21. To the land of Merathaim, go up against her, and against the inhabitants of Pekod, massacre and destroy them,” declares Yahweh, “and do according to all that I have commanded you.
22. The sound of battle is in the land, and great destruction.
23. How the blacksmith’s hammer of all the earth is cut down and broken! How Babylon has become as a horror among the nations!
24. I laid a bird snare for you, and you were caught, O Babylon. But you yourself did not know. You were discovered and seized, because with Yahweh you measured yourself.
25. Yahweh has opened his armory, and he has brought out the weapons of his wrath, for it is a word for my Lord Yahweh of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans.
26. Come against her from the end, open her granaries. Pile her up like heaps and destroy her. Let there be no remnant for her.
27. Massacre all her bulls, let them go down to the slaughtering. Woe to them, for their day has come, the time of their punishment.
28. There is the sound of fugitives and survivors from the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Yahweh our God, the vengeance for his temple.
29. Summon archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow. Encamp all around her, there must not be for her an escape. Take revenge on her according to her deeds. According to all that she has done, so do to her. For against Yahweh she has behaved insolently, against the Holy One of Israel.
30. Therefore her young men will fall in her public squares, and all her soldiers will perish on that day,” declares Yahweh.
31. “Look, I am against you, O arrogant one,” declares Lord Yahweh of hosts, “for your day has come, the time when I will punish you.
32. And the arrogant one will stumble and fall, and there is no one who raises him up. And I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it will devour everything around him.”
33. Thus says Yahweh of hosts: “The people of Israel are oppressed, and the people of Judah likewise, for all their captors have seized them, they refuse to let them go free.
34. Their redeemer is strong, his name is Yahweh of hosts. Surely he will plead their case, in order to make peace for the earth, but to cause unrest to the inhabitants of Babylon.
35. A sword against the Chaldeans,” declares Yahweh, “and against the inhabitants of Babylon, and against her officials, and against her wise men.
36. A sword against the oracle priests, and they will become foolish. A sword against her warriors, and they will be filled with terror.