Jeremiah 51:36-40

The Message

^34-37 “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon
    chewed up my people and spit out the bones.
He wiped his dish clean, pushed back his chair,
    and belched—a huge gluttonous belch.
Lady Zion says,
    ‘The brutality done to me be done to Babylon!’
And Jerusalem says,
    ‘The blood spilled from me be charged to the Chaldeans!’
Then I, God, step in and say,
    ‘I’m on your side, taking up your cause.
I’m your Avenger. You’ll get your revenge.
    I’ll dry up her rivers, plug up her springs.
Babylon will be a pile of rubble,
    scavenged by stray dogs and cats,
A dumping ground for garbage,
    a godforsaken ghost town.’

^38-40 “The Babylonians will be like lions and their cubs,
    ravenous, roaring for food.
I’ll fix them a meal, all right—a banquet, in fact.
    They’ll drink themselves falling-down drunk.
Dead drunk, they’ll sleep—and sleep, and sleep . . . 
    and they’ll never wake up.” God’s Decree.
“I’ll haul these ‘lions’ off to the slaughterhouse
    like the lambs, rams, and goats,
    never to be heard of again.