But suddenly Babylonia will fall and be destroyed. ¹  Cry out in mourning over it! Get medicine for her wounds! Perhaps she can be healed!

The Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah about Nebuchadnezzar coming to attack the land of Egypt. ¹ 

Babylonia had been a gold cup in the Lord’s hand. She had made the whole world drunk. The nations had drunk from the wine of her wrath. ¹  So they have all gone mad. ² 

“Destructive forces will come against the Babylonians,” ¹  says the Lord. ²  “They will come against the people who inhabit Babylonia, against her leaders and her men of wisdom.

I will send people to winnow Babylonia like a wind blowing away chaff. ¹  They will winnow her and strip her land bare. ²  This will happen when ³  they come against her from every direction, when it is time to destroy her. ⁴ 

I will hand them over to Nebuchadnezzar and his troops, who want to kill them. But later on, people will live in Egypt again as they did in former times. I, the Lord, affirm it!” ¹ 

Get out of Babylonia quickly, you foreign people. ¹  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 ²  back for what she has done. ³ 

“For the Lord says, ‘Only when the seventy years of Babylonian rule ¹  are over will I again take up consideration for you. ²  Then I will fulfill my gracious promise to you and restore ³  you to your homeland. ⁴ 

The Lord told Jeremiah, “Tell ¹  Shemaiah the Nehelamite ² 

But the one who will rescue them ¹  is strong. He is known as the Lord who rules over all. ²  He will strongly ³  champion their cause. As a result ⁴  he will bring peace and rest to the earth, but trouble and turmoil ⁵  to the people who inhabit Babylonia. ⁶ 

Foreigners living there will say, ¹  ‘We tried to heal her, but she could not be healed. Let’s leave Babylonia ²  and each go back to his own country. For judgment on her will be vast in its proportions. It will be like it is piled up to heaven, stacked up into the clouds.’ ³ 

“Sharpen ¹  your arrows! Fill your quivers! ²  The Lord will arouse a spirit of hostility in ³  the kings of Media. ⁴  For he intends to destroy Babylonia. For that is how the Lord will get his revenge – how he will get his revenge for the Babylonians’ destruction of his temple. ⁵ 

So when the envoys arrived from the Babylonian officials to visit him and inquire about the sign that occurred in the land, ¹  God left him alone to test him, in order to know his true motives. ² 

Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, took into exile some of the poor, ¹  the rest of the people who remained in the city, those who had deserted to him, and the rest of the craftsmen.

In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-fifth ¹  day of the twelfth month, ²  Evil-Merodach, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ³  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison.

The soldiers of Babylonia will stop fighting. They will remain in their fortified cities. They will lose their strength to do battle. ¹  They will be as frightened as women. ²  The houses in her cities will be set on fire. The gates of her cities will be broken down. ³ 

Therefore desert creatures and jackals will live there. Ostriches ¹  will dwell in it too. ²  But no people will ever live there again. No one will dwell there for all time to come. ³ 

The primary regions ¹  of his kingdom were Babel, ²  Erech, ³  Akkad, ⁴  and Calneh ⁵  in the land of Shinar. ⁶ 

On the poplars in her midst we hang our harps,

The Babylonians are all like lions roaring for prey. They are like lion cubs growling for something to eat. ¹