Leeser(i)
20 Thou art a hammer unto me, weapons of war; and I strike down with thee nations, and I destroy with thee kingdoms;
21 And I strike down with thee the horse and his rider; and I strike down with thee the chariot and its rider;
22 And I strike down with thee man and woman; and I strike down with thee the aged and the lad; and I strike down with thee the young man and the virgin:
23 And I strike down with thee the shepherd and his flock; and I strike down with thee the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and I strike down with thee governors and rulers.
24 But now will I repay unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion before your eyes, saith the Lord.
25 Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth; and I will stretch out my hand over thee, and I will roll thee down from the rocks, and will render thee a burnt mountain.
26 And they shall not take from thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but everlasting ruins shalt thou be, saith the Lord.
27 Lift ye up a standard in the land, blow ye the cornet among the nations, make ready against her nations, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz; appoint against her a commander; cause the horses to come up like the hairy locusts.
28 Make ready against her the nations with the kings of Media, its governors, and all its rulers, and all the land of their dominion.
29 And the earth quaketh and trembleth; for every one of the purposes of the Lord is fulfilled against Babylon, to change the land of Babylon into a desolate country without an inhabitant.
30 The mighty men of Babylon have ceased to fight, they sit still in their strongholds; their might is vanished; they are become as women: they have burnt her dwelling-places; her bars are broken.
31 One runner shall run to meet another runner, and one messenger to meet another messenger, to tell unto the king of Babylon that his city is captured at all ends,
32 And that the passages have been seized, and that they have burnt the reeds with fire, and that the men of war are affrighted.
33 For thus hath said the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, the daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor, at the time they thresh therein; but yet a little while more, when the time of harvest shall come for her.
34 “Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon devoured me, he crushed me, he set me down as an empty vessel, he swallowed me up like a huge serpent, he filled his belly with my delicacies: he drove me out.
35 the violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon,” will the inhabitress of Zion say; and “My blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,” will Jerusalem say.
36 Therefore thus hath said the Lord, Behold, I will contend in thy cause, and execute vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and cause her springs to fail.
37 And Babylon shall become ruinous heaps, a dwelling-place for monsters, an astonishment, and a derision, without an inhabitant.
38 Together like lions shall they roar: they shall yell like the lions’ whelps.
39 When they are heated will I prepare their drinking-feasts, and I will make them drunken, in order that they may be joyful, and then sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake again, saith the Lord.
40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like wethers with he-goats.
41 How is Sheshach captured! and how is conquered the praise of the whole earth! how is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations!
42 The sea is come up over Babylon: with the multitude of its waves is she covered.
43 Her cities are become desolate places, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein not any man shall dwell, and through which no son of man shall pass along.
44 And I will inflict punishment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth what he hath swallowed up out of his mouth; and nations shall not assemble together like a stream unto him any more; yea, the wall of Babylon also is fallen.
45 Go ye out of the midst of her, my people, and save ye every man his life from the fierceness of the anger of the Lord.
46 And so that your heart may not faint, and ye fear at the report that is heard in the land: when the report cometh in one year, and after that in another year cometh another report, and when violence be done in the land, by ruler against ruler.