35. Let the people of Zion say,“May Babylonia be held responsiblefor the violence done to us!”Let the people of Jerusalem say,“May Babylonia be held responsiblefor what we have suffered!”
36. And so the Lord said to the people of Jerusalem, “I will take up your cause and will make your enemies pay for what they did to you. I will dry up the source of Babylonia's water and make its rivers go dry.
37. That country will become a pile of ruins where wild animals live. It will be a horrible sight; no one will live there, and all who see it will be terrified.
38. The Babylonians all roar like lions and growl like lion cubs.
39. Are they greedy? I will prepare them a feast and make them drunk and happy. They will go to sleep and never wake up.
40. I will take them to be slaughtered, like lambs, goats, and rams. I, the Lord, have spoken.”
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!
42. The sea has rolled over Babylon and covered it with roaring waves.
43. The towns have become a horrifying sight and are like a waterless desert, where no one lives or even travels.
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.
45. People of Israel, run away from there! Run for your life from my fierce anger.
46. Do not lose courage or be afraid because of the rumours you hear. Every year a different rumour spreads — rumours of violence in the land and of one king fighting another.
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.
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.
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.”
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. You say, ‘We've been disgraced and made ashamed; we feel completely helpless because foreigners have taken over the holy places in the Temple.’
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.