52. “Therefore look, days are coming,” declares Yahweh, “and I will punish her images, and the fatally wounded will sigh through all her land.
53. Though Babylon goes up to the heavens, and though she fortifies the high place of her strength, from me destroyers will come to her,” declares Yahweh.
54. The sound of a cry for help from Babylon, and a great collapse from the land of the Chaldeans.
55. For Yahweh is devastating Babylon, and he obliterates her loud noise from her. Their waves roar like mighty waters, the roar of their voices resounds.
56. For a destroyer is coming against her, against Babylon, and her warriors are captured. Their bows are broken; for Yahweh is a God of recompense, certainly he will repay.
57. “And I will make drunk her officials, and her wise men, her governors, and her officials, and her warriors, and they will sleep an everlasting sleep, and they will not wake up,” declares the King, Yahweh of hosts is his name.
58. Thus says Yahweh of hosts: “The broad walls of Babylon will be utterly demolished, and her high gates will burn with fire, and the peoples will labor for nothing, and the nations for fire, and they will grow weary.”
59. The word that Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah, the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, at his going with Zedekiah, the king of Judah, to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was the quartermaster.
60. And Jeremiah wrote all the disasters that would come on Babylon in one scroll, all these words that are written concerning Babylon.
61. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “At your coming to Babylon, then you must see that you read aloud all these words.
62. And you must say, ‘Yahweh, you yourself spoke against this place, to destroy it, so that there will not be in it anything living, from humankind to animals, for it will be an everlasting desolation.’
63. And then when you finish reading aloud this scroll, you must tie a stone on it, and you must throw it into the middle of the Euphrates.
64. And you must say, ‘Babylon will sink, and she will not rise, because of the face of the disasters that I am bringing on her, and they will grow weary.’ ” Thus far the words of Jeremiah.