Study Desk

And I will send men to Babylon to make her clean and get her land cleared: for in the day of trouble they will put up their tents against her on every side.

For Israel has not been given up, or Judah, by his God, by the Lord of armies; for their land is full of sin against the Holy One of Israel.

Go in flight out of Babylon, so that every man may keep his life; do not be cut off in her evil-doing: for it is the time of the Lord's punishment; he will give her her reward.

Babylon has been a gold cup in the hand of the Lord, which has made all the earth overcome with wine: the nations have taken of her wine, and for this cause the nations have gone off their heads.

Sudden is the downfall of Babylon and her destruction: make cries of grief for her; take sweet oil for her pain, if it is possible for her to be made well.

We would have made Babylon well, but she is not made well: give her up, and let us go everyone to his country: for her punishment is stretching up to heaven, and lifted up even to the skies.

Make bright the arrows; take up the body-covers: the Lord has been moving the spirit of the king of the Medes; because his design against Babylon is its destruction: for it is the punishment from the Lord, the payment for his Temple.

Let the flag be lifted up against the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, put the watchmen in their places, make ready a surprise attack: for it is the Lord's purpose, and he has done what he said about the people of Babylon.

At the sound of his voice there is a massing of the waters in the heavens, and he makes the mists go up from the ends of the earth; he makes the thunder-flames for the rain and sends out the wind from his store-houses.

Then every man becomes like a beast without knowledge; every gold-worker is put to shame by the image he has made: for his metal image is deceit, and there is no breath in them.

The heritage of Jacob is not like these; for the maker of all things is his heritage: the Lord of armies is his name.

And I will give to Babylon, and to all the people of Chaldaea, their reward for all the evil they have done in Zion before your eyes, says the Lord.

And they will not take from you a stone for the angle of a wall or the base of a building; but you will be a waste place for ever, says the Lord.

Make the nations ready for war against her, the king of the Medes and his rulers and all his captains, and all the land under his rule.

And the land is shaking and in pain: for the purposes of the Lord are fixed, to make the land of Babylon an unpeopled waste.

And the ways across the river have been taken, and the water-holes ••• Three dots are used where it is no longer possible to be certain of the true sense of the Hebrew words, and for this reason no attempt has been made to put them into Basic English. burned with fire, and the men of war are in the grip of fear.

For these are the words of the Lord of armies, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a grain-floor when it is stamped down; before long, the time of her grain-cutting will come.

For this reason the Lord has said: See, I will give support to your cause, and take payment for what you have undergone; I will make her sea dry, and her fountain without water.

And Babylon will become a mass of broken walls, a hole for jackals, a cause of wonder and surprise, without a living man in it.

When they are heated, I will make a feast for them, and overcome them with wine, so that they may become unconscious, sleeping an eternal sleep without awaking, says the Lord.