Jeremiah 49-50

Jeremiah 49

¹Concerning the Ammonites, this is what the LORD says: “Has Israel no sons? Is he without heir? Why then has Milcom taken possession of Gad? Why have his people settled in their cities?

²Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will sound the battle cry against Rabbah of the Ammonites. It will become a heap of ruins, and its villages will be burned. Then Israel will drive out their dispossessors, says the LORD.

³Wail, O Heshbon, for Ai has been destroyed; cry out, O daughters of Rabbah! Put on sackcloth and mourn; run back and forth within your walls, for Milcom will go into exile together with his priests and officials.

⁴Why do you boast of your valleys—your valleys so fruitful, O faithless daughter? You trust in your riches and say, ‘Who can come against me?’

⁵Behold, I am about to bring terror upon you, declares the Lord GOD of Hosts, from all those around you. You will each be driven headlong, with no one to regather the fugitives.

⁶Yet afterward I will restore the Ammonites from captivity,” declares the LORD.

⁷Concerning Edom, this is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Is there no longer wisdom in Teman? Has counsel perished from the prudent? Has their wisdom decayed?

⁸Turn and run! Lie low, O dwellers of Dedan, for I will bring disaster on Esau at the time I punish him.

⁹If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleanings? Were thieves to come in the night, would they not steal only what they wanted?

¹⁰But I will strip Esau bare; I will uncover his hiding places, and he will be unable to conceal himself. His descendants will be destroyed along with his relatives and neighbors, and he will be no more.

¹¹Abandon your orphans; I will preserve their lives. Let your widows trust in Me.”

¹²For this is what the LORD says: “If those who do not deserve to drink the cup must drink it, can you possibly remain unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for you must drink it too.

¹³For by Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, that Bozrah will become a desolation, a disgrace, a ruin, and a curse, and all her cities will be in ruins forever.”

¹⁴I have heard a message from the LORD; an envoy has been sent to the nations: “Assemble yourselves to march against her! Rise up for battle!”

¹⁵“For behold, I will make you small among nations, despised among men.

¹⁶The terror you cause and the pride of your heart have deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks, O occupiers of the mountain summit. Though you elevate your nest like the eagle, even from there I will bring you down,” declares the LORD.

¹⁷“Edom will become an object of horror. All who pass by will be appalled and will scoff at all her wounds.

¹⁸As Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown along with their neighbors,” says the LORD, “no one will dwell there; no man will abide there.

¹⁹Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan to the watered pasture. For in an instant I will chase Edom from her land. Who is the chosen one I will appoint for this? For who is like Me, and who can challenge Me? What shepherd can stand against Me?”

²⁰Therefore hear the plans that the LORD has drawn up against Edom and the strategies He has devised against the people of Teman: Surely the little ones of the flock will be dragged away; certainly their pasture will be made desolate because of them.

²¹At the sound of their fall the earth will quake; their cry will resound to the Red Sea.

²²Look! An eagle will soar and swoop down, spreading its wings over Bozrah. In that day the hearts of Edom’s mighty men will be like the heart of a woman in labor.

²³Concerning Damascus: “Hamath and Arpad are put to shame, for they have heard a bad report; they are agitated like the sea; their anxiety cannot be calmed.

²⁴Damascus has become feeble; she has turned to flee. Panic has gripped her; anguish and pain have seized her like a woman in labor.

²⁵How is the city of praise not forsaken, the town that brings Me joy?

²⁶For her young men will fall in the streets, and all her warriors will be silenced in that day,” declares the LORD of Hosts.

²⁷“I will set fire to the walls of Damascus; it will consume the fortresses of Ben-hadad.”

²⁸Concerning Kedar and the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon defeated, this is what the LORD says: “Rise up, advance against Kedar, and destroy the people of the east!

²⁹They will take their tents and flocks, their tent curtains and all their goods. They will take their camels for themselves. They will shout to them: ‘Terror is on every side!’

³⁰Run! Escape quickly! Lie low, O residents of Hazor,” declares the LORD, “for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has drawn up a plan against you; he has devised a strategy against you.

³¹Rise up, advance against a nation at ease, one that dwells securely,” declares the LORD. “They have no gates or bars; they live alone.

³²Their camels will become plunder, and their large herds will be spoil. I will scatter to the wind in every direction those who shave their temples; I will bring calamity on them from all sides,” declares the LORD.

³³“Hazor will become a haunt for jackals, a desolation forever. No one will dwell there; no man will abide there.”

³⁴This is the word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning Elam at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah.

³⁵This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Behold, I will shatter Elam’s bow, the mainstay of their might.

³⁶I will bring the four winds against Elam from the four corners of the heavens, and I will scatter them to all these winds. There will not be a nation to which Elam’s exiles will not go.

³⁷So I will shatter Elam before their foes, before those who seek their lives. I will bring disaster upon them, even My fierce anger,” declares the LORD. “I will send out the sword after them until I finish them off.

³⁸I will set My throne in Elam, and destroy its king and officials,” declares the LORD.

³⁹“Yet in the last days, I will restore Elam from captivity,” declares the LORD.

Jeremiah 50

¹This is the word that the LORD spoke through Jeremiah the prophet concerning Babylon and the land of the Chaldeans:

²“Announce and declare to the nations; lift up a banner and proclaim it; hold nothing back when you say, ‘Babylon is captured; Bel is put to shame; Marduk is shattered, her images are disgraced, her idols are broken in pieces.’

³For a nation from the north will come against her; it will make her land a desolation. No one will live in it; both man and beast will flee.”

⁴“In those days and at that time, declares the LORD, the children of Israel and the children of Judah will come together, weeping as they come, and will seek the LORD their God.

⁵They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and join themselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.

⁶My people are lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray, causing them to roam the mountains. They have wandered from mountain to hill; they have forgotten their resting place.

⁷All who found them devoured them, and their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, for they have sinned against the LORD, their true pasture, the LORD, the hope of their fathers.’

⁸Flee from the midst of Babylon; depart from the land of the Chaldeans; be like the he-goats that lead the flock.

⁹For behold, I stir up and bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the land of the north. They will line up against her; from the north she will be captured. Their arrows will be like skilled warriors who do not return empty-handed.

¹⁰Chaldea will be plundered; all who plunder her will have their fill,” declares the LORD.

¹¹“Because you rejoice, because you sing in triumph—you who plunder My inheritance—because you frolic like a heifer treading grain and neigh like stallions,

¹²your mother will be greatly ashamed; she who bore you will be disgraced. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

¹³Because of the wrath of the LORD, she will not be inhabited; she will become completely desolate. All who pass through Babylon will be horrified and will hiss at all her wounds.

¹⁴Line up in formation around Babylon, all you who draw the bow! Shoot at her! Spare no arrows! For she has sinned against the LORD.

¹⁵Raise a war cry against her on every side! She has thrown up her hands in surrender; her towers have fallen; her walls are torn down. Since this is the vengeance of the LORD, take out your vengeance upon her; as she has done, do the same to her.

¹⁶Cut off the sower from Babylon, and the one who wields the sickle at harvest time. In the face of the oppressor’s sword, each will turn to his own people, each will flee to his own land.

¹⁷Israel is a scattered flock, chased away by lions. The first to devour him was the king of Assyria; the last to crush his bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.”

¹⁸Therefore this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “I will punish the king of Babylon and his land as I punished the king of Assyria.

¹⁹I will return Israel to his pasture, and he will graze on Carmel and Bashan; his soul will be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and Gilead.

²⁰In those days and at that time, declares the LORD, a search will be made for Israel’s guilt, but there will be none, and for Judah’s sins, but they will not be found; for I will forgive the remnant I preserve.

²¹Go up against the land of Merathaim, and against the residents of Pekod. Kill them and devote them to destruction. Do all that I have commanded you,” declares the LORD.

²²“The noise of battle is in the land—the noise of great destruction.

²³How the hammer of the whole earth lies broken and shattered! What a horror Babylon has become among the nations!

²⁴I laid a snare for you, O Babylon, and you were caught before you knew it. You were found and captured because you challenged the LORD.

²⁵The LORD has opened His armory and brought out His weapons of wrath, for this is the work of the Lord GOD of Hosts in the land of the Chaldeans.

²⁶Come against her from the farthest border. Break open her granaries; pile her up like mounds of grain. Devote her to destruction; leave her no survivors.

²⁷Kill all her young bulls; let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them, for their day has come—the time of their punishment.

²⁸Listen to the fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon, declaring in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God, the vengeance for His temple.

²⁹Summon the archers against Babylon, all who string the bow. Encamp all around her; let no one escape. Repay her according to her deeds; do to her as she has done. For she has defied the LORD, the Holy One of Israel.

³⁰Therefore, her young men will fall in the streets, and all her warriors will be silenced in that day,” declares the LORD.

³¹“Behold, I am against you, O arrogant one,” declares the Lord GOD of Hosts, “for your day has come, the time when I will punish you.

³²The arrogant one will stumble and fall with no one to pick him up. And I will kindle a fire in his cities to consume all those around him.”

³³This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “The sons of Israel are oppressed, and the sons of Judah as well. All their captors hold them fast, refusing to release them.

³⁴Their Redeemer is strong; the LORD of Hosts is His name. He will fervently plead their case so that He may bring rest to the earth, but turmoil to those who live in Babylon.

³⁵A sword is against the Chaldeans, declares the LORD, against those who live in Babylon, and against her officials and wise men.

³⁶A sword is against her false prophets, and they will become fools. A sword is against her warriors, and they will be filled with terror.

³⁷A sword is against her horses and chariots and against all the foreigners in her midst, and they will become like women. A sword is against her treasuries, and they will be plundered.

³⁸A drought is upon her waters, and they will be dried up. For it is a land of graven images, and the people go mad over idols.

³⁹So the desert creatures and hyenas will live there and ostriches will dwell there. It will never again be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation.

⁴⁰As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah along with their neighbors,” declares the LORD, “no one will dwell there; no man will abide there.

⁴¹Behold, an army is coming from the north; a great nation and many kings are stirred up from the ends of the earth.

⁴²They grasp the bow and spear; they are cruel and merciless. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride upon horses, lined up like men in formation against you, O Daughter of Babylon.

⁴³The king of Babylon has heard the report, and his hands hang limp. Anguish has gripped him, pain like that of a woman in labor.

⁴⁴Behold, one will come up like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan to the watered pasture. For in an instant I will chase Babylon from her land. Who is the chosen one I will appoint for this? For who is like Me, and who can challenge Me? What shepherd can stand against Me?”

⁴⁵Therefore hear the plans that the LORD has drawn up against Babylon and the strategies He has devised against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely the little ones of the flock will be dragged away; certainly their pasture will be made desolate because of them.

⁴⁶At the sound of Babylon’s capture the earth will quake; a cry will be heard among the nations.