Everyone who is caught will be stabbed; everyone who is seized ¹  will die ²  by the sword.

All your children will be followers of the Lord, and your children will enjoy great prosperity. ¹ 

¹ Why do you insist on being battered? Why do you continue to rebel? ²  Your head has a massive wound, ³  your whole body is weak. ⁴ 

Their arrows are sharpened, and all their bows are prepared. ¹  The hooves of their horses are hard as flint, ²  and their chariot wheels are like a windstorm. ³ 

For this reason all hands hang limp, ¹  every human heart loses its courage. ² 

along with the plants by the mouth of the river. ¹  All the cultivated land near the river will turn to dust and be blown away. ² 

Come near, you nations, and listen! Pay attention, you people! The earth and everything it contains must listen, the world and everything that lives in it. ¹ 

Her nobles will have nothing left to call a kingdom and all her officials will disappear. ¹ 

Every valley must be elevated, and every mountain and hill leveled. The rough terrain will become a level plain, the rugged landscape a wide valley.

I will make the trees on the mountains and hills wither up; ¹  I will dry up all their vegetation. I will turn streams into islands, ²  and dry up pools of water. ³ 

who commissions ¹  Cyrus, the one I appointed as shepherd ²  to carry out all my wishes ³  and to decree concerning Jerusalem, ‘She will be rebuilt,’ and concerning the temple, ‘It will be reconstructed.’” ⁴ 

I will make your pinnacles out of gems, ¹  your gates out of beryl, ²  and your outer wall ³  out of beautiful ⁴  stones.

Look, the sovereign Lord who commands armies ¹  is about to remove from Jerusalem ²  and Judah every source of security, including ³  all the food and water, ⁴ 

They will stay away from all the hills that were cultivated, for fear of the thorns and briers. ¹  Cattle will graze there and sheep will trample on them. ² 

They will all be left ¹  for the birds of the hills and the wild animals; ²  the birds will eat them during the summer, and all the wild animals will eat them during the winter.

Look what’s coming! A charioteer, a team of horses.” ¹  When questioned, he replies, ²  “Babylon has fallen, fallen! All the idols of her gods lie shattered on the ground!”

It will be like a dream, a night vision. There will be a horde from all the nations that fight against Ariel, those who attack her and her stronghold and besiege her.

All the stars in the sky will fade away, ¹  the sky will roll up like a scroll; all its stars will wither, like a leaf withers and falls from a vine or a fig withers and falls from a tree. ² 

A voice says, “Cry out!” Another asks, ¹  “What should I cry out?” The first voice responds: ²  “All people are like grass, ³  and all their promises ⁴  are like the flowers in the field.

Who has measured out the waters ¹  in the hollow of his hand, or carefully ²  measured the sky, ³  or carefully weighed ⁴  the soil of the earth, or weighed the mountains in a balance, or the hills on scales? ⁵