²⁰ She will never be inhabited^(A)
    or lived in through all generations;
there no nomads^(B) will pitch their tents,
    there no shepherds will rest their flocks.
²¹ But desert creatures^(C) will lie there,
    jackals^(D) will fill her houses;
there the owls^(E) will dwell,
    and there the wild goats^(F) will leap about.
²² Hyenas^(G) will inhabit her strongholds,^(H)
    jackals^(I) her luxurious palaces.
Her time is at hand,^(J)
    and her days will not be prolonged.^(K)

²³ “I will turn her into a place for owls^(A)
    and into swampland;
I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,^(B)”
    declares the Lord Almighty.^(C)

⁹ Look, here comes a man in a chariot^(A)
    with a team of horses.
And he gives back the answer:
    ‘Babylon^(B) has fallen,^(C) has fallen!
All the images of its gods^(D)
    lie shattered^(E) on the ground!’”

⁴¹ “How Sheshak^[a](A) will be captured,^(B)
    the boast of the whole earth seized!
How desolate^(C) Babylon will be
    among the nations!
⁴² The sea will rise over Babylon;
    its roaring waves^(D) will cover her.
⁴³ Her towns will be desolate,
    a dry and desert^(E) land,
a land where no one lives,
    through which no one travels.^(F)
44 I will punish Bel^(G) in Babylon
    and make him spew out^(H) what he has swallowed.
The nations will no longer stream to him.
    And the wall^(I) of Babylon will fall.