20
"You are My battle-ax and weapons of war: For with you I will break the nation in pieces; With you I will destroy kingdoms;
21
With you I will break in pieces the horse and its rider; With you I will break in pieces the chariot and its rider;
22
With you also I will break in pieces man and woman; With you I will break in pieces old and young; With you I will break in pieces the young man and the maiden;
23
With you also I will break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; With you I will break in pieces the farmer and his yoke of oxen; And with you I will break in pieces governors and rulers.
24
"And I will repay Babylon And all the inhabitants of Chaldea For all the evil they have done In Zion in your sight," says the Lord.
25
"Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, Who destroys all the earth," says the Lord. "And I will stretch out My hand against you, Roll you down from the rocks, And make you a burnt mountain.
26
They shall not take from you a stone for a corner Nor a stone for a foundation, But you shall be desolate forever," says the Lord.
27
Set up a banner in the land, Blow the trumpet among the nations! Prepare the nations against her, Call the kingdoms together against her: Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a general against her; Cause the horses to come up like the bristling locusts.
28
Prepare against her the nations, With the kings of the Medes, Its governors and all its rulers, All the land of his dominion.
29
And the land will tremble and sorrow; For every purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Babylon, To make the land of Babylon a desolation without inhabitant.
30
The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting, They have remained in their strongholds; Their might has failed, They became like women; They have burned her dwelling places, The bars of her gate are broken.
31
One runner will run to meet another, And one messenger to meet another, To show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on all sides;
32
The passages are blocked, The reeds they have burned with fire, And the men of war are terrified.
33
For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor When it is time to thresh her; Yet a little while And the time of her harvest will come."
34
"Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon Has devoured me, he has crushed me; He has made me an empty vessel, He has swallowed me up like a monster; He has filled his stomach with my delicacies, He has spit me out.
35
Let the violence done to me and my flesh be upon Babylon," The inhabitant of Zion will say; "And my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea!" Jerusalem will say.
36
Therefore thus says the Lord: "Behold, I will plead your case and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry.
37
Babylon shall become a heap, A dwelling place for jackals, An astonishment and a hissing, Without an inhabitant.
38
They shall roar together like lions, They shall growl like lions' whelps.
39
In their excitement I will prepare their feasts; I will make them drunk, That they may rejoice, And sleep a perpetual sleep And not awake," says the Lord.
40
"I will bring them down Like lambs to the slaughter, Like rams with male goats.