1. The word that the LORD spoke against Babylon and against the land of the Chaldeans by Jeremiah the prophet.
2. Declare you among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces.
3. For out of the north there comes up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell in it: they shall move, they shall depart, both man and beast.
4. In those days, and in that time,
5. They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces toward it, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten.
6. My people have been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place.
7. All that found them have devoured them: and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the LORD, the habitation of justice, even the LORD, the hope of their fathers.
8. Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the male goats before the flocks.
9. For, lo, I will raise up and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country: and they shall set themselves in array against her; from there she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of a skilled warrior; none shall return in vain.
10. And Chaldea shall be a plunder: all that plunder her shall be satisfied,
11. Because you were glad, because you rejoiced, O you destroyers of my heritage, because you have grown fat like a heifer threshing grain, and bellow like bulls;
12. Your mother shall be utterly confounded; she that bore you shall be ashamed: behold, the least of the nations shall be a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.