3:26 Her gates will mourn and lament;
deprived of her people, she will sit on the ground. 1
51:23 I will put it into the hand of your tormentors 2
who said to you, ‘Lie down, so we can walk over you.’
You made your back like the ground,
and like the street for those who walked over you.”
51:6 Get out of Babylonia quickly, you foreign people. 3
Flee to save your lives.
Do not let yourselves be killed because of her sins.
For it is time for the Lord to wreak his revenge.
He will pay Babylonia 4 back for what she has done. 5
51:45 “Get out of Babylon, my people!
Flee to save your lives
from the fierce anger of the Lord! 6
51:50 You who have escaped the sword, 7
go, do not delay. 8
Remember the Lord in a faraway land.
Think about Jerusalem. 9
2:6 “You there! 10 Flee from the northland!” says the Lord, “for like the four winds of heaven 11 I have scattered you,” says the Lord.
18:4 Then 12 I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, so you will not take part in her sins and so you will not receive her plagues,
1 tn Heb “she will be empty, on the ground she will sit.” Jerusalem is personified as a destitute woman who sits mourning the empty city.
2 tn That is, to make them drink it.
3 tn The words “you foreign people” are not in the text and many think the referent is the exiles of Judah. While this is clearly the case in v. 45 the referent seems broader here where the context speaks of every man going to his own country (v. 9).
4 tn Heb “her.”
5 tn Heb “paying to her a recompense [i.e., a payment in kind].”
6 tn Heb “Go out from her [Babylon’s] midst, my people. Save each man his life from the fierce anger of the
7 sn God’s exiled people are told to leave doomed Babylon (see v. 45).
8 tn Heb “don’t stand.”
9 tn Heb “let Jerusalem go up upon your heart.” The “heart” is often viewed as the seat of one’s mental faculties and thought life.
10 sn These are the scattered Jews of eschatological times (as the expression four winds of heaven makes clear) and not those of Zechariah’s time who have, for the most part, already returned by 520
11 tn Or “of the sky.” The same Hebrew term, שָׁמַיִם (shamayim), may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.
12 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.