¹ Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against those who dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind.

² I will send to Babylon strangers, who shall winnow her; and they shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her around.

³ Against [him who] bends let the archer bend his bow, and against [him who] lifts himself up in his coat of mail: and don't spare her young men; utterly destroy all her army.

⁴ They shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets.

⁵ For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, of his God, of Yahweh of Armies; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel.

⁶ Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; don't be cut off in her iniquity: for it is the time of Yahweh's vengeance; he will render to her a recompense.

⁷ Babylon has been a golden cup in Yahweh's hand, who made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.

⁸ Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: wail for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.

⁹ We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go everyone into his own country; for her judgment reaches to heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

¹⁰ Yahweh has brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us declare in Zion the work of Yahweh our God.

¹¹ Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: Yahweh has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; because his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the vengeance of Yahweh, the vengeance of his temple.

¹² Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set the watchmen, prepare the ambushes; for Yahweh has both purposed and done that which he spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.

¹³ You who dwell on many waters, abundant in treasures, your end has come, the measure of your covetousness.

¹⁴ Yahweh of Armies has sworn by himself, [saying], Surely I will fill you with men, as with the canker worm; and they shall lift up a shout against you.

¹⁵ He has made the earth by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding has he stretched out the heavens:

¹⁶ when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he makes lightning for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasuries.

¹⁷ Every man is become brutish [and is] without knowledge; every goldsmith is disappointed by his image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁸ They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

¹⁹ The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and [Israel] is the tribe of his inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is his name.

²⁰ You are my battle axe and weapons of war: and with you will I break in pieces the nations; and with you will I destroy kingdoms;

²¹ and with you will I break in pieces the horse and his rider;

²² and with you will I break in pieces the chariot and him who rides therein; and with you will I break in pieces man and woman; and with you will I break in pieces the old man and the youth; and with you will I break in pieces the young man and the virgin;

²³ and with you will I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; and with you will I break in pieces the farmer and his yoke [of oxen]; and with you will I break in pieces governors and deputies.

²⁴ I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, says Yahweh.

²⁵ Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain, says Yahweh, which destroys all the earth; and I will stretch out my hand on you, and roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burnt mountain.

²⁶ They shall not take of you a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but you shall be desolate for ever, says Yahweh.

²⁷ Set up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz: appoint a marshal against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough canker worm.

²⁸ Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, its governors, and all its deputies, and all the land of their dominion.

²⁹ The land trembles and is in pain; for the purposes of Yahweh against Babylon do stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.

³⁰ The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they remain in their strongholds; their might has failed; they are become as women: her dwelling places are set on fire; her bars are broken.

³¹ One runner will run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter:

³² and the passages are seized, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are frightened.

³³ For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for her.

³⁴ Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me, he has made me an empty vessel, he has, like a monster, swallowed me up, he has filled his maw with my delicacies; he has cast me out.

³⁵ The violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and, My blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say.

³⁶ Therefore thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you; and I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry.

³⁷ Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant.

³⁸ They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as lions' cubs.

³⁹ When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, says Yahweh.

⁴⁰ I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats.

⁴¹ How is Sheshach taken! and the praise of the whole earth seized! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!

⁴² The sea is come up on Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of its waves.

⁴³ Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no man dwells, neither does any son of man pass thereby.

⁴⁴ I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up; and the nations shall not flow any more to him: yes, the wall of Babylon shall fall.

⁴⁵ My people, go away from the midst of her, and save yourselves every man from the fierce anger of Yahweh.

⁴⁶ Don't let your heart faint, neither fear for the news that shall be heard in the land; for news shall come one year, and after that in another year [shall come] news, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler.

⁴⁷ Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole land shall be confounded; and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

⁴⁸ Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers shall come to her from the north, says Yahweh.

⁴⁹ As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon shall fall the slain of all the land.

⁵⁰ You who have escaped the sword, go, don't stand still; remember Yahweh from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

⁵¹ We are confounded, because we have heard reproach; confusion has covered our faces: for strangers are come into the sanctuaries of Yahweh's house.

⁵² Therefore, behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will execute judgment on her engraved images; and through all her land the wounded shall groan.

⁵³ Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall destroyers come to her, says Yahweh.

⁵⁴ The sound of a cry from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

⁵⁵ For Yahweh lays Babylon waste, and destroys out of her the great voice; and their waves roar like many waters; the noise of their voice is uttered:

⁵⁶ for the destroyer is come on her, even on Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows are broken in pieces; for Yahweh is a God of recompenses, he will surely requite.

⁵⁷ I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up, says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.

⁵⁸ Thus says Yahweh of Armies: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the peoples shall labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary.

⁵⁹ The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was chief quartermaster.

⁶⁰ Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come on Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning Babylon.

⁶¹ Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words,

⁶² and say, Yahweh, you have spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that none shall dwell therein, neither man nor animal, but that it shall be desolate forever.

⁶³ It shall be, when you have made an end of reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates:

⁶⁴ and you shall say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again because of the evil that I will bring on her; and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

¹ The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.

² Now at that time the king of Babylon's army was besieging Jerusalem; and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the king of Judah's house.

³ For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, Why do you prophesy, and say, Thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it;

⁴ and Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes shall see his eyes;

⁵ and he shall bring Zedekiah to Babylon, and he shall be there until I visit him, says Yahweh: though you fight with the Chaldeans, you shall not prosper?

⁶ Jeremiah said, The word of Yahweh came to me, saying,

⁷ Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle shall come to you, saying, Buy my field that is in Anathoth; for the right of redemption is yours to Buy it.

⁸ So Hanamel my uncle's son came to me in the court of the guard according to the word of Yahweh, and said to me, Please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the land of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption is yours; buy it for yourself. Then I knew that this was the word of Yahweh.

⁹ I bought the field that was in Anathoth of Hanamel my uncle's son, and weighed him the money, even seventeen shekels of silver.

¹⁰ I subscribed the deed, and sealed it, and called witnesses, and weighed him the money in the balances.

¹¹ So I took the deed of the purchase, both that which was sealed, containing the terms and conditions, and that which was open;

¹² and I delivered the deed of the purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my uncle's son, and in the presence of the witnesses who subscribed the deed of the purchase, before all the Jews who sat in the court of the guard.

¹³ I commanded Baruch before them, saying,

¹⁴ Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Take these deeds, this deed of the purchase which is sealed, and this deed which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel; that they may continue many days.

¹⁵ For thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall yet again be bought in this land.

¹⁶ Now after I had delivered the deed of the purchase to Baruch the son of Neriah, I prayed to Yahweh, saying,

¹⁷ Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm; there is nothing too hard for you,

¹⁸ who show loving kindness to thousands, and recompense the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them; the great, the mighty God, Yahweh of Armies is his name;

¹⁹ great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open on all the ways of the sons of men, to give everyone according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings:

²⁰ who performed signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, even to this day, both in Israel and among [other] men; and made yourself a name, as in this day;

²¹ and brought forth your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs, and with wonders, and with a strong hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terror;

²² and gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey;

²³ and they came in, and possessed it, but they didn't obey your voice, neither walked in your law; they have done nothing of all that you commanded them to do: therefore you have caused all this evil to come on them.

²⁴ Behold, the mounds, they are come to the city to take it; and the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because of the sword, and of the famine, and of the pestilence; and what you have spoken has happened; and behold, you see it.

²⁵ You have said to me, Lord Yahweh, Buy the field for money, and call witnesses; whereas the city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.

²⁶ Then came the word of Yahweh to Jeremiah, saying,

²⁷ Behold, I am Yahweh, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?

²⁸ Therefore thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he shall take it:

²⁹ and the Chaldeans, who fight against this city, shall come and set this city on fire, and burn it, with the houses, on whose roofs they have offered incense to Baal, and poured out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.

³⁰ For the children of Israel and the children of Judah have done only that which was evil in my sight from their youth; for the children of Israel have only provoked me to anger with the work of their hands, says Yahweh.

³¹ For this city has been to me a provocation of my anger and of my wrath from the day that they built it even to this day; that I should remove it from before my face,

³² because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

³³ They have turned to me the back, and not the face: and though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction.

³⁴ But they set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it.

³⁵ They built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through [the fire] to Molech; which I didn't command them, neither did it come into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.

³⁶ Now therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, concerning this city, about which you say, It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence:

³⁷ Behold, I will gather them out of all the countries, where I have driven them in my anger, and in my wrath, and in great indignation; and I will bring them again to this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely:

³⁸ and they shall be my people, and I will be their God:

³⁹ and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them, and of their children after them:

⁴⁰ and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from following them, to do them good; and I will put my fear in their hearts, that they may not depart from me.

⁴¹ Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul.

⁴² For thus says Yahweh: Like as I have brought all this great evil on this people, so will I bring on them all the good that I have promised them.

⁴³ Fields shall be bought in this land, about which you say, It is desolate, without man or animal; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans.

⁴⁴ Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe the deeds, and seal them, and call witnesses, in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the hill country, and in the cities of the lowland, and in the cities of the South: for I will cause their captivity to return, says Yahweh.