30. Babylon’s warriors have ceased to fight,they remain in their strongholds;Dried up is their strength,they have become women.Burned down are their homes,broken their gates.
31. One runner meets another,herald meets herald,Telling the king of Babylonthat his entire city has been taken.
32. The fords have been seized,marshes set on fire,warriors panic.
33. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel:Daughter Babylon is like a threshing floorat the time of treading;Yet a little while,and the harvest time will come for her.
34. “He consumed me, defeated me,Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon;he left me like an empty vessel,Swallowed me like a sea monster,filled his belly with my delicacies and cast me out.
35. Let my torn flesh be visited upon Babylon,”says enthroned Zion;“My blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,”says Jerusalem.
36. But now, thus says the Lord:I will certainly defend your cause,I will certainly avenge you;I will dry up her sea,and drain her fountain.
37. Babylon shall become a heap of ruins,a haunt of jackals;A place of horror and hissing,without inhabitants.
38. They roar like lions,growl like lion cubs.
39. When they are parched, I will set drink before themto make them drunk, that they may be overcomewith everlasting sleep, never to awaken—oracle of the Lord.
40. I will bring them down like lambs to slaughter,like rams and goats.
41. How she has been seized, taken captive,the glory of the whole world!What a horror Babylon has become among the nations:
42. against Babylon the sea rises,she is overwhelmed by roaring waves!
43. Her cities have become wasteland,a parched and arid landWhere no one lives,no one passes through.