Yirmeyahu 51 ירמיהו נ״א

Thus says the Lord; Behold, I will raise up against Bavel, and against them that dwell in Lev-qamay, a destroying wind;

and will send to Bavel winnowers, and they shall winnow her, and shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about.

Against him that bends let the archer bend his bow, and against him that lifts himself up in his coat of mail: and spare not her young men; destroy utterly all her host.

Thus the slain shall fall in the land of the Kasdim, and they that are thrust through in her streets.

For Yisra᾽el has not been widowed, nor Yehuda of his God, of the Lord of hosts; though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Yisra᾽el.

Flee out of the midst of Bavel, and let every man save his life: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance; he will render to her a recompense.

Bavel was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunk: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.

Bavel is suddenly fallen and destroyed: wail for her; take balm for her pain, perhaps she may be healed.

We would have healed Bavel, but she was not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one to his own country: for her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up to the skies.

The Lord has brought forth our vindication: come, and let us declare in Żiyyon the work of the Lord our God.

Select the arrows; fill up the quivers: the Lord has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Maday: for his purpose against Bavel is to destroy it; because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance for his temple.

Set up a banner upon the walls of Bavel, make the watch strong, set up the watchmen, prepare the ambushes: for the Lord has both devised and done that which he spoke against the inhabitants of Bavel.

O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thy end is come, and the measure of thy greed.

The Lord of hosts has sworn by himself, saying, Surely I will fill thee with men as with locusts; and they shall raise shout against thee.

He has made the earth by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heaven by his understanding.

When his voice resounds with great mass of water in the heavens, and he raises vapours from the ends of the Earth; when he makes lightning flashes among the rain, and brings forth the wind out of his storehouses:

every man becomes stupid, without knowledge: every founder is put to shame by his carved idol: for his molten image is false, and there is no breath in them.

They are vanity, the work of delusion: in the time of their punishment they shall perish.

The portion of Ya῾aqov is not like them; for he is the fashioner of all things, and (Yisra᾽el) is the tribe of his inheritance: the Lord of hosts is his name.

Thou art my chief and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will destroy kingdoms;

and with thee will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and its rider;

with thee also will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I shatter old and young; and with thee will I shatter the young man and the maid;

I will also break in pieces with thee the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the farmer and his yoke of oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces governors and deputies.

And I will pay back to Bavel and to all the inhabitants of Kasdim all their evil that they have done in Żiyyon in your sight, says the Lord.

Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, says the Lord, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.

And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, says the Lord.

Set up a banner in the land, blow a shofar among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz; appoint a captain against her; cause the horses to come up like bristling locusts.

Prepare nations for war against her, the kings of the Maday, its governors, and all its deputies, and all the land of his dominion.

And the land trembles and withers in pain: for every purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Bavel, to make the land of Bavel a desolation without inhabitant.

The mighty men of Bavel have ceased to fight, they have remained in their fortresses: their might has failed; they have become like women: her dwellingplaces have been set on fire, her bars are broken.

One runner shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to tell the king of Bavel that his city is taken on every side,

and that the fords are seized, and the thickets have been burned with fire, and the men of war are panic stricken.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Yisra᾽el; The daughter of Bavel is like a threshingfloor, it is time to thresh her: yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come.

Nevukhadreżżar the king of Bavel has devoured me, he has crushed me, he has made me an empty vessel; like a crocodile, he has swallowed me up, he has filled his belly with my delicacies, he has scoured me clean.

The violence done to me and to my flesh shall be upon Bavel, shall the inhabitant of Żiyyon say; and my blood upon the inhabitants of Kasdim, shall Yerushalayim say.

Therefore thus says the Lord; Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her spring dry.

And Bavel shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant.

They shall roar together like lions: they shall growl like lions’ whelps.

When they are heated, I will make feasts for them, and I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake, says the Lord.

I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he goats.

How is Sheshakh taken! and how is the praise of the whole earth surprised! how is Bavel become an astonishment among the nations!

The sea is come up upon Bavel: she is covered with the multitude of its waves.

Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land in which no man dwells, neither does any son of man pass by them.

And I will punish Bel in Bavel, and I will take out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up; and the nations shall not flow together any more to him: the very wall of Bavel has fallen.

My people, go out of the midst of her, and deliver every man his soul from the fierce anger of the Lord.

And lest your heart faint, and you fear for the rumour that shall be heard in the land: for a rumour shall both come one year, and after that in another year shall come a rumour, and there will be violence in the land, ruler against ruler.

Therefore, behold, days are coming, when I will do judgment upon the carved idols of Bavel: and her whole land shall be put to shame, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

Then the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for Bavel: for the spoilers shall come unto her from the north, says the Lord.

As Bavel has caused the slain of Yisra᾽el to fall, so at Bavel shall fall the slain of all the land.

You that have escaped the sword, go away, stand not still; remember the Lord afar off, and let Yerushalayim come into your mind.

We are ashamed, because we have heard reproach: shame has covered our faces: for strangers are come into the sanctuaries of the Lord’s house.

Therefore, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will do judgment upon her carved idols: and through all her land the wounded shall groan.

Though Bavel should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from Me shall spoilers come to her, says the Lord.

A sound of a cry comes from Bavel, and great destruction from the land of the Kasdim:

because the Lord has spoiled Bavel, and has quelled from her midst the great clamour; when her waves roar like great waters, noise of their voice is sounded:

because the spoiler is come upon her, upon Bavel, and her mighty men are taken, every one of their bows is broken: for the Lord God of recompenses shall surely pay back.

And I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, her governors, and her deputies, and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake, says the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts.

Thus says the Lord of hosts; The broad walls of Bavel shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the people shall labour in vain, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary.

The word which Yirmeyahu the prophet commanded Seraya the son of Neriyya, son of Maĥseya, when he went with Żidqiyyahu, the king of Yehuda into Bavel in the fourth year of his reign. And this Seraya was marshal of the camp.

So Yirmeyahu wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Bavel, namely all these words that are written against Bavel.

And Yirmeyahu said to Seraya, When thou comest to Bavel, and shalt see, and shalt read all these words;

then shalt thou say, O Lord, Thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate forever.

And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Perat:

and thou shalt say, Thus shall Bavel sink, and shall not rise, because of the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far the words of Yirmeyahu.