8. But suddenly Babylonia will fall and be destroyed.Cry out in mourning over it!Get medicine for her wounds!Perhaps she can be healed!
9. Foreigners living there will say, ‘We tried to heal her, but she could not be healed.Let’s leave Babylonia and each go back to his own country.For judgment on her will be vast in its proportions.It will be like it is piled up to heaven, stacked up into the clouds.’
10. The exiles from Judah will say, ‘The Lord has brought about a great deliverance for us!Come on, let’s go and proclaim in Zionwhat the Lord our God has done!’
11. “Sharpen your arrows!Fill your quivers!The Lord will arouse a spirit of hostility in the kings of Media.For he intends to destroy Babylonia.For that is how the Lord will get his revenge – how he will get his revenge for the Babylonians’ destruction of his temple.
12. Give the signal to attack Babylon’s wall!Bring more guards!Post them all around the city!Put men in ambush!For the Lord will do what he has planned. He will do what he said he would do to the people of Babylon.
13. “You who live along the rivers of Babylon,the time of your end has come.You who are rich in plundered treasure,it is time for your lives to be cut off.
14. The Lord who rules over all has solemnly sworn,‘I will fill your land with enemy soldiers.They will swarm over it like locusts.They will raise up shouts of victory over it.’
15. He is the one who by his power made the earth.He is the one who by his wisdom fixed the world in place,by his understanding he spread out the heavens.
16. When his voice thunders, the waters in the heavens roar.He makes the clouds rise from the far-off horizons.He makes the lightning flash out in the midst of the rain.He unleashes the wind from the places where he stores it.
17. All idolaters will prove to be stupid and ignorant.Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made.For the image he forges is merely a sham.There is no breath in any of those idols.