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Moff JER Chapter 51

◄ JER 51 ► ║ ©

51 The Eternal declares:

I am stirring up destroyers

against Babylon, against the dwellers in Chaldea;

I am sending winnowers on Babylon,

to winnow her and leave her bare.

Woe betide her everywhere,

on her day of doom!

Let the archer bend his bow,

let him stand up in his armour;

spare none of her soldiers,

annihilate her army;

strike them down within Chaldea,

stab them in her streets;

for their land is full of guilt

against His Majesty of Israel.

(But Israel and Judah are not bereft

of their God, of the Lord of hosts.)

Fly from Babylon, every man of you;

save your lives, share not her doom;

’tis the hour of the Eternal’s vengeance,

he is rendering her due punishment.

Once Babylon was a golden cup,

that made the whole world drunk;

the nations drank her wine,

and lay before her helpless.

Suddenly Babylon falls and breaks!

Wail for the creature?

Get balsam for her wounds--

perhaps she can be cured?

“No,” you answer, “we would fain have healed her,

but there is no curing Babylon;

we must leave her to her fate,

and all go home,

for her doom rises up to heaven,

reaches the very skies,

The Eternal has made good our cause;

come, let us tell in Sion what the Eternal,

our own God, has done.”

Polish your arrows,

scour your armour--

the Eternal is stirring up Media’s king,

planning to ruin Babylon.

This is the Eternal’s vengeance,

vengeance for his temple.

Raise your standards against Babylon,

blockade it round and round;

post your sentries,

lay your ambushes;

for the Eternal executes his aim,

his sentence upon Babylon.

Throned upon many a stream,

with treasures that teem,

your end has come,

your web is spun!

The Lord of hosts has sworn by his own life,

“I fill you full of foes,

that swarm like locusts,

and shout in triumph over you.”...

You have been my battle-axe;

by you I shattered nations,

by you I have ruined realms,

by you I shattered horse and rider,

chariots and charioteers,

by you I shattered man and woman,

old and young, maidens and boys,

by you I shattered flock and shepherd,

ploughmen and their teams,

by you I shattered satraps and regents--

yes, and (the Eternal promises)

I will let Sion see how I repay

both Babylon and the Chaldeans all,

for all the wrongs they did her.

I strike at you, says the Eternal,

you volcano, ruining the world!

I will lay hands on you and level you,

and leave you all extinct; 26 men will never get from you

any stones for building;

you shall be a desolation for all time.

Raise your standard on the earth,

blow the trumpet among the nations,

open the campaign against her,

summon the realms--Armenia, Mannai, Ashkenaz;

muster your troops against her,

cavalry swarming like locusts.

Open the campaign against her,

with Media’s king, his satraps and his regents,

and all his domain.

All the world is trembling,

for the Eternal’s purpose against Babylon holds--

to lay the land empty and desolate.

Babylon’s soldiers cease to fight,

they stay inside their forts;

their strength has gone from them,

they are weak as women.

Couriers meet, messengers meet,

running to tell the king of Babylon

his city is stormed on every side,

its houses all ablaze,

the gates burst open;

the ferries have been seized,

the bastions burned,

the troops are scared.

For this is the sentence of the Lord of hosts,

the God of Israel:

Babylon to be trampled like a threshing-floor,

then trampled like the grain upon the floor!

“Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon

has been devouring us;

he set us down like an empty cup,

he swallowed us like a monster,

he gorged himself with our delights,

and then he threw us aside.

My torn flesh be avenged on Babylon!”--

let those who dwell in Sion cry;

“My blood be avenged on the Chaldeans!”--

let Jerusalem cry.

And here is the Eternal’s answer:

“I will take your part, I will avenge you,

I will dry up her lake

and drain her springs.

Babylon shall lie in ruins,

a mere haunt of jackals,

a horror and a scorn,

where no man lives.”

The Babylonians all roar like lions,

growling like lion-cubs over their prey?

I will feast them in my fury,

make them drunk and stupefied,

till they sleep the sleep that knows no waking;

I will drive them to the shambles,

like sheep, like rains and goats.

What a downfall for Babylon!

The Splendour of the world surprised!

What horror in the world

at Babylon’s fate!

A sea has burst on Babylon,

she sinks below the roaring tides of war;

her towns lie desolate,

unpeopled, waterless,

a waste where no man lives,

none passes through.

And I will punish Bel in BabyIon,

forcing him to disgorge his plunder;

prisoners shall stream to him no more,

for Babylon’s walls are down.

Come out of her, my people,

save your lives, every man of you,

from the Eternal’s burning wrath.

Never be daunted or dismayed

by rumours that you hear,

when rumours rise, year after year,

and tyrants lord it in the land.

For, mark this, the day comes

when I shall punish the idols of Babylon,

when all her country is confounded,

and her inhabitants drop dead.

Then heaven and earth and all their host

shall exult over Babylon;

for invaders from the north- land

shall reach her, the Eternal promises.

Yes, Babylon shall fall, O slain of Israel,

as slain men have fallen everywhere for Babylon.

You who have escaped the sword,

stay not, get away;

remember the Eternal yonder,

bethink you of Jerusalem.

“We are ashamed,” you say,

“at hearing of this outrage;

foreigners entering the sacred temple!--

it covers us with shame.”

But, mark this, a day comes, the Eternal answers,

when I punish the idols of Babylon,

till wounded men groan over all the land.

Though Babylon mounted to the sky,

though she entrenched herself on high,

yet I would speed invaders to assail her,

the Eternal answers.

Hark! shrieks from Babylon,

a mighty crashing in Chaldea!

’Tis the Eternal battering down Babylon,

stilling the din of her city-life!

The enemy surge in like the roaring tides,

shouting aloud;

for the invader has reached Babylon,

her soldiers are captured,

their bows all shattered.

For the Eternal is a God of retribution,

he never fails to punish.

“I will make her nobles and her sages drunk,

satraps and regents and soldiers,

till they sleep the sleep that knows no waking,”

says the King called the Lord of hosts. 58 Here is the Eternal’s sentence:

“Babylon’s broad wall shall be razed,

and her high gates burned with fire.

So ends the toil of nations, ends in smoke,

and pagans waste their pains.” 59 Instructions given by the prophet Jeremiah to Seraiah the son of Neriah, the grandson of Maliseiah, the quartermaster who accompanied Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. 60 Jeremiah had written on a scroll all the evils that were to befall Babylon, 61 and he said to Seraiah, “When you reach Babylon, be sure to read this all over; 63 when you have finished, tie a stone to the scroll and throw it into the Euphrates, saying, ‘So shall Babylon sink and never rise again, for the Eternal dooms it.’ ”

Here end the words of Jeremiah.

◄ JER 51 ► ║ ©

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