1. This is the message the Lord spoke about Babylon and the Babylonian people. He spoke this message through Jeremiah the prophet.
2. “Announce this to the nations.Lift up a banner and tell them.Speak the whole message and say:‘Babylon will be captured.The god Bel will be put to shame.The god Marduk will be very afraid.Babylon’s idols will be put to shame.Her idols will be filled with terror!’
3. A nation from the north will attack Babylon.That nation will make Babylon like an empty desert.No people will live there.Both men and animals will run away from there.”
4. The Lord says, “At that timethe people of Israel and Judah will be together.They will cry and look for the Lord their God.
5. Those people will ask how to go to Jerusalem.They will start to go in that direction.They will come and join themselves to the Lord.They will make an agreement that will last forever.It will be an agreement that will never be forgotten.
6. “My people have been like lost sheep.Their leaders have led them in the wrong way.Their leaders made them wander around in the mountains and hills.They forgot where their resting place was.
7. Whoever found my people hurt them.And those enemies said, ‘We did nothing wrong.Those people sinned against the Lord, their true resting place.He was the God their fathers trusted.’
8. “Run away from Babylon.Leave the land of the Babylonians.Be like the goats that lead the flock.
9. I will bring against Babylonmany nations from the north.This group of nations will take their places for war against Babylon.Babylon will be captured by people from the north.Their arrows are like trained soldierswho do not return from war with empty hands.
10. The enemy will take all the wealth from the Babylonians.Those enemy soldiers will get all they want!” says the Lord.