Jeremiah 51 - New King James Version (NKJV)

The Utter Destruction of Babylon

51 Thus says the Lord:

“Behold, I will raise up against ^(A)Babylon,
Against those who dwell in ^[a]Leb Kamai,
^(B)A destroying wind.
² And I will send ^(C)winnowers to Babylon,
Who shall winnow her and empty her land.
^(D)For in the day of doom
They shall be against her all around.
³ Against her ^(E)let the archer bend his bow,
And lift himself up against her in his armor.
Do not spare her young men;
^(F)Utterly destroy all her army.
⁴ Thus the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans,
^(G)And those thrust through in her streets.
⁵ For Israel is ^(H)not forsaken, nor Judah,
By his God, the Lord of hosts,
Though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel.”

^{6 (I)}Flee from the midst of Babylon,
And every one save his life!
Do not be cut off in her iniquity,
For ^(J)this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance;
^(K)He shall recompense her.
^{7 (L)}Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand,
That made all the earth drunk.
^(M)The nations drank her wine;
Therefore the nations ^(N)are deranged.
⁸ Babylon has suddenly ^(O)fallen and been destroyed.
^(P)Wail for her!
^(Q)Take balm for her pain;
Perhaps she may be healed.

⁹ We would have healed Babylon,
But she is not healed.
Forsake her, and ^(R)let us go everyone to his own country;
^(S)For her judgment reaches to heaven and is lifted up to the skies.
¹⁰ The Lord has ^(T)revealed our righteousness.
Come and let us ^(U)declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God.

^{11 (V)}Make^[b] the arrows bright!
Gather the shields!
^(W)The Lord has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes.
^(X)For His plan is against Babylon to destroy it,
Because it is ^(Y)the vengeance of the Lord,
The vengeance for His temple.
^{12 (Z)}Set up the standard on the walls of Babylon;
Make the guard strong,
Set up the watchmen,
Prepare the ambushes.
For the Lord has both devised and done
What He spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon.
^{13 (AA)}O you who dwell by many waters,
Abundant in treasures,
Your end has come,
The measure of your covetousness.
^{14 (AB)}The Lord of hosts has sworn by Himself:
“Surely I will fill you with men, ^(AC)as with locusts,
And they shall lift ^(AD)up a shout against you.”

^{15 (AE)}He has made the earth by His power;
He has established the world by His wisdom,
And ^(AF)stretched out the heaven by His understanding.
¹⁶ When He utters His voice—
There is a multitude of waters in the heavens:
^(AG)“He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth;
He makes lightnings for the rain;
He brings the wind out of His treasuries.”

^{17 (AH)}Everyone is dull-hearted, without knowledge;
Every metalsmith is put to shame by the carved image;
^(AI)For his molded image is falsehood,
And there is no breath in them.
¹⁸ They are futile, a work of errors;
In the time of their punishment they shall perish.
¹⁹ The Portion of Jacob is not like them,
For He is the Maker of all things;
And Israel is the tribe of His inheritance.
The Lord of hosts is His name.

²⁰ “You^(AJ) 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 ^(AK)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^(AL) 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, ^(AM)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,
^(AN)And make you a burnt mountain.
²⁶ They shall not take from you a stone for a corner
Nor a stone for a foundation,
^(AO)But you shall be desolate forever,” says the Lord.

^{27 (AP)}Set up a banner in the land,
Blow the trumpet among the nations!
^(AQ)Prepare the nations against her,
Call ^(AR)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 ^(AS)purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Babylon,
^(AT)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,
^(AU)They became like women;
They have burned her dwelling places,
^(AV)The bars of her gate are broken.
^{31 (AW)}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 (AX)}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 ^(AY)like a threshing floor
When ^(AZ)it is time to thresh her;
Yet a little while
^(BA)And the time of her harvest will come.”

³⁴ “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon
Has ^(BB)devoured me, he has crushed me;
He has made me an ^(BC)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, ^(BD)I will plead your case and take vengeance for you.
^(BE)I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry.
^{37 (BF)}Babylon shall become a heap,
A dwelling place for jackals,
^(BG)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;
^(BH)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.

⁴¹ “Oh, how ^(BI)Sheshach^[c] is taken!
Oh, how ^(BJ)the praise of the whole earth is seized!
How Babylon has become desolate among the nations!
^{42 (BK)}The sea has come up over Babylon;
She is covered with the multitude of its waves.
^{43 (BL)}Her cities are a desolation,
A dry land and a wilderness,
A land where ^(BM)no one dwells,
Through which no son of man passes.
⁴⁴ I will punish ^(BN)Bel^[d] in Babylon,
And I will bring out of his mouth what he has swallowed;
And the nations shall not stream to him anymore.
Yes, ^(BO)the wall of Babylon shall fall.

⁴⁵ “My^(BP) people, go out of the midst of her!
And let everyone deliver ^[e]himself from the fierce anger of the Lord.
⁴⁶ And lest your heart faint,
And you fear ^(BQ)for the rumor that will be heard in the land
(A rumor will come one year,
And after that, in another year
A rumor will come,
And violence in the land,
Ruler against ruler),
⁴⁷ Therefore behold, the days are coming
That I will bring judgment on the carved images of Babylon;
Her whole land shall be ashamed,
And all her slain shall fall in her midst.
⁴⁸ Then ^(BR)the heavens and the earth and all that is in them
Shall sing joyously over Babylon;
^(BS)For the plunderers shall come to her from the north,” says the Lord.

⁴⁹ As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall,
So at Babylon the slain of all the earth shall fall.
^{50 (BT)}You who have escaped the sword,
Get away! Do not stand still!
^(BU)Remember the Lord afar off,
And let Jerusalem come to your mind.

^{51 (BV)}We are ashamed because we have heard reproach.
Shame has covered our faces,
For strangers ^(BW)have come into the ^[f]sanctuaries of the Lord’s house.

⁵² “Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord,
“That I will bring judgment on her carved images,
And throughout all her land the wounded shall groan.
^{53 (BX)}Though Babylon were to ^[g]mount up to heaven,
And though she were to fortify the height of her strength,
Yet from Me plunderers would come to her,” says the Lord.

^{54 (BY)}The sound of a cry comes from Babylon,
And great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans,
⁵⁵ Because the Lord is plundering Babylon
And silencing her loud voice,
Though her waves roar like great waters,
And the noise of their voice is uttered,
⁵⁶ Because the plunderer comes against her, against Babylon,
And her mighty men are taken.
Every one of their bows is broken;
^(BZ)For the Lord is the God of recompense,
He will surely repay.

⁵⁷ “And I will make drunk
Her princes and ^(CA)wise men,
Her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men.
And they shall sleep a perpetual sleep
And not awake,” says ^(CB)the King,
Whose name is the Lord of hosts.

⁵⁸ Thus says the Lord of hosts:

“The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly ^(CC)broken,^[h]
And her high gates shall be burned with fire;
^(CD)The people will labor in vain,
And the nations, because of the fire;
And they shall be weary.”

Jeremiah’s Command to Seraiah

⁵⁹ The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of ^(CE)Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. And Seraiah was the quartermaster. ⁶⁰ So Jeremiah ^(CF)wrote in a book all the evil that would come upon Babylon, all these words that are written against Babylon. ⁶¹ And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you arrive in Babylon and see it, and read all these words, ⁶² then you shall say, ‘O Lord, You have spoken against this place to cut it off, so that ^(CG)none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but it shall be desolate forever.’ ⁶³ Now it shall be, when you have finished reading this book, ^(CH)that you shall tie a stone to it and throw it out into the Euphrates. ⁶⁴ Then you shall say, ‘Thus Babylon shall sink and not rise from the catastrophe that I will bring upon her. And they shall be weary.’ ”

Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

Footnotes

1. Jeremiah 51:1 Lit. The Midst of Those Who Rise Up Against Me; a code word for Chaldea, Babylonia
2. Jeremiah 51:11 Polish the arrows!
3. Jeremiah 51:41 A code word for Babylon, Jer. 25:26
4. Jeremiah 51:44 A Babylonian god
5. Jeremiah 51:45 Lit. his soul
6. Jeremiah 51:51 holy places
7. Jeremiah 51:53 ascend
8. Jeremiah 51:58 Lit. laid utterly bare

Cross references

1. Jeremiah 51:1 : Is. 47:1; Jer. 50:1
2. Jeremiah 51:1 : 2 Kin. 19:7; Jer. 4:11; Hos. 13:15
3. Jeremiah 51:2 : Is. 41:16; Jer. 15:7; Matt. 3:12
4. Jeremiah 51:2 : Jer. 50:14
5. Jeremiah 51:3 : Jer. 50:14, 29
6. Jeremiah 51:3 : Jer. 50:21
7. Jeremiah 51:4 : Jer. 49:26; 50:30, 37
8. Jeremiah 51:5 : [Is. 54:7, 8; Jer. 33:24–26; 46:28]
9. Jeremiah 51:6 : Jer. 50:8; Rev. 18:4
10. Jeremiah 51:6 : Jer. 50:15
11. Jeremiah 51:6 : Jer. 25:14
12. Jeremiah 51:7 : Jer. 25:15; Hab. 2:16; Rev. 17:4
13. Jeremiah 51:7 : Rev. 14:8
14. Jeremiah 51:7 : Jer. 25:16
15. Jeremiah 51:8 : Is. 21:9; Jer. 50:2; Rev. 14:8; 18:2
16. Jeremiah 51:8 : [Is. 48:20]; Rev. 18:9, 11, 19
17. Jeremiah 51:8 : Jer. 46:11
18. Jeremiah 51:9 : Is. 13:14; Jer. 46:16; 50:16
19. Jeremiah 51:9 : Ezra 9:6; Rev. 18:5
20. Jeremiah 51:10 : Ps. 37:6; Mic. 7:9
21. Jeremiah 51:10 : [Is. 40:2]; Jer. 50:28
22. Jeremiah 51:11 : Jer. 46:4, 9; Joel 3:9, 10
23. Jeremiah 51:11 : Is. 13:17
24. Jeremiah 51:11 : Jer. 50:45
25. Jeremiah 51:11 : Jer. 50:28
26. Jeremiah 51:12 : Nah. 2:1; 3:14
27. Jeremiah 51:13 : Rev. 17:1, 15
28. Jeremiah 51:14 : Jer. 49:13; Amos 6:8
29. Jeremiah 51:14 : Jer. 51:27; Nah. 3:15
30. Jeremiah 51:14 : Jer. 50:15
31. Jeremiah 51:15 : Gen. 1:1, 6; Jer. 10:12–16
32. Jeremiah 51:15 : Job 9:8; Ps. 104:2; Is. 40:22
33. Jeremiah 51:16 : Ps. 135:7; Jer. 10:13
34. Jeremiah 51:17 : [Is. 44:18–20]; Jer. 10:14
35. Jeremiah 51:17 : Jer. 50:2
36. Jeremiah 51:20 : Is. 10:5, 15; Jer. 50:23
37. Jeremiah 51:22 : 2 Chr. 36:17; Is. 13:15, 16
38. Jeremiah 51:24 : Jer. 50:15, 29
39. Jeremiah 51:25 : Is. 13:2; Zech. 4:7
40. Jeremiah 51:25 : Rev. 8:8
41. Jeremiah 51:26 : Jer. 50:26, 40
42. Jeremiah 51:27 : Is. 13:2; Jer. 50:2; 51:12
43. Jeremiah 51:27 : Jer. 25:14
44. Jeremiah 51:27 : Jer. 50:41, 42
45. Jeremiah 51:29 : Jer. 50:45
46. Jeremiah 51:29 : Is. 13:19, 20; 47:11; Jer. 50:13; 51:26, 43
47. Jeremiah 51:30 : Is. 19:16; Jer. 48:41
48. Jeremiah 51:30 : Is. 45:1, 2; Lam. 2:9; Amos 1:5; Nah. 3:13
49. Jeremiah 51:31 : Jer. 50:24
50. Jeremiah 51:32 : Jer. 50:38
51. Jeremiah 51:33 : Is. 21:10; Dan. 2:35; Amos 1:3; Mic. 4:13
52. Jeremiah 51:33 : Is. 41:15; Hab. 3:12
53. Jeremiah 51:33 : Is. 17:5; Hos. 6:11; Joel 3:13; Rev. 14:15
54. Jeremiah 51:34 : Jer. 50:17
55. Jeremiah 51:34 : Is. 24:1–3
56. Jeremiah 51:36 : [Ps. 140:12]; Jer. 50:34
57. Jeremiah 51:36 : Jer. 50:38
58. Jeremiah 51:37 : Is. 13:22; Jer. 50:39; [Rev. 18:2]
59. Jeremiah 51:37 : Jer. 25:9, 11
60. Jeremiah 51:39 : Jer. 51:57
61. Jeremiah 51:41 : Jer. 25:26
62. Jeremiah 51:41 : Is. 13:19; Jer. 49:25; [Dan. 4:30]
63. Jeremiah 51:42 : Is. 8:7, 8; Jer. 51:55; Dan. 9:26
64. Jeremiah 51:43 : Jer. 50:39, 40
65. Jeremiah 51:43 : Is. 13:20
66. Jeremiah 51:44 : Jer. 50:2; Is. 46:1
67. Jeremiah 51:44 : Jer. 50:15
68. Jeremiah 51:45 : Is. 48:20; [Jer. 50:8, 28; 51:6; Rev. 18:4]
69. Jeremiah 51:46 : 2 Kin. 19:7; Is. 13:3–5
70. Jeremiah 51:48 : Is. 44:23; 48:20; 49:13; Rev. 18:20
71. Jeremiah 51:48 : Jer. 50:3, 41
72. Jeremiah 51:50 : Jer. 44:28
73. Jeremiah 51:50 : [Deut. 4:29–31]; Ezek. 6:9
74. Jeremiah 51:51 : Ps. 44:15; 79:4
75. Jeremiah 51:51 : Ps. 74:3–8; Jer. 52:13; Lam. 1:10
76. Jeremiah 51:53 : Gen. 11:4; Job 20:6; [Ps. 139:8–10; Is. 14:12–14]; Jer. 49:16; Amos 9:2; Obad. 4
77. Jeremiah 51:54 : Jer. 50:22
78. Jeremiah 51:56 : Ps. 94:1; Jer. 50:29
79. Jeremiah 51:57 : Jer. 50:35
80. Jeremiah 51:57 : Jer. 46:18; 48:15
81. Jeremiah 51:58 : Jer. 50:15
82. Jeremiah 51:58 : Hab. 2:13
83. Jeremiah 51:59 : Jer. 32:12
84. Jeremiah 51:60 : Is. 30:8; Jer. 36:2
85. Jeremiah 51:62 : Is. 13:20; 14:22, 23; Jer. 50:3, 39
86. Jeremiah 51:63 : Jer. 19:10, 11; Rev. 18:21