12. Lift up a flag against the walls of Babylon. Bring more guards. Put the watchmen in their places. Get ready for a secret attack. The Lord will do what he has planned. He will do what he said he would do against the people of Babylon.
13. Babylon, you live near much water. You are rich with treasures, but your end as a nation has come. It is time for you to be destroyed.
14. The Lord All-Powerful used his name to make this promise: “Babylon, I will fill you with so many enemy soldiers they will be like a cloud of locusts. They will win their war against you. They will stand over you shouting their victory cry.”
15. God used his great power and made the earth. He used his wisdom to build the world and his understanding to stretch out the skies.
16. When he thunders, the waters in the skies roar. He sends clouds all over the earth. He sends lightning with the rain. He brings out the wind from his storehouses.
17. But people are so stupid. They don’t understand what God has done. Skilled workers make statues of false gods. Those statues are only false gods. They show how foolish those workers are. Those statues are not alive.
18. Those idols are worthless. People made them, and they are nothing but a joke. Their time of judgment will come, and those idols will be destroyed.
19. But God, who is Jacob’s Portion, is not like those worthless statues. People didn’t make God; God made his people. He made everything. His name is the Lord All-Powerful.