49-50. “Babylon must fall—compensation for the war dead in Israel.Babylonians will be killedbecause of all that Babylonian killing.But you exiles who have escaped a Babylonian death,get out! And fast!Remember God in your long and distant exile.Keep Jerusalem alive in your memory.”
51. How we’ve been humiliated, taunted and abused,kicked around for so long that we hardly know who we are!And we hardly know what to think—our old Sanctuary, God’s house, desecrated by strangers.
52-53. “I know, but trust me: The time is coming”—God’s Decree—“When I will bring doom on her no-god idols,and all over this land her wounded will groan.Even if Babylon climbed a ladder to the moonand pulled up the ladder so that no one could get to her,That wouldn’t stop me.I’d make sure my avengers would reach her.”God’s Decree.
54-56. “But now listen! Do you hear it? A cry out of Babylon!An unearthly wail out of Chaldea!God is taking his wrecking bar to Babylon.We’ll be hearing the last of her noise—Death throes like the crashing of waves,death rattles like the roar of cataracts.The avenging destroyer is about to enter Babylon:Her soldiers are taken, her weapons are trashed.Indeed, God is a God who evens things out.All end up with their just deserts.
57. “I’ll get them drunk, the whole lot of them—princes, sages, governors, soldiers.Dead drunk, they’ll sleep—and sleep and sleep . . .and never wake up.” The King’s Decree.His name? God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
58. God-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks:“The city walls of Babylon—those massive walls!—will be flattened.And those city gates—huge gates!—will be set on fire.The harder you work at this empty life,the less you are.Nothing comes of ambition like thisbut ashes.”
59. Jeremiah the prophet gave a job to Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when Seraiah went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon. It was in the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign. Seraiah was in charge of travel arrangements.
60-62. Jeremiah had written down in a little booklet all the bad things that would come down on Babylon. He told Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, read this out in public. Read, ‘You, O God, said that you would destroy this place so that nothing could live here, neither human nor animal—a wasteland to top all wastelands, an eternal nothing.’
63-64. “When you’ve finished reading the page, tie a stone to it, throw it into the River Euphrates, and watch it sink. Then say, ‘That’s how Babylon will sink to the bottom and stay there after the disaster I’m going to bring upon her.’”