Judgment on Babylon

¹The Lord says, “Babylon, come down from your throne, and sit in the dust on the ground. You were once like a virgin, a city unconquered, but you are soft and delicate no longer! You are now a slave!

²Turn the millstone! Grind the flour! Off with your veil! Strip off your fine clothes! Lift up your skirts to cross the streams!

³People will see you naked; they will see you humbled and shamed. I will take vengeance, and no one will stop me.”

⁴The holy God of Israel sets us free— his name is the Lord Almighty.

⁵The Lord says to Babylon, “Sit in silence and darkness; no more will they call you the queen of nations!

⁶I was angry with my people; I treated them as no longer mine: I put them in your power, and you showed them no mercy; even the aged you treated harshly.

⁷You thought you would always be a queen, and did not take these things to heart or think how it all would end.

⁸“Listen to this, you lover of pleasure, you that think you are safe and secure. You claim you are as great as God— that there is no one else like you. You thought that you would never be a widow or suffer the loss of your children.

⁹But in a moment, in a single day, both of these things will happen. In spite of all the magic you use, you will lose your husband and children.

¹⁰“You felt sure of yourself in your evil; you thought that no one could see you. Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray, and you said to yourself, ‘I am God— there is no one else like me.’

¹¹Disaster will come upon you, and none of your magic can stop it. Ruin will come on you suddenly— ruin you never dreamed of!

¹²Keep all your magic spells and charms; you have used them since you were young. Perhaps they will be of some help to you; perhaps you can frighten your enemies.

¹³You are powerless in spite of the advice you get. Let your astrologers come forward and save you— those people who study the stars, who map out the zones of the heavens and tell you from month to month what is going to happen to you.

¹⁴“They will be like bits of straw, and a fire will burn them up! They will not even be able to save themselves— the flames will be too hot for them, not a cozy fire to warm themselves by.

¹⁵That is all the good they will do you— those astrologers you've consulted all your life. They all will leave you and go their own way, and none will be left to save you.”

God Is Lord of the Future

¹Listen to this, people of Israel, you that are descended from Judah: You swear by the name of the Lord and claim to worship the God of Israel— but you don't mean a word you say.

²And yet you are proud to say that you are citizens of the holy city and that you depend on Israel's God, whose name is the Lord Almighty.

³The Lord says to Israel, “Long ago I predicted what would take place; then suddenly I made it happen.

⁴I knew that you would prove to be stubborn, as rigid as iron and unyielding as bronze.

⁵And so I predicted your future long ago, announcing events before they took place, to keep you from claiming that your idols and images made them happen.

⁶“All I foretold has now taken place; you have to admit my predictions were right. Now I will tell you of new things to come, events that I did not reveal before.

⁷Only now am I making them happen; nothing like this took place in the past. If it had, you would claim that you knew all about it.

⁸I knew that you couldn't be trusted, that you have always been known as a rebel. That is why you never heard of this at all, why no word of it ever came to your ears.

⁹“In order that people will praise my name, I am holding my anger in check; I am keeping it back and will not destroy you.

¹⁰I have tested you in the fire of suffering, as silver is refined in a furnace. But I have found that you are worthless.

¹¹What I do is done for my own sake— I will not let my name be dishonored or let anyone else share the glory that should be mine and mine alone.”

Cyrus, the Lord's Chosen Leader

¹²The Lord says, “Listen to me, Israel, the people I have called! I am God, the first, the last, the only God!

¹³My hands made the earth's foundations and spread the heavens out. When I summon earth and sky, they come at once and present themselves.

¹⁴“Assemble and listen, all of you! None of the gods could predict that the man I have chosen would attack Babylon; he will do what I want him to do.

¹⁵I am the one who spoke and called him; I led him out and gave him success.

¹⁶“Now come close to me and hear what I say. From the beginning I have spoken openly and have always made my words come true.” (Now the Sovereign Lord has given me his power and sent me.)

The Lord's Plan for His People

¹⁷The holy God of Israel, the Lord who saves you, says: “I am the Lord your God, the one who wants to teach you for your own good and direct you in the way you should go.

¹⁸“If only you had listened to my commands! Then blessings would have flowed for you like a stream that never goes dry. Victory would have come to you like the waves that roll on the shore.

¹⁹Your descendants would be as numerous as grains of sand, and I would have made sure they were never destroyed.”

²⁰Go out from Babylon, go free! Shout the news gladly; make it known everywhere: “The Lord has saved his servant Israel!”

²¹When the Lord led his people through a hot, dry desert, they did not suffer from thirst. He made water come from a rock for them; he split the rock open, and water flowed out.

²²“There is no safety for sinners,” says the Lord.

Idolatry in Jerusalem

¹On the fifth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of our exile, the leaders of the exiles from Judah were sitting in my house with me. Suddenly the power of the Sovereign Lord came on me.

²I looked up and saw a vision of a fiery human form. From the waist down his body looked like fire, and from the waist up he was shining like polished bronze.

³He reached out what seemed to be a hand and grabbed me by the hair. Then in this vision God's spirit lifted me high in the air and took me to Jerusalem. He took me to the inner entrance of the north gate of the Temple, where there was an idol that was an outrage to God.

⁴There I saw the dazzling light that shows the presence of Israel's God, just as I had seen it when I was by the Chebar River.

⁵God said to me, “Mortal man, look toward the north.” I looked, and there near the altar by the entrance of the gateway I saw the idol that was an outrage to God.

⁶God said to me, “Mortal man, do you see what is happening? Look at the disgusting things the people of Israel are doing here, driving me farther and farther away from my holy place. You will see even more disgraceful things than this.”

⁷He took me to the entrance of the outer courtyard and showed me a hole in the wall.

⁸He said, “Mortal man, break through the wall here.” I broke through it and found a door.

⁹He told me, “Go in and look at the evil, disgusting things they are doing there.”

¹⁰So I went in and looked. The walls were covered with drawings of snakes and other unclean animals, and of the other things which the Israelites were worshiping.

¹¹Seventy Israelite leaders were there, including Jaazaniah son of Shaphan. Each one was holding an incense burner, and smoke was rising from the incense.

¹²God asked me, “Mortal man, do you see what the Israelite leaders are doing in secret? They are all worshiping in a room full of images. Their excuse is: ‘The Lord doesn't see us! He has abandoned the country.’”

¹³Then the Lord said to me, “You are going to see them do even more disgusting things than that.”

¹⁴So he took me to the north gate of the Temple and showed me women weeping over the death of the god Tammuz.

¹⁵He asked, “Mortal man, do you see that? You will see even more disgusting things.”

¹⁶So he took me to the inner courtyard of the Temple. There near the entrance of the sanctuary, between the altar and the porch, were about twenty-five men. They had turned their backs to the sanctuary and were bowing low toward the east, worshiping the rising sun.

¹⁷The Lord said to me, “Mortal man, do you see that? These people of Judah are not satisfied with merely doing all the disgusting things you have seen here and with spreading violence throughout the country. No, they must come and do them right here in the Temple and make me even more angry. Look how they insult me in the most offensive way possible!

¹⁸They will feel all the force of my anger. I will not spare them or show them any mercy. They will shout prayers to me as loud as they can, but I will not listen to them.”

Jerusalem Is Punished

¹Then I heard God shout, “Come here, you men who are going to punish the city. Bring your weapons with you.”

²At once six men came from the outer north gate of the Temple, each one carrying a weapon. With them was a man dressed in linen clothes, carrying something to write with. They all came and stood by the bronze altar.

³Then the dazzling light of the presence of the God of Israel rose up from the winged creatures where it had been, and moved to the entrance of the Temple. The Lord called to the man dressed in linen,

⁴“Go through the whole city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the forehead of everyone who is distressed and troubled because of all the disgusting things being done in the city.”

⁵And I heard God say to the other men, “Follow him through the city and kill. Spare no one; have mercy on no one.

⁶Kill the old men, young men, young women, mothers, and children. But don't touch anyone who has the mark on his forehead. Start here at my Temple.” So they began with the leaders who were standing there at the Temple.

⁷God said to them, “Defile the Temple. Fill its courtyards with corpses. Get to work!” So they began to kill the people in the city.

⁸While the killing was going on, I was there alone. I threw myself face downward on the ground and shouted, “Sovereign Lord, are you so angry with Jerusalem that you are going to kill everyone left in Israel?”

⁹God answered, “The people of Israel and Judah are guilty of terrible sins. They have committed murder all over the land and have filled Jerusalem with crime. They say that I, the Lord, have abandoned their country and that I don't see them.

¹⁰But I will not have pity on them; I will do to them what they have done to others.”

¹¹Then the man wearing linen clothes returned and reported to the Lord, “I have carried out your orders.”

¹³The wicked are trapped by their own words, but honest people get themselves out of trouble.

¹⁴Your reward depends on what you say and what you do; you will get what you deserve.

¹⁵Stupid people always think they are right. Wise people listen to advice.

¹⁶When a fool is annoyed, he quickly lets it be known. Smart people will ignore an insult.