This is the order Jeremiah the prophet gave to Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when he went to King Zedekiah of Judah in Babylon during the fourth year of his reign. ¹  (Seraiah was a quartermaster.) ² 

Then say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again because of the judgments ¹  I am ready to bring upon her; they will grow faint.’” The prophecies of Jeremiah end here. ² 

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. ¹  Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

The Babylonians broke the two bronze pillars in the temple of the Lord, as well as the movable stands and the large bronze basin called the “The Sea.” ¹  They took all the bronze to Babylon.

“‘As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, surely in the city ¹  of the king who crowned him, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke – in the middle of Babylon he will die!

I will throw my net over him and he will be caught in my snare; I will bring him to Babylon and judge him there because of the unfaithfulness he committed against me.

They put him in a collar with hooks; ¹  they brought him to the king of Babylon; they brought him to prison ²  so that his voice would not be heard any longer on the mountains of Israel.

For the king of Babylon stands at the fork ¹  in the road at the head of the two routes. He looks for omens: ²  He shakes arrows, he consults idols, ³  he examines ⁴  animal livers. ⁵ 

He asked them to pray for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery so that he ¹  and his friends would not be destroyed along with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.

And at Daniel’s request, the king ¹  appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the administration of the province of Babylon. Daniel himself served in the king’s court. ² 

¹ King Nebuchadnezzar had a golden ²  statue made. ³  It was ninety feet ⁴  tall and nine feet ⁵  wide. He erected it on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

The king uttered these words: “Is this not the great Babylon that I have built for a royal residence ¹  by my own mighty strength ²  and for my majestic honor?”

In the first ¹  year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had ²  a dream filled with visions ³  while he was lying on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream in summary fashion. ⁴ 

The ¹  great city was split into three parts and the cities of the nations ²  collapsed. ³  So ⁴  Babylon the great was remembered before God, and was given the cup ⁵  filled with the wine made of God’s furious wrath. ⁶ 

He ¹  shouted with a powerful voice: “Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great! She ²  has become a lair for demons, a haunt ³  for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detested beast. ⁴ 

They will stand a long way off because they are afraid of her torment, and will say, “Woe, woe, O great city, Babylon the powerful city! For in a single hour your doom ¹  has come!”

Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, deported the rest of the people who were left in the city, those who had deserted to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the craftsmen. ¹ 

On the first day of the first month he had determined to make ¹  the ascent from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month he arrived at Jerusalem, ²  for the good hand of his God was on him.

There is no reason why you and your people should die in war ¹  or from starvation or disease! ²  That’s what the Lord says will happen to any nation ³  that will not be subject to the king of Babylon.

They were afraid of what the Babylonians might do ¹  because Ishmael son of Nethaniah had killed Gedaliah son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylon had appointed to govern the country.