Category: Jeremiah

[51:41] The Lord says about Babylon: “The city that the whole world praised has been captured! What a horrifying sight Babylon has become to the nations!

[51:42] The sea has rolled over Babylon and covered it with roaring waves.

[51:43] The towns have become a horrifying sight and are like a waterless desert, where no one lives or even travels.

[51:44] I will punish Bel, the god of Babylonia, and make him give up his stolen goods; the nations will not worship him any more. “Babylon's walls have fallen.

[51:45] People of Israel, run away from there! Run for your life from my fierce anger.

[51:46] Do not lose courage or be afraid because of the rumors you hear. Every year a different rumor spreads—rumors of violence in the land and of one king fighting another.

[51:47] And so the time is coming when I will deal with Babylonia's idols. The whole country will be put to shame, and all its people will be killed.

[51:48] Everything on earth and in the sky will shout for joy when Babylonia falls to the people who come from the north to destroy it.

[51:49] Babylonia caused the death of people all over the world, and now Babylonia will fall because it caused the death of so many Israelites. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

[51:50] The Lord says to his people in Babylonia: “You have escaped death! Now go! Don't wait! Though you are far from home, think about me, your Lord, and remember Jerusalem.

[51:51] You say, ‘We've been disgraced and made ashamed; we feel completely helpless because foreigners have taken over the holy places in the Temple.’

[51:52] So then, I say that the time is coming when I will deal with Babylon's idols, and the wounded will groan throughout the country.

[51:53] Even if Babylon could climb to the sky and build a strong fortress there, I would still send people to destroy it. I, the Lord, have spoken.”

[51:54] The Lord says, “Listen to the sound of crying in Babylon, of mourning for the destruction in the land.

[51:55] I am destroying Babylon and putting it to silence. The armies rush in like roaring waves and attack with noisy shouts.

[51:56] They have come to destroy Babylon; its soldiers are captured, and their bows are broken. I am a God who punishes evil, and I will treat Babylon as it deserves.

[51:57] I will make its rulers drunk— men of wisdom, leaders, and soldiers. They will go to sleep and never wake up. I, the king, have spoken; I am the Lord Almighty.

[51:58] The walls of mighty Babylon will be thrown to the ground, and its towering gates burned down. The work of the nations is all for nothing; their efforts go up in flames. I, the Lord Almighty, have spoken.”

[51:59] King Zedekiah's personal attendant was Seraiah, the son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah. In the fourth year that Zedekiah was king of Judah, Seraiah was going to Babylonia with him, and I gave him some instructions.

[51:60] I wrote in a book an account of all the destruction that would come on Babylonia, as well as all these other things about Babylonia.

[51:61] I told Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, be sure to read aloud to the people everything that is written here.

[51:62] Then pray, ‘Lord, you have said that you would destroy this place, so that there would be no living creatures in it, neither people nor animals, and it would be like a desert forever.’

[51:63] Seraiah, when you finish reading this book to the people, then tie it to a rock and throw it into the Euphrates River

[51:64] and say, ‘This is what will happen to Babylonia—it will sink and never rise again because of the destruction that the Lord is going to bring on it.’” The words of Jeremiah end here.

[52:1] Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king of Judah, and he ruled in Jerusalem for eleven years. His mother's name was Hamutal, the daughter of the Jeremiah who lived in the city of Libnah.

[52:2] King Zedekiah sinned against the Lord, just as King Jehoiakim had done.

[52:3] The Lord became so angry with the people of Jerusalem and Judah that he banished them from his sight. Zedekiah rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia,

[52:4] and so Nebuchadnezzar came with all his army and attacked Jerusalem on the tenth day of the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign. They set up camp outside the city, built siege walls around it,

[52:5] and kept it under siege until Zedekiah's eleventh year.

[52:6] On the ninth day of the fourth month of that same year, when the famine was so bad that the people had nothing left to eat,

[52:7] the city walls were broken through. Although the Babylonians were surrounding the city, all the soldiers escaped during the night. They left by way of the royal garden, went through the gateway connecting the two walls, and fled in the direction of the Jordan Valley.

[52:8] But the Babylonian army pursued King Zedekiah, captured him in the plains near Jericho, and all his soldiers deserted him.

[52:9] Zedekiah was taken to King Nebuchadnezzar, who was in the city of Riblah in the territory of Hamath, and there Nebuchadnezzar passed sentence on him.

[52:10] At Riblah he put Zedekiah's sons to death while Zedekiah was looking on and he also had the officials of Judah executed.

[52:11] After that, he had Zedekiah's eyes put out and had him placed in chains and taken to Babylon. Zedekiah remained in prison in Babylon until the day he died.

[52:12] On the tenth day of the fifth month of the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia, Nebuzaradan, adviser to the king and commander of his army, entered Jerusalem.

[52:13] He burned down the Temple, the palace, and the houses of all the important people in Jerusalem;

[52:14] and his soldiers tore down the city walls.

[52:15] Then Nebuzaradan took away to Babylonia the people who were left in the city, the remaining skilled workers, and those who had deserted to the Babylonians.

[52:16] But he left in Judah some of the poorest people, who owned no property, and he put them to work in the vineyards and fields.

[52:17] The Babylonians broke in pieces the bronze columns and the carts that were in the Temple, together with the large bronze tank, and they took all the bronze to Babylon.

[52:18] They also took away the shovels and the ash containers used in cleaning the altar, the tools used in tending the lamps, the bowls used for catching the blood from the sacrifices, the bowls used for burning incense, and all the other bronze articles used in the Temple service.

[52:19] They took away everything that was made of gold or silver: the small bowls, the pans used for carrying live coals, the bowls for holding the blood from the sacrifices, the ash containers, the lampstands, the bowls used for incense, and the bowls used for pouring out wine offerings.

[52:20] The bronze objects that King Solomon had made for the Temple—the two columns, the carts, the large tank, and the twelve bulls that supported it—were too heavy to weigh.

[52:23] On the grillwork of each column there were a hundred pomegranates in all, and ninety-six of these were visible from the ground.

[52:24] In addition, Nebuzaradan, the commanding officer, took away as prisoners Seraiah the High Priest, Zephaniah the priest next in rank, and the three other important Temple officials.

[52:25] From the city he took the officer who had been in command of the troops, seven of the king's personal advisers who were still in the city, the commander's assistant, who was in charge of military records, and sixty other important men.

[52:26] Nebuzaradan took them to the king of Babylonia, who was in the city of Riblah

[52:27] in the territory of Hamath. There the king had them beaten and put to death. So the people of Judah were carried away from their land into exile.

[52:28] This is the record of the people that Nebuchadnezzar took away as prisoners: in his seventh year as king he carried away 3,023;

[52:29] in his eighteenth year, 832 from Jerusalem;

[52:30] and in his twenty-third year, 745—taken away by Nebuzaradan. In all, 4,600 people were taken away.

[52:31] In the year that Evil-Merodach became king of Babylonia, he showed kindness to King Jehoiachin of Judah by releasing him from prison. This happened on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin had been taken away as a prisoner.

[52:32] Evil-Merodach treated him kindly and gave him a position of greater honor than he gave the other kings who were exiles with him in Babylonia.

[52:33] So Jehoiachin was permitted to change from his prison clothes and to dine at the king's table for the rest of his life.

[52:34] Each day for as long as he lived, he was given a regular allowance for his needs.