45. My people, go out of her midst,and deliver every man his soulfrom the fierce anger of the Lord,
46. lest your heart grows faint, and you are afraidfor the report that will be heard in the land—for the report will come one year, and after that in another year will come another report,and violence will be in the land,ruler against ruler—
47. therefore the days are comingwhen I will punish the graven images of Babylon;and her whole land will be humiliated,and all her slain will fall in her midst.
48. Then the heaven and the earth, and all that is in it,shall sing for joy over Babylon;for the destroyers will come to herfrom the north,says the Lord.
49. As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall,so at Babylon the slain of all the earth will fall.
50. You who have escaped the sword,go away, do not stand still.Remember the Lord afar off,and let Jerusalem come into your mind.
51. We are humiliatedbecause we have heard reproach.Shame has covered our faces,for strangers have come intothe holy places of the house of the Lord.
52. Therefore, surely the days are coming, says the Lord,when I will punish her graven images,and the mortally wounded shall groanthrough all her land.
53. Though Babylon should mount up to heaven,and though she should fortify the height of her strength,yet from Me will destroyers come to her,says the Lord.
54. A sound of an outcry comes from Babylon,and great destructionfrom the land of the Chaldeans,
55. because the Lord has devastated Babylon,and destroyed the great voice out of her.When her waves roar like great waters,a noise of their voice is uttered.
56. Because the destroyer is coming against her, even upon Babylon,and her mighty men will be captured,every one of their bows are broken.For the Lord is a God of recompense;He will completely repay.
57. I will make her officials drunk, and her wise men,her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men;and they will sleep a perpetual sleep, and not awake,says the King whose name is the Lord of Hosts.
58. Thus says the Lord of Hosts: The broad wall of Babylon will be utterly broken,and her high gates will be burned with fire;and the peoples will labor in vain,and the nations become exhausted only for fire.
59. The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah into Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was a quartermaster.
60. So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon.
61. Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you come to Babylon, then see that you read aloud all these words,