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Jeremiah 51
Evangelical Heritage Version
Jeremiah 51
Evangelical Heritage Version
51 This is what the Lord says:
Watch, I will stir up a destroying wind against Babylon
and against the people who live in Leb Kamai.[a]
2 I will send foreigners to Babylon
to winnow her and empty her land.
They will oppose her on every side in the day of trouble.
3 Bend your bow against anyone who bends a bow
and against anyone who stands in armor.[b]
Do not spare the young men.
Completely destroy her army.
4 They fall down, slain in the land of Chaldea,
mortally wounded in her streets.
5 Israel and Judah are not forsaken by God, the Lord of Armies,
though their land is full of guilt before the Holy One of Israel.
6 Flee from the midst of Babylon!
Everyone, save your lives!
Do not be cut off because of her guilt,
for it is the time for the Lord’s vengeance.
He will punish them as they deserve.
7 Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand.
She made the whole world drunk.
The nations have drunk her wine,
and now they have gone mad.
8 Suddenly Babylon has fallen and is broken.
Wail for her.
Take balm to her for her pain.
Perhaps she can be healed.
9 We would have healed Babylon,
but she cannot be healed.
Leave her! Everyone go to his own land,
because her judgment reaches to the heavens.
It rises up to the clouds.
10 The Lord has brought our vindication.
Come, let us declare in Zion what the Lord our God has done.
11 Sharpen the arrows!
Hang on to the shields!
The Lord has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes,
because his purpose is to destroy Babylon.
This is the vengeance of the Lord,
vengeance for his temple.
12 Raise a signal flag against the walls of Babylon!
Strengthen the guard!
Set the watch,
and prepare an ambush!
The Lord has done what he said he would do
against the inhabitants of Babylon.
13 You who live by many waters,
you who are rich in treasures,
your end has come,
the full measure[c] of your violence.
14 The Lord of Armies has sworn by himself:
Surely I will fill you with men,
as if I were filling you with locusts.
They will raise the shout of victory over you.
A Hymn of Praise
15 He is the One who made the earth by his power
and established the world by his wisdom.
By his understanding he stretched out the heavens.
16 He thunders, and the waters in the heavens roar.
He makes storm clouds rise from the ends of the earth.
He makes lightning for the rain,
and he brings the wind out from his warehouses.
17 But as for mankind, they are all stupid.
Their knowledge has dried up.
Every goldsmith is embarrassed by his idols.
The images he makes are false.
There is no breath in them.
18 They are worthless,
an achievement to be mocked.
At the time of their punishment, they will perish.
19 He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these,
because he is the Maker of all things,
including the tribe that is his possession.
The Lord of Armies is his name.
Babylon, the Hammer of the Lord
20 You are my hammer, my war weapon.
With you I shatter nations.
With you I destroy kingdoms.
21 With you I shatter horse and rider.
With you I shatter chariot and driver.
22 With you I shatter man and woman.
With you I shatter the old and the young.
With you I shatter the young man and the virgin.
23 With you I shatter the shepherd and his flock.
With you I shatter the plowman and the team in his yoke.
With you I shatter governors and officials.
24 Before your very eyes I will repay Babylon and everyone who lives in Chaldea for all the evil they have done in Zion, declares the Lord. 25 Look, I am against you, declares the Lord.
You destroying mountain,
you destroy the whole world.
I will stretch out my hand against you.
I will roll you off the cliffs,
and I will make you a burned-out volcano.
26 No rock will be taken from you for a cornerstone,
nor as a foundation stone.
You will be desolate forever, declares the Lord.
27 Raise a signal flag in the land!
Blow the ram’s horn among the nations!
Set apart the nations against her!
Call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat,
Minni, and Ashkenaz!
Appoint a field marshal against her!
Bring up horses like a thick swarm of locusts!
28 Consecrate the nations against her—
the kings of the Medes, their governors, all their officials,
and all the land under their dominion.
Babylon’s Punishment
29 The land trembles and writhes
because the Lord’s intentions against Babylon stand.
He will make the land of Babylon a desolation with no one living there.
30 The strong warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting.
They stay in their strongholds.
Their power has failed.
They have become as weak as women.
Her dwellings are set on fire.
The bars of the gates are broken.
31 Runner follows runner,
and messenger follows messenger
to announce to the king of Babylon
that his city is taken in every quarter.
32 The fords have been captured,
the marshes[d] are on fire,
and the soldiers are in a panic.
33 This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says.
The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor when it is trampled.
In just a little while, the time of her harvest will come.
34 Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured us.[e]
He has crushed us
and made us like an empty jar.
Like a monster, he has swallowed us,
filled his stomach with our tastiest parts,
and spit out the rest.
35 “May the violence done to us and to our children[f] be upon Babylon,”
says she who dwells in Zion.
“May our blood be on those who live in Chaldea,” says Jerusalem.
36 Therefore this is what the Lord says:
Watch! I will defend your cause
and take revenge for you.
I will dry up her sea
and make her springs dry.
37 Babylon will become a heap of ruins,
a haunt for jackals,
a horror and a target of contempt,[g]
and no one will live there.
38 They will all roar together like young lions.
They will growl like lion cubs.
39 When they are ravenous, I will spread a feast.
I will make them drunk,
so that they will celebrate,[h]
and then they will go to sleep forever
and never wake up, declares the Lord.
40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
like rams and goats.
41 How Sheshak[i] is captured!
The pride of the whole earth is seized!
Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations.
42 The sea has come all the way up to Babylon,
and she is covered with its rolling waves.
43 Her cities have become desolate,
a desert and a wasteland,
a land in which no one lives,
a land through which no man passes.
44 I will punish Bel in Babylon
and make his mouth spit out what he has swallowed.
The nations will no longer stream to him.
The wall of Babylon will fall.
45 Come out of her, my people!
Save yourselves, every one of you,
from the Lord’s fierce anger.
46 Do not be faint of heart.
Do not fear the rumors you will hear in the land.
Rumors will come one year,
and the next year another rumor will come:
“Violence in the land!”
“Ruler against ruler!”
47 For the days are coming when I will punish the idols of Babylon.
Her whole land will be disgraced,
and all her slain will fall within her.
48 Then the heavens and the earth and all that is in them
will rejoice over Babylon.
The destroyers will attack her from the north, declares the Lord.
49 Babylon must fall because of Israel’s slain,
just as the slain in all the earth have fallen because of Babylon.
A Message to the Israelites in Babylon
The Lord or the Prophet[j]
50 You who have escaped the sword, go!
Do not delay!
Remember the Lord from afar,
and think of Jerusalem.
The Exiles
51 We are disgraced,
because we have heard a taunt.
Dishonor covers our faces,
because strangers have come into the holy places of
the House of the Lord.
The Lord
52 So keep watch. The days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will punish all her idols.
Through her whole land the wounded will groan.
53 Even if Babylon could reach the sky
and fortify the very heights of her stronghold,
I would still send destroyers to her, declares the Lord.
Further Destruction on Babylon
54 The sound of a cry comes from Babylon,
the sound of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans.
55 The Lord is destroying Babylon,
and he will silence her mighty voice.
Waves roar like many waters.
The sound of their noise rises!
56 The destroyer has come against her, against Babylon.
Her mighty warriors are captured.
Their bows are broken,
for the Lord is a God of retribution.
He will repay in full.
57 I will make her officials and her wise men drunk,
and her governors, officers, and strong warriors as well.
They will sleep for a long time,
and they will not wake up,
declares the King, whose name is the Lord of Armies.
58 This is what the Lord of Armies says.
The thick walls of Babylon will be leveled,
and her high gates will be set on fire.
The people will toil for nothing.
The work of the nations will be nothing but fuel for the fire.
They will be worn out.
Jeremiah’s Message Is Sent to Babylon
59 These are the instructions Jeremiah the prophet gave to Seraiah son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. (Seraiah was Zedekiah’s personal aide.[k])
60 Jeremiah had written on a scroll about all the disaster that was coming to Babylon—all of these things that had been written about Babylon.
61 Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, see to it that you read all these words aloud. 62 Say, ‘O Lord, you have spoken against this place, announcing that you would destroy it, that no one will live here anymore, neither man nor animal, and that it will be desolate forever.’ 63 When you finish reading this book, tie a stone to it and throw it in the middle of the Euphrates. 64 Then say, ‘In this same way, Babylon will sink and never rise again, because of the disaster that I will bring on her. And her people[l] will be worn out.’”
The words of Jeremiah end here.
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 51:1 Leb Kamai seems to be a cryptogram for Chaldea. Taking the letters of the Hebrew word for Chaldeans and writing them in reverse alphabet (A=Z, B=Y, etc.) produces Leb Kamai, which means heart of my adversaries.
- Jeremiah 51:3 Or let no one bend a bow or stand up in armor. The Hebrew text and the meaning of these two lines are uncertain.
- Jeremiah 51:13 Literally the cubit
- Jeremiah 51:32 Or fortresses
- Jeremiah 51:34 Hebrew variant me. The same variant occurs throughout verse 34.
- Jeremiah 51:35 Or flesh
- Jeremiah 51:37 Literally hissing
- Jeremiah 51:39 The translation follows the Hebrew. The Greek and Latin read pass out.
- Jeremiah 51:41 Sheshak is a cypher or cryptogram for Babylon. It is written in reverse alphabet: A=Z, B=Y, etc. In the Hebrew alphabet, bbl reversed is shshk.
- Jeremiah 51:50 Because of the unannounced changes of speaker, the headings mark the speaker of each section.
- Jeremiah 51:59 Literally officer of rest
- Jeremiah 51:64 Hebrew they
Jeremiah 51
New International Version
Jeremiah 51
New International Version
51 This is what the Lord says:
“See, I will stir(A) up the spirit of a destroyer
against Babylon(B) and the people of Leb Kamai.[a]
2 I will send foreigners(C) to Babylon
to winnow(D) her and to devastate her land;
they will oppose her on every side
in the day(E) of her disaster.
3 Let not the archer string his bow,(F)
nor let him put on his armor.(G)
Do not spare her young men;
completely destroy[b] her army.
4 They will fall(H) down slain in Babylon,[c]
fatally wounded in her streets.(I)
5 For Israel and Judah have not been forsaken(J)
by their God, the Lord Almighty,
though their land[d] is full of guilt(K)
before the Holy One of Israel.
6 “Flee(L) from Babylon!
Run for your lives!
Do not be destroyed because of her sins.(M)
It is time(N) for the Lord’s vengeance;(O)
he will repay(P) her what she deserves.
7 Babylon was a gold cup(Q) in the Lord’s hand;
she made the whole earth drunk.
The nations drank her wine;
therefore they have now gone mad.
8 Babylon will suddenly fall(R) and be broken.
Wail over her!
Get balm(S) for her pain;
perhaps she can be healed.
9 “‘We would have healed Babylon,
but she cannot be healed;
let us leave(T) her and each go to our own land,
for her judgment(U) reaches to the skies,
it rises as high as the heavens.’
11 “Sharpen the arrows,(X)
take up the shields!(Y)
The Lord has stirred up the kings(Z) of the Medes,(AA)
because his purpose(AB) is to destroy Babylon.
The Lord will take vengeance,(AC)
vengeance for his temple.(AD)
12 Lift up a banner(AE) against the walls of Babylon!
Reinforce the guard,
station the watchmen,(AF)
prepare an ambush!(AG)
The Lord will carry out his purpose,(AH)
his decree against the people of Babylon.
13 You who live by many waters(AI)
and are rich in treasures,(AJ)
your end has come,
the time for you to be destroyed.(AK)
14 The Lord Almighty has sworn by himself:(AL)
I will surely fill you with troops, as with a swarm of locusts,(AM)
and they will shout(AN) in triumph over you.
15 “He made the earth by his power;
he founded the world by his wisdom(AO)
and stretched(AP) out the heavens by his understanding.(AQ)
16 When he thunders,(AR) the waters in the heavens roar;
he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth.
He sends lightning with the rain(AS)
and brings out the wind from his storehouses.(AT)
17 “Everyone is senseless and without knowledge;
every goldsmith is shamed by his idols.
The images he makes are a fraud;(AU)
they have no breath in them.
18 They are worthless,(AV) the objects of mockery;
when their judgment comes, they will perish.
19 He who is the Portion(AW) of Jacob is not like these,
for he is the Maker of all things,
including the people of his inheritance(AX)—
the Lord Almighty is his name.
20 “You are my war club,(AY)
my weapon for battle—
with you I shatter(AZ) nations,(BA)
with you I destroy kingdoms,
21 with you I shatter horse and rider,(BB)
with you I shatter chariot(BC) and driver,
22 with you I shatter man and woman,
with you I shatter old man and youth,
with you I shatter young man and young woman,(BD)
23 with you I shatter shepherd and flock,
with you I shatter farmer and oxen,
with you I shatter governors and officials.(BE)
24 “Before your eyes I will repay(BF) Babylon(BG) and all who live in Babylonia[e] for all the wrong they have done in Zion,” declares the Lord.
25 “I am against(BH) you, you destroying mountain,
you who destroy the whole earth,”(BI)
declares the Lord.
“I will stretch out my hand(BJ) against you,
roll you off the cliffs,
and make you a burned-out mountain.(BK)
26 No rock will be taken from you for a cornerstone,
nor any stone for a foundation,
for you will be desolate(BL) forever,”
declares the Lord.
27 “Lift up a banner(BM) in the land!
Blow the trumpet among the nations!
Prepare the nations for battle against her;
summon against her these kingdoms:(BN)
Ararat,(BO) Minni and Ashkenaz.(BP)
Appoint a commander against her;
send up horses like a swarm of locusts.(BQ)
28 Prepare the nations for battle against her—
the kings of the Medes,(BR)
their governors and all their officials,
and all the countries they rule.(BS)
29 The land trembles(BT) and writhes,
for the Lord’s purposes(BU) against Babylon stand—
to lay waste(BV) the land of Babylon
so that no one will live there.(BW)
30 Babylon’s warriors(BX) have stopped fighting;
they remain in their strongholds.
Their strength is exhausted;
they have become weaklings.(BY)
Her dwellings are set on fire;(BZ)
the bars(CA) of her gates are broken.
31 One courier(CB) follows another
and messenger follows messenger
to announce to the king of Babylon
that his entire city is captured,(CC)
32 the river crossings seized,
the marshes set on fire,(CD)
and the soldiers terrified.(CE)”
33 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says:
“Daughter Babylon(CF) is like a threshing floor(CG)
at the time it is trampled;
the time to harvest(CH) her will soon come.(CI)”
34 “Nebuchadnezzar(CJ) king of Babylon has devoured(CK) us,(CL)
he has thrown us into confusion,
he has made us an empty jar.
Like a serpent he has swallowed us
and filled his stomach with our delicacies,
and then has spewed(CM) us out.
35 May the violence(CN) done to our flesh[f] be on Babylon,”
say the inhabitants of Zion.
“May our blood be on those who live in Babylonia,”
says Jerusalem.(CO)
36 Therefore this is what the Lord says:
“See, I will defend your cause(CP)
and avenge(CQ) you;
I will dry up(CR) her sea
and make her springs dry.
37 Babylon will be a heap of ruins,
a haunt(CS) of jackals,
an object of horror and scorn,(CT)
a place where no one lives.(CU)
38 Her people all roar like young lions,(CV)
they growl like lion cubs.
39 But while they are aroused,
I will set out a feast for them
and make them drunk,(CW)
so that they shout with laughter—
then sleep forever(CX) and not awake,”
declares the Lord.(CY)
40 “I will bring them down
like lambs to the slaughter,
like rams and goats.(CZ)
41 “How Sheshak[g](DA) will be captured,(DB)
the boast of the whole earth seized!
How desolate(DC) Babylon will be
among the nations!
42 The sea will rise over Babylon;
its roaring waves(DD) will cover her.
43 Her towns will be desolate,
a dry and desert(DE) land,
a land where no one lives,
through which no one travels.(DF)
44 I will punish Bel(DG) in Babylon
and make him spew out(DH) what he has swallowed.
The nations will no longer stream to him.
And the wall(DI) of Babylon will fall.
45 “Come out(DJ) of her, my people!
Run(DK) for your lives!
Run from the fierce anger(DL) of the Lord.
46 Do not lose heart(DM) or be afraid(DN)
when rumors(DO) are heard in the land;
one rumor comes this year, another the next,
rumors of violence in the land
and of ruler against ruler.
47 For the time will surely come
when I will punish the idols(DP) of Babylon;
her whole land will be disgraced(DQ)
and her slain will all lie fallen within her.(DR)
48 Then heaven and earth and all that is in them
will shout(DS) for joy over Babylon,
for out of the north(DT)
destroyers(DU) will attack her,”
declares the Lord.
49 “Babylon must fall because of Israel’s slain,
just as the slain in all the earth
have fallen because of Babylon.(DV)
50 You who have escaped the sword,
leave(DW) and do not linger!
Remember(DX) the Lord in a distant land,(DY)
and call to mind Jerusalem.”
51 “We are disgraced,(DZ)
for we have been insulted
and shame covers our faces,
because foreigners have entered
the holy places of the Lord’s house.”(EA)
52 “But days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will punish her idols,(EB)
and throughout her land
the wounded will groan.(EC)
53 Even if Babylon ascends to the heavens(ED)
and fortifies her lofty stronghold,
I will send destroyers(EE) against her,”
declares the Lord.
54 “The sound of a cry(EF) comes from Babylon,
the sound of great destruction(EG)
from the land of the Babylonians.[h]
55 The Lord will destroy Babylon;
he will silence(EH) her noisy din.
Waves(EI) of enemies will rage like great waters;
the roar of their voices will resound.
56 A destroyer(EJ) will come against Babylon;
her warriors will be captured,
and their bows will be broken.(EK)
For the Lord is a God of retribution;
he will repay(EL) in full.
57 I will make her officials(EM) and wise(EN) men drunk,(EO)
her governors, officers and warriors as well;
they will sleep(EP) forever and not awake,”
declares the King,(EQ) whose name is the Lord Almighty.
58 This is what the Lord Almighty says:
“Babylon’s thick wall(ER) will be leveled
and her high gates(ES) set on fire;
the peoples(ET) exhaust(EU) themselves for nothing,
the nations’ labor is only fuel for the flames.”(EV)
59 This is the message Jeremiah the prophet gave to the staff officer Seraiah son of Neriah,(EW) the son of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon with Zedekiah(EX) king of Judah in the fourth(EY) year of his reign. 60 Jeremiah had written on a scroll(EZ) about all the disasters that would come upon Babylon—all that had been recorded concerning Babylon. 61 He said to Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, see that you read all these words aloud. 62 Then say, ‘Lord, you have said you will destroy this place, so that neither people nor animals will live in it; it will be desolate(FA) forever.’ 63 When you finish reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the Euphrates.(FB) 64 Then say, ‘So will Babylon sink to rise no more(FC) because of the disaster I will bring on her. And her people(FD) will fall.’”(FE)
The words of Jeremiah end(FF) here.
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 51:1 Leb Kamai is a cryptogram for Chaldea, that is, Babylonia.
- Jeremiah 51:3 The Hebrew term refers to the irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by totally destroying them.
- Jeremiah 51:4 Or Chaldea
- Jeremiah 51:5 Or Almighty, / and the land of the Babylonians
- Jeremiah 51:24 Or Chaldea; also in verse 35
- Jeremiah 51:35 Or done to us and to our children
- Jeremiah 51:41 Sheshak is a cryptogram for Babylon.
- Jeremiah 51:54 Or Chaldeans
Evangelical Heritage Version (EHV)
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.
New International Version (NIV) 
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.