58. Thus says the Lord of hosts:“The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken,And her high gates shall be burned with fire;The people will labor in vain,And the nations, because of the fire;And they shall be weary.”
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 to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. And Seraiah was the quartermaster.
60. So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that would come upon Babylon, all these words that are written against Babylon.
61. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you arrive in Babylon and see it, and read all these words,
62. then you shall say, ‘O Lord, You have spoken against this place to cut it off, so that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but it shall be desolate forever.’
63. Now it shall be, when you have finished reading this book, that you shall tie a stone to it and throw it out into the Euphrates.
64. Then you shall say, ‘Thus Babylon shall sink and not rise from the catastrophe that I will bring upon her. And they shall be weary.’ ”Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.