24. “I will repay Babylon and all the residents of Chaldea for all their evil they have done in Zion before your very eyes.” This is the Lord’s declaration.
25. Look, I am against you, devastating mountain —this is the Lord’s declaration —you devastate the whole earth.I will stretch out My hand against you, roll you down from the cliffs,and turn you into a charred mountain.
26. No one will be able to retrieve a cornerstoneor a foundation stone from you,because you will become desolate forever.This is the Lord’s declaration.
27. Raise a signal flag in the land;blow a ram’s horn among the nations; set apart the nations against her. Summon kingdoms against her —Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz.Appoint a marshal against her;bring up horses like a swarm of locusts.
28. Set apart the nations for battle against her —the kings of Media,her governors and all her officials,and all the lands they rule.
29. The earth quakes and tremblesbecause the Lord’s intentions against Babylon stand:to make the land of Babylon an uninhabited desolation.
30. Babylon’s warriors have stopped fighting; they sit in their strongholds.Their might is exhausted;they have become like women.Babylon’s homes have been set ablaze,her gate bars are shattered.
31. Messenger races to meet messenger, and herald to meet herald,to announce to the king of Babylonthat his city has been capturedfrom end to end.
32. The fords have been seized, the marshes set on fire,and the soldiers are terrified.
33. For this is what the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, says:Daughter Babylon is like a threshing floorat the time it is trampled. In just a little while her harvest time will come.
34. “Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has devoured me;he has crushed me.He has set me aside like an empty dish;he has swallowed me like a sea monster; he filled his belly with my delicacies;he has vomited me out,”
35. says the inhabitant of Zion;“Let the violence done to me and my family be done to Babylon.Let my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea,”says Jerusalem.
36. Therefore, this is what the Lord says:I am about to plead your case and take vengeance on your behalf;I will dry up her sea and make her fountain run dry.