Pack your bags for exile, you inhabitants of poor dear Egypt. For Memphis will be laid waste. It will lie in ruins and be uninhabited.

The Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah about the Philistines before Pharaoh attacked Gaza.

For did not you people of Moab laugh at the people of Israel? Did you think that they were nothing but thieves, that you shook your head in contempt every time you talked about them?

Oh, how shattered Moab will be! Oh, how her people will wail! Oh, how she will turn away in shame! Moab will become an object of ridicule, a terrifying sight to all the nations that surround her.”

Her towns will be captured. Her fortresses will be taken. At that time the soldiers of Moab will be frightened like a woman in labor.

Look! Like an eagle with outspread wings, a nation will soar up and swoop down on Bozrah. At that time the soldiers of Edom will be as fearful as a woman in labor.”

Their camels will be taken as plunder. Their vast herds will be taken as spoil. I will scatter to the four winds those desert peoples who cut their hair short at the temples. I will bring disaster against them from every direction,” says the Lord.

“Hazor will become a permanent wasteland, a place where only jackals live. No one will live there. No human being will settle in it.”

Early in the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah, the Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah about Elam.

“My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have allow them to go astray. They have wandered around in the mountains. They have roamed from one mountain and hill to another. They have forgotten their resting place.

After I vent my wrath on it Babylon will be uninhabited. It will be totally desolate. All who pass by will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn because of all the disasters that have happened to it.

Come from far away and attack Babylonia! Open up the places where she stores her grain! Pile her up in ruins! Destroy her completely! Do not leave anyone alive!

Destructive forces will come against her horses and her chariots. Destructive forces will come against all the foreign troops within her; they will be as frightened as women! Destructive forces will come against her treasures; they will be taken away as plunder!

I will send people to winnow Babylonia like a wind blowing away chaff. They will winnow her and strip her land bare. This will happen when they come against her from every direction, when it is time to destroy her.

No one will use any of your stones as a cornerstone. No one will use any of them in the foundation of his house. For you will lie desolate forever,” says the Lord.

The soldiers of Babylonia will stop fighting. They will remain in their fortified cities. They will lose their strength to do battle. They will be as frightened as women. The houses in her cities will be set on fire. The gates of her cities will be broken down.

The towns of Babylonia have become heaps of ruins. She has become a dry and barren desert. No one lives in those towns any more. No one even passes through them.

When you finish reading this scroll aloud, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates River.

What follows is a record of what happened to Jerusalem and Judah because of the Lord’s anger when he drove them out of his sight. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

The Lord also spoke to him when Jehoiakim son of Josiah ruled over Judah, and he continued to speak to him until the fifth month of the eleventh year that Zedekiah son of Josiah ruled over Judah. That was when the people of Jerusalem were taken into exile.