26. Attack them from a distance,open their storehouses,pile up their corpses like piles of grain,claim them for me by destroying them,and don’t leave anyone behind.
27. Kill all their young bulls.Let them go to be slaughtered.How horrible it will be for them when their time has come,the time for them to be punished.
28. Listen! Fugitives and refugees from Babylonare coming to Zion to tell aboutthe vengeance of the Lord our God, the vengeance for his temple.
29. “Call together the archers, the soldiers with bows, against Babylon.Set up blockades around it. Don’t let anyone escape.Pay the people of Babylon back for what they have done.Do to them what they did to others.They have disobeyed the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.
30. That is why their young men will die in the streets,and all their soldiers will be silenced that day,”declares the Lord.
31. “I’m against you, you arrogant city,”declares the Almighty Lord of Armies.“Your day has come, the time when I will punish you.
32. Those arrogant people will stumble and fall,and there will be no one to help them get up.I will light a fire in their citiesthat will burn up everything around them.”
33. This is what the Lord of Armies says:All the people of Israel and Judah are oppressed.All their enemies have captured them.They refuse to let them go.
34. Their defender is strong.His name is the Lord of Armies.He will certainly take up their causein order to bring rest to the land of Israeland unrest to the people who live in Babylon.
35. “A sword will kill the Babylonians and everyone who lives in Babylon,”declares the Lord.“A sword will kill their officials and their wise men.
36. A sword will kill the false prophets.They will become fools.A sword will kill their soldiers and defeat them.
37. A sword will kill their horses, their chariots,and all the foreigners within their ranks.They will become women.A sword will destroy their treasures, and they will be looted.
38. A drought will diminish their water supply, and it will dry up.Babylon is a land of idols, statues that will go crazy with fear.
39. That is why desert animals will live with hyenas.Desert owls will also live there.It will no longer be inhabited or lived in for generations.
40. Babylon will be like Sodom, Gomorrah, and their neighboring citieswhen I, God, destroyed them.No one will live there.No human will stay there,” declares the Lord.
41. “People are going to come from the north.A great nation and many kings will rise from the ends of the earth.
42. They will take hold of bows and spears.They will be cruel and have no compassion.They will sound like the sea when it roars.They will ride horses.They are ready for war, ready to attack you, people of Babylon.
43. The king of Babylon has heard reports about them, and he loses courage.Anguish will grip him as pain grips a woman in labor.
44. I will suddenly chase them from their placeslike a lion coming out of the junglealong the Jordan River into pastureland.I will appoint over Babylon whomever I choose.Who is like me? Who can challenge me?Is there any leader who can stand up to me?
45. Listen to the plans that the Lord is making against Babylonand the things he intends to do to the land of the Babylonians.He will surely drag away the little ones of the flock.He will surely destroy the pasture because of the Babylonians.