“Judgment will come on the cities on the high plain: on Holon, Jahzah, and Mephaath,

on Kerioth and Bozrah. It will come on all the towns of Moab, both far and near.

The people of the earth will quake when they hear of their downfall. Their cries of anguish will be heard all the way to the Gulf of Aqaba.

The Lord spoke concerning Babylon and the land of Babylonia through the prophet Jeremiah.

“People of Judah, get out of Babylon quickly! Leave the land of Babylonia! Be the first to depart! Be like the male goats that lead the herd.

Babylon hammered the whole world to pieces. But see how that ‘hammer’ has been broken and shattered! See what an object of horror Babylon has become among the nations!

A drought will come upon her land; her rivers and canals will be dried up. All of this will happen because her land is filled with idols. Her people act like madmen because of those idols they fear.

“Look! An army is about to come from the north. A mighty nation and many kings are stirring into action in faraway parts of the earth.

He is the one who by his power made the earth. He is the one who by his wisdom fixed the world in place, by his understanding he spread out the heavens.

“See how Babylon has been captured! See how the pride of the whole earth has been taken! See what an object of horror Babylon has become among the nations!

“Babylon must fall because of the Israelites she has killed, just as the earth’s mortally wounded fell because of Babylon.

By the ninth day of the fourth month the famine in the city was so severe the residents had no food.

The king of Babylon ordered them to be executed at Riblah in the territory of Hamath. So Judah was taken into exile away from its land.

Then I looked, and I saw one wheel on the ground beside each of the four beings.

When the living beings moved, the wheels beside them moved; when the living beings rose up from the ground, the wheels rose up too.

“This is what the sovereign Lord says: This is Jerusalem; I placed her in the center of the nations with countries all around her.

(Make the chain, because the land is full of murder and the city is full of violence.)

“Then they will know that I am the Lord when I disperse them among the nations and scatter them among foreign countries.

The inhabited towns will be left in ruins and the land will be devastated. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

“Suppose I were to send wild animals through the land and kill its children, leaving it desolate, without travelers due to the wild animals.