4. You shall take up this [taunting] parable against the king of Babylon and say, How the oppressor has stilled [the restless insolence]! The golden and exacting city has ceased!
5. The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the [tyrant] rulers,
6. Who smote the peoples in anger with incessant blows and trod down the nations in wrath with unrelenting persecution–[until] he who smote is persecuted and no one hinders any more.
7. The whole earth is at rest and is quiet; they break forth into singing.
8. Yes, the fir trees and cypresses rejoice at you [O kings of Babylon], even the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since you have been laid low, no woodcutter comes up against us.
9. Sheol (Hades, the place of the dead) below is stirred up to meet you at your coming [O tyrant Babylonian rulers]; it stirs up the shades of the dead to greet you–even all the chief ones of the earth; it raises from their thrones [in astonishment at your humbled condition] all the kings of the nations.