8-10. “But now, get out of Babylon as fast as you can.Be rid of that Babylonian country.On your way. Good sheepdogs lead, but don’t you be led.Lead the way home!Do you see what I’m doing?I’m rallying a host of nations against Babylon.They’ll come out of the north,attack and take her.Oh, they know how to fight, these armies.They never come home empty-handed.Babylon is ripe for picking!All her plunderers will fill their bellies!” God’s Decree.
11-16. “You Babylonians had a good time while it lasted, didn’t you?You lived it up, exploiting and using my people,Frisky calves romping in lush pastures,wild stallions out having a good time!Well, your mother would hardly be proud of you.The woman who bore you wouldn’t be pleased.Look at what’s come of you! A nothing nation!Rubble and garbage and weeds!Emptied of life by my holy anger,a desert of death and emptiness.Travelers who pass by Babylon will gasp, appalled,shaking their heads at such a comedown.Gang up on Babylon! Pin her down!Throw everything you have against her.Hold nothing back. Knock her flat.She’s sinned—oh, how she’s sinned, against me!Shout battle cries from every direction.All the fight has gone out of her.Her defenses have been flattened,her walls smashed.‘Operation God’s Vengeance.’Pile on the vengeance!Do to her as she has done.Give her a good dose of her own medicine!Destroy her farms and farmers,ravage her fields, empty her barns.And you captives, while the destruction rages,get out while the getting’s good,get out fast and run for home.
17. “Israel is a scattered flock,hunted down by lions.The king of Assyria started the carnage.The king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar,Has completed the job,gnawing the bones clean.”
18-20. And now this is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies,the God of Israel, has to say:“Just watch! I’m bringing doom on the king of Babylon and his land,the same doom I brought on the king of Assyria.But Israel I’ll bring home to good pastures.He’ll graze on the hills of Carmel and Bashan,On the slopes of Ephraim and Gilead.He will eat to his heart’s content.In those days and at that time”—God’s Decree—“they’ll look high and low for a sign of Israel’s guilt—nothing;Search nook and cranny for a trace of Judah’s sin—nothing.These people that I’ve saved will start out with a clean slate.
21. “Attack Merathaim, land of rebels!Go after Pekod, country of doom!Hunt them down. Make a clean sweep.” God’s Decree.“These are my orders. Do what I tell you.
22-24. “The thunderclap of battleshakes the foundations!The Hammer has been hammered,smashed and splintered,Babylon pummeledbeyond recognition.I set out a trap and you were caught in it.O Babylon, you never knew what hit you,Caught and held in the steel grip of that trap!That’s what you get for taking on God.
25-28. “I, God, opened my arsenal.I brought out my weapons of wrath.The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,has a job to do in Babylon.Come at her from all sides!Break into her granaries!Shovel her into piles and burn her up.Leave nothing! Leave no one!Kill all her young turks.Send them to their doom!Doom to them! Yes, Doomsday!The clock has finally run out on them.And here’s a surprise:Runaways and escapees from BabylonShow up in Zion reporting the news of God’s vengeance,taking vengeance for my own Temple.
29-30. “Call in the troops against Babylon,anyone who can shoot straight!Tighten the noose!Leave no loopholes!Give her back as good as she gave,a dose of her own medicine!Her brazen insolence is an outrageagainst God, The Holy of Israel.And now she pays: her young strewn dead in the streets,her soldiers dead, silent forever.” God’s Decree.
31-32. “Do you get it, Mister Pride? I’m your enemy!”Decree of the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies.“Time’s run out on you:That’s right: It’s Doomsday.Mister Pride will fall flat on his face.No one will offer him a hand.I’ll set his towns on fire.The fire will spread wild through the country.”
33-34. And here’s more from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:“The people of Israel are beaten down,the people of Judah along with them.Their oppressors have them in a grip of steel.They won’t let go.But the Rescuer is strong:God-of-the-Angel-Armies.Yes, I will take their side,I’ll come to their rescue.I’ll soothe their land,but rough up the people of Babylon.
35-40. “It’s all-out war in Babylon”—God’s Decree—“total war against people, leaders, and the wise!War to the death on her boasting pretenders, fools one and all!War to the death on her soldiers, cowards to a man!War to the death on her hired killers, gutless wonders!War to the death on her banks—looted!War to the death on her water supply—drained dry!A land of make-believe gods gone crazy—hobgoblins!The place will be haunted with jackals and scorpions,night-owls and vampire bats.No one will ever live there again.The land will reek with the stench of death.It will join Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbors,the cities I did away with.” God’s Decree.“No one will live there again.No one will again draw breath in that land, ever.