Study Desk

"Wail, Heshbon, for Ai has been destroyed! Cry out, daughters of Rabbah, Put on sackcloth and mourn, And move about inside the walls; For Malcam will go into exile Together with his priests and his leaders.

"Behold, I am going to bring terror upon you," Declares the Lord GOD of armies, "From all directions around you; And you will be driven away one after another, With no one to gather the fugitives together.

"But I have stripped Esau bare, I have uncovered his hiding places So that he will not be able to conceal himself; His offspring have been destroyed along with his brothers And his neighbors, and he no longer exists.

"Like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah with its neighbors," says the LORD, "no one will live there, nor will anyone of mankind reside in it.

"I set a trap for you and you were also caught, Babylon, While you yourself were not aware; You have been found and also seized Because you have engaged in conflict with the LORD."

"The arrogant one will stumble and fall With no one to raise him up; And I will set fire to his cities, And it will devour all his surroundings."

"Therefore the desert creatures will live there with the jackals; The ostriches also will live in it. It will never again be inhabited Nor lived in from generation to generation.

"As when God overthrew Sodom And Gomorrah with its neighbors," declares the LORD, "No one will live there, Nor will anyone of mankind reside in it.

The LORD of armies has sworn by Himself: "I will certainly fill you with a population like locusts, And they will cry out with shouts of victory over you."

He says, "You are My war-club, My weapon of war; And with you I shatter nations, And with you I destroy kingdoms.

"With you I shatter the horse and his rider, And with you I shatter the chariot and its rider,

And with you I shatter man and woman, And with you I shatter the old man and youth, And with you I shatter the young man and virgin,

And with you I shatter the shepherd and his flock, And with you I shatter the farmer and his team, And with you I shatter governors and officials.

The river crossing places have been seized, And they have burned the marshes with fire, And the men of war are terrified.

"Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me, He has set me down like an empty vessel; He has swallowed me like a monster, He has filled his stomach with my delicacies; He has washed me away.

"I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, Like rams together with male goats.

"Now, so that your heart does not grow faint, And you are not afraid at the report that will be heard in the land— For the report will come in one year, And after that another report in another year, And violence will be in the land With ruler against ruler—

The command that Jeremiah the prophet gave Seraiah the son of Neriah, the grandson of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. (And Seraiah was quartermaster.)

He did evil in the sight of the LORD, in accordance with everything that Jehoiakim had done.

Then he blinded the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him with bronze shackles and brought him to Babylon and put him in prison until the day of his death.