarm of locusts;

and they will shout triumphantly when they conquer your city.”