29. The earth trembles and writhes in pain,for everything the lord has planned against Babylon stands unchanged.Babylon will be left desolate without a single inhabitant.
30. Her mightiest warriors no longer fight.They stay in their barracks, their courage gone.They have become like women.The invaders have burned the housesand broken down the city gates.
31. The news is passed from one runner to the nextas the messengers hurry to tell the kingthat his city has been captured.
32. All the escape routes are blocked.The marshes have been set aflame,and the army is in a panic.
33. This is what the lord of Heaven’s Armies,the God of Israel, says:“Babylon is like wheat on a threshing floor,about to be trampled.In just a little whileher harvest will begin.”
34. “King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has eaten and crushed usand drained us of strength.He has swallowed us like a great monsterand filled his belly with our riches.He has thrown us out of our own country.
35. Make Babylon suffer as she made us suffer,”say the people of Zion.“Make the people of Babylonia pay for spilling our blood,”says Jerusalem.
36. This is what the lord says to Jerusalem: “I will be your lawyer to plead your case,and I will avenge you.I will dry up her river,as well as her springs,
37. and Babylon will become a heap of ruins,haunted by jackals.She will be an object of horror and contempt,a place where no one lives.
38. Her people will roar together like strong lions.They will growl like lion cubs.
39. And while they lie inflamed with all their wine,I will prepare a different kind of feast for them.I will make them drink until they fall asleep,and they will never wake up again,”says the lord.