Jeremiah 50-51
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 50
A Prophecy against Babylon.[a] 1 This is the word which the Lord spoke against Babylon and the land of the Chaldeans, through the prophet Jeremiah:
2 Declare this among the nations and proclaim it;
lift up a banner and proclaim it;
keep nothing back, but announce,
“Babylon will be captured;
Bel[b] will be put to shame;
Marduk will be dismayed.
Her images are disgraced;
her idols are shattered.”
3 A nation from the north is marching against her
that will turn her land into a desolate waste,
so that no one will be able to live there anymore;
both men and beasts have fled and are gone.
4 In those days and at that time,
says the Lord,
the people of Israel and of Judah will come,
weeping as they seek the Lord, their God.
5 They will ask the way to Zion
and turn their faces toward it, saying,
“Come, let us bind ourselves to the Lord
in an everlasting covenant
that will never be forgotten.”
6 My people were lost sheep;
their shepherds led them astray
and caused them to roam on the mountains.
They wandered over mountains and hills
and lost the way to their fold.
7 Whoever came upon them devoured them,
and their enemies insisted,
“We incur no guilt,
because they have sinned
against the Lord, their true pasture,
against the Lord, the hope of their fathers.”
8 Flee from Babylon and the land of the Chaldeans;
be like male goats leading the flock.
9 Behold, I will stir up against Babylon
a host of mighty nations from the land of the north.
They will advance against her,
and there she will be conquered.
Their arrows are like those of a skilled warrior
that are never shot unsuccessfully.
10 Chaldea will be plundered,
and all who plunder her will be sated,
says the Lord.
11 O you who plundered my heritage,
although you rejoice and exult,
although you playfully frolic
like heifers on the grass
and neigh like stallions,
12 your mother[c] will be cruelly put to shame;
she who bore you will be completely disgraced.
She is now the least of the nations,
a desert, a parched land, a wilderness.
13 Because of the wrath of the Lord
she will not be inhabited
but will be totally desolate.
Everyone who passes by Babylon will be appalled
and stunned at the enormity of her wounds.
14 Take up your positions and surround Babylon,
all you who draw the bow.
Shoot at her, and do not spare your arrows,
for she has sinned against the Lord.[d]
15 Raise your war cries against her on all sides;
shout in triumph,
“She has surrendered,
her bastions have fallen,
her walls have been demolished.”
This is the vengeance of the Lord.
Avenge yourselves on her;
as she has done, so do to her.
16 Drive out from Babylon the sowers
and those who wield the sickle at harvest time.
To escape the destroying sword,
all of them will return to their own people;
all of them will flee to their own land.
17 Israel is a scattered flock
that was pursued by lions.
First the king of Assyria devoured her,
and now her bones have been crushed
by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.
18 Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:
I intend to punish the king of Babylon and his land,
as I formerly punished the king of Assyria.
19 I will restore Israel to her pastures,
and she will graze on Carmel and in Bashan;
on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead
her hunger will be satisfied.
20 In those days, and at that time,
says the Lord,
you will search for evidence of the iniquity of Israel,
but there will be none,
and for the sins of Judah,
but these will no longer be found,
for I will pardon the remnant
of those that I have preserved.
21 Attack the land of Merathaim[e]
and the inhabitants of Pekod.
Put them to the sword and destroy them;
do all I have commanded you, says the Lord.
22 The noise of battle amid great destruction
is heard throughout the land.
23 See how the hammer of the whole world
has been broken and shattered,
how Babylon has become
an object of horror among the nations.
24 I set a snare for you, O Babylon,
and you were caught before you realized it.
You were discovered and seized
because you challenged the Lord.
25 The Lord has opened his armory
and brought forth the weapons of his wrath.
For the Lord God has work to do
in the land of the Chaldeans.
26 Come against her from every side;
open her granaries,
pile up her goods in heaps,
and completely destroy her
until nothing of her is left.
27 Slay all her bulls;
lead them down to the slaughterhouse.
Woe to them, for their time has come,
their day of punishment.
28 Listen! Fugitives and refugees
from the land of Babylon
have arrived in Zion to proclaim
the vengeance of the Lord, our God,
the vengeance he inflicts for his temple.
29 Summon against Babylon the archers,
all those who are skilled with the bow.
Surround her on all sides;
allow no one to escape.
Repay her in full for her misdeeds;
treat her as she has treated others.
30 Therefore, her young men will fall in the streets,
and all her soldiers will be destroyed on that day,
says the Lord.
31 I am against you, O arrogant city,
says the Lord of hosts.
For your day has come,
the time for me to punish you.
32 You will stumble and fall, O arrogant city,
and no one will offer to raise you up.
I will kindle a fire in your cities
that will devour everything within it.
33 Thus says the Lord of hosts:
The people of Israel are oppressed,
as are the people of Judah.
All their captors hold them fast
and refuse to let them go.
34 But their redeemer[f] is strong;
his name is the Lord of hosts.
He will successfully take up their cause,
thereby affording rest to the earth
while leaving the inhabitants of Babylon in turmoil.
35 A sword against the Chaldeans, says the Lord,
against the inhabitants of Babylon,
and against her officials and her wise men.
36 A sword against her false prophets;
they will become fools.
A sword against her warriors;
they will succumb to panic.
37 A sword against her horses and her chariots
and all the foreign troops in her midst;
they will become like women.
A sword against her treasures;
they will be plundered.
38 A drought against her waters;
they will be dried up.
For it is a land of idols,
and they will be overcome with terror
when confronted by them.
39 Therefore, wildcats and jackals will dwell there,
and there ostriches will make their home.
Never again will it be inhabited;
no people ever again will dwell there.
40 As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah
and all their neighboring towns, says the Lord,
no one will live there anymore
or attempt to settle there.
41 Look! A people is coming from the north,
a mighty nation.
Many kings are rousing themselves
from the ends of the earth.
42 They wield bows and spears,
and their cruelty allows no mercy.
As they ride forth on their horses,
their sound resembles that of the roaring sea.
All of them are arrayed for battle
to fight against you, daughter of Babylon.
43 News of their approach has reached the king of Babylon,
and his hands fall limp at his side.
Anguish has seized him,
pangs like those of a woman in labor.
44 Behold, like a lion coming up
from the thickets of the Jordan
to the perennial feeding grounds,
I will in a single instant drive them away
and appoint over her whomever I choose.
For who is there like me?
Who can challenge me?
What shepherd can stand up to me?
45 Therefore, hear the plan
that the Lord has devised against Babylon,
and what he proposes to do
against the land of the Chaldeans:
The young of the flock will be dragged away,
and he will completely destroy their pastures.
46 The earth will tremble at the news,
and the shouting will be heard among the nations.
Chapter 51
Another Prophecy against Babylon
1 Thus says the Lord:
Against Babylon and the inhabitants of Chaldea
I will rouse a destructive wind.
2 I will send foreigners to Babylon
to winnow her and lay waste her land.
They will besiege her from all sides
on the day of disaster.
3 Let no archer draw his bow
or array himself in his coat of armor.
Do not spare her young men;
completely destroy her entire army.
4 Let them be slain in the land of the Chaldeans,
lying mortally wounded in her streets.
5 For Israel and Judah have not been forsaken
by their God, the Lord of hosts,
although their land is full of guilt
that will not be ignored by the Holy One of Israel.
6 Flee from Babylon!
Save your lives, each one of you!
Do not perish for her guilt.
This is the time of vengeance for the Lord;
he will exact full recompense for their deeds.
7 Babylon was a golden cup
in the hand of the Lord,
and she made the entire earth drunk.
The nations drank her wine,
and now they have gone mad.
8 Suddenly Babylon has fallen and is shattered.
Wail for her.
Fetch balm for her wounds;
perhaps she can be cured.
9 We tried to heal Babylon,
but she cannot be healed.
Leave her and let us depart,
each one to his own land.
For her judgment reaches up to heaven
and touches the clouds.
10 The Lord has made clear our vindication.
Come, let us proclaim in Zion
what the Lord, our God, has done.
11 Sharpen the arrows;
fill the quivers.
The Lord has stirred up
the spirit of the kings of the Medes
because he is determined to destroy Babylon.
This will be the vengeance of the Lord,
vengeance for his temple.
12 Raise the standard against the walls of Babylon.
Strengthen the watch.
Post sentinels and prepare ambushes,
for the Lord has both planned and will carry out
his threat against the inhabitants of Babylon.
13 You lands that lie on the shores of abundant waters
and are rich in treasures,
your end has now come,
the cessation of your power.
14 The Lord of hosts has sworn by himself,
“I will fill you with enemies
as numerous as a swarm of locusts,
and they will raise a shout of victory over you.”
15 By his power, he made the earth;
by his wisdom, he established the world;
by his discernment, he stretched out the heavens.
16 When he thunders,
there is a tumult of waters in the heavens,
and he causes the clouds to rise
from the farthest ends of the earth.
He sends forth lightning with the rain,
and he brings out the wind from his storehouses.
17 Everyone is stupid and lacking in knowledge;
goldsmiths are put to shame by their idols,
for the images they cast are a sham,
with no breath of life in them.
18 They devise worthless objects of mockery;
at the time of judgment, they will perish.
19 Not like these is the portion of Jacob,
for he is the Creator of all things,
and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance;
the Lord of hosts is his name.
20 You are my war club,
my weapon in battle.
With you I shatter nations,
with you I destroy kingdoms.
21 With you I crush horse and rider,
with you I crush chariot and charioteer.
22 With you I crush man and woman,
with you I crush old and young,
with you I crush youth and maiden.
23 With you I crush shepherd and flock,
with you I crush the plowman and his team,
with you I crush governors and magistrates.
24 Thus will I repay Babylon
and all the inhabitants of Chaldea
for all the wrongs that they have done in Zion
before your very eyes, says the Lord.
25 I am against you, O mountain of destruction,
destroyer of the entire earth, says the Lord.
I will stretch forth my hand against you,
send you tumbling down from the cliffs,
and make you a burned-out mountain.
26 No rock will be taken from you
to be used for a cornerstone,
nor any stone for a foundation,
for you will be forever desolate,
says the Lord.
27 Raise a standard throughout the earth.
Blow the trumpet among the nations.
Consecrate nations for war against her.
Summon against her these kingdoms:
Ararat,[g] Minni, and Ashkenaz.
Appoint a commander against her.
Bring forward horses bristling like locusts.
28 Consecrate nations for war against her:
the kings of Media,
its governors and magistrates,
and all the lands under their rule.
29 The earth trembles and writhes
as the Lord’s plan against Babylon is carried out,
turning the land of Babylon into a desert waste.
30 The warriors of Babylon have ceased to fight;
they remain in their strongholds.
Their courage has failed;
they are now like women.
Their buildings have been set on fire,
and their gates are shattered.
31 One courier appears after another,
and one messenger follows another,
to inform the king of Babylon
that his entire city has been taken.
32 The river crossings have been seized,
the marshes have been set afire,
and the soldiers are overcome with terror.
33 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:
The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor
at the time it is being trodden.
Yet it will only be a short while
before the time of her harvest will come.
34 “King Nebuchadnezzar has devoured us;
he has routed us
and set us aside like an empty dish.
Like a serpent he has swallowed us,
filled his stomach with our delicacies,
and then spewed us out.
35 May our torn flesh be avenged on Babylon,”
the inhabitants of Zion say.
“May my blood be avenged
on the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
Jerusalem says.
36 Therefore, thus says the Lord:
I will take up your cause
and ensure that you will be avenged.
I will dry up her sea[h]
and cause her springs to run dry.
37 Babylon will become a heap of ruins,
a haunt of jackals,
an object of horror and scorn,
where no one lives.
38 Like lions they roar together
and growl like lion cubs.
39 But when they are afflicted with fever,
I will set a drink before them
and cause them to become drunk
so that they will sink into an unending sleep,
never to awaken again, says the Lord.
40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
like rams and goats.
41 Babylon has been seized and conquered,
she who was the pride of the entire world.
What an object of horror
has Babylon become among the nations.
42 The sea has surged over Babylon,
covering her with its roaring waves.
43 Her cities have become desert wastelands,
nothing more than parched and arid land,
an area in which no one lives
and through which no one passes.
44 I will punish Bel in Babylon
and compel him to spew out what he has swallowed.
The nations will no longer stream to him;
the wall of Babylon has fallen.
45 Leave her, my people.
Save your lives, each one of you,
from the fierce anger of the Lord.
46 Do not become faint-hearted or fearful
at various rumors that are heard in the land.
One year a certain rumor will spread,
the next year another one,
with rumors of possible violence in the land
and of conflicts between rulers.
47 But behold, the days are coming
when I will punish the idols of Babylon;
her entire territory will be put to shame,
and all her slain warriors
will lie fallen within her borders.
48 The heavens and the earth
and all that are in them
will shout for joy in regard to Babylon,
for marauders will descend from the north
and attack her, says the Lord.
49 Babylon, too, must fall
because of the slain of Israel,
just as the slain of all the earth
have fallen at the hands of Babylon.
50 You who have escaped the sword,
leave and do not linger.
Remember the Lord from afar,
and let Jerusalem remain in your thoughts.
51 We have been put to shame
because of the insults we have endured.
Our faces were covered in confusion
because foreigners have dared to enter
the holy places of the Lord’s house.
52 However, the days are surely coming,
says the Lord,
when I will punish her idols,
and the wounded will groan
throughout all her land.
53 Even if Babylon were to scale the heavens
and reinforce her inaccessible citadel,
I would send forth destroyers,
and they would come to her.
54 Agonized cries can be heard from Babylon,
and sounds of great destruction
from the land of the Chaldeans.
55 For the Lord is laying waste to Babylon
and stilling her loud cries of anguish.
Massive waves of enemies will roar like mighty waters,
and their clamor will be heard from afar.
56 A destroying force is moving against Babylon;
her warriors are captured,
and their bows are broken.
For the Lord is a God of retribution,
and he never fails to repay in full.
57 I will make her princes and her wise men drunk,
as well as her governors,
her prefects and her warriors.
They will sink into an unending sleep,
never to awaken again,
says the King whose name is the Lord of hosts.
58 [i]Thus says the Lord of hosts:
The thick walls of Babylon will be leveled to the ground,
and her lofty gates will be destroyed by fire.
Thus the peoples exhaust themselves for nothing,
and the nations weary themselves only for the flames.
59 Destruction of Babylon Foretold. This is the message that the prophet Jeremiah gave to the quartermaster Seraiah,[j] the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon with King Zedekiah of Judah in the fourth year of his reign.
60 Jeremiah had enumerated on a scroll all of the disasters that would befall Babylon—everything that had been recorded in regard to Babylon. 61 He said to Seraiah, “When you reach Babylon, make sure that you read all these words aloud. 62 Then say, ‘O Lord, you yourself declared your firm resolve to destroy this place so that neither man nor beast will ever live here again; it will be a desolate waste forever.’
63 “When you have finished reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and cast it into the middle of the Euphrates. 64 Then say, ‘In the same way will Babylon sink, never again to rise because of the disaster I intend to inflict upon her.’ ”
Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 50:1 In Jeremiah’s eyes, Babylon was only an instrument in God’s hands, and he knew that sooner or later its control of the East would be taken from it. The prophet had predicted that Israel would be reprieved. Made confident by these reflections of Jeremiah, his disciples here proclaim the judgment of the Lord against the Chaldeans, at a time when, toward the middle of the sixth century B.C., their power was beginning to decline and the deportees were hoping for deliverance. We are in the atmosphere that reigned before 538 B.C. and which we know from Second Isaiah.
- Jeremiah 50:2 Bel was an ancient Sumerian deity; his name was then taken over by the Babylonian national god, Marduk.
- Jeremiah 50:12 Mother: the Babylonian nation.
- Jeremiah 50:14 The archers here are the Elamites.
- Jeremiah 50:21 Merathaim and Pekod: regions of Babylonia, the Hebrew names of which (“twofold rebellion” and “visit, punish”) lend themselves to a play on words.
- Jeremiah 50:34 Redeemer: Hebrew, goel; see Lev 25:25.
- Jeremiah 51:27 Ararat and Minni are regions of Armenia. Ashkenaz refers to the Scythians.
- Jeremiah 51:36 The sea and the springs are the Euphrates and its branches.
- Jeremiah 51:58 Although the preceding collection of oracles cannot be attributed directly to Jeremiah, there is no serious reason for not attributing to him this symbolic action which is very much in his style. The editor decided to place this story after the lengthy prophecy that precedes.
- Jeremiah 51:59 Seraiah: brother of Baruch; see Bar 1:1.
