Jeremiah 50
A message about Babylon
Write it on a large piece of material and lift it up.
Do not hide anything but say,
“Enemies will get power over Babylon.
Bel will be ashamed and Marduk will be afraid.
All the gods that they have made with their hands will be ashamed.” ’
Nobody will live in it. Men and animals will run away.’
‘The people from Judah and from Israel will be sorry.
They will cry while they go to find the Lord their God.
They will return and they will promise to be the Lord's servants.
They will make a
Nobody will forget that covenant.
Those who should have led them to me have led them away.
They have been walking on the mountains and hills.
They have walked about and they have forgotten their place to rest.
Their enemies said, “They have caused this trouble to themselves.
They did many wrong things.
They did not obey the Lord who was really their leader.
He was the leader that their
They will come against Babylon from the north. And they will take its people away to be
Their
So run away from Babylon. Leave the country called Babylon.
Be the first people to leave Babylon.
Every enemy will have enough things,’ says the Lord.
You are so happy that you dance like young cows.
You shout aloud like a horse that wants sex.
Her child does not bring
Your people will be less important than other
Your country will be a
Your country will be completely empty.
All who pass Babylon will be very afraid.
And they will say all kinds of bad things about it when they see its troubles.
stand round Babylon.
Shoot at it! Use all your arrows.
Shoot because its people have done bad things against the Lord.
Its people will let you get power over it. Its strong buildings will fall.
You will pull down its walls.
That is how the Lord will
You must do to them what they have done to other people.
And do not let anyone remain to get food from the fields at the proper time.
All the foreign workers will return to their own
All those workers will run away to their own country.
They ran away because
The first to eat them was the king of Assyria.
The man who finished the meal was Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.’
‘I will
as I
And their cows will feed on Carmel and in Bashan.
They will eat and they will be full on the hills of Ephraim and Gilead.
‘I will
Nobody will find any
There will not be any
Run after them and kill all those people,’ says the Lord.
‘Do everything that I have asked you to do.
It is like the noise when enemies are destroying everything.
But now enemies have broken it into small pieces.
It is now alone among the
And now I have caught you!
Your enemies found you and they got power over you. They got power over you because you did not obey the Lord.
He has taken out the
The great and powerful Lord has work to do in the country called Babylon.
They will break open the places where people had put their food.
They will break its buildings into pieces.
They will destroy it completely. Nothing will still be there.
They will be sorry. They will all die. It is time for me to
They will tell how the Lord has
The Lord has
They will stay all round it so that nobody will be able to run away.
You must
Do to them as they did to you.
Do that because they
Then none of their soldiers will be able to fight,’ says the Lord.
But you will see that I am against you,’ says the great and powerful Lord.
‘That is because the day for your
And nobody will help them to get up.
I will make a fire in your towns to burn up all who are near to it.’
‘You have been cruel to the people from Israel and Judah.
You have taken them as
and you will not let them go.
He will come to
He will fight hard to save them.
Then their country will have rest.
But Babylon's people will not have any rest.’
‘I am against those who live in Babylon.
And I am against its officers and its clever men.
I will cause them to become fools.
My
and foreign men who fight for it.
They will be as weak as women.
I will cause them to give their valuable things to you.
You will take them away.
Their country is full of
Their false gods will be afraid.
Birds that fly at night will live there, too.
Men will never live there again.
Nobody's sons or grandsons will live there.
and the towns near to them,’ says the Lord.
‘Babylon will be like those towns,
so nobody will live there, not one man.
A great
are coming towards Babylon.
They are cruel and they are not kind.
They make a noise like the moving sea while they ride on their horses.
They are an army that is ready to attack you, people in Babylon.
He is weak because he is afraid.
He feels pain like the pain of a woman who is having a baby.
that is coming out of the woods by the Jordan river.
I will come into your rich fields.
I will soon cause the people in Babylon to run from their country.
I will choose a man to do that, and nobody can stand against me.
Nobody can stop me.’
Hear about the things that he will do to their country.
He will pull the young children away from their mothers.
And he will completely destroy their good country
because of the bad things that they have done.
Then people will be afraid.
All the