Chapter 27

¹ The Word of the Lord which He spoke against Babylon.

² Proclaim ye among the Gentiles, and cause the tidings to be heard, and suppress them not: say ye, Babylon is taken, Belus is confounded; the fearless, the luxurious Mærodach is delivered up. ³ For a nation has come up against her from the north, he shall utterly ravage her land, and there shall be none to dwell in it, neither man nor beast.

⁴ In those days, and at that time, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Juda together; they shall proceed, weeping as they go, seeking the Lord their God. ⁵ They shall ask the way till they come to Sion, for that way shall they set their face; and they shall come and flee for refuge to the Lord their God; for the everlasting covenant shall not be forgotten.

⁶ My people have been lost sheep: their shepherds thrust them out, they caused them to wander on the mountains: they went from mountain to hill, they forgot their resting-place. ⁷ All that found them consumed them: their enemies said, Let us

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not leave them alone, because they have sinned against the Lord: he that gathered their fathers had a pasture of righteousness.

^{8 1}Flee ye out of the midst of Babylon, and from the land of the Chaldeans, and go forth, and be as serpents before sleep. ⁹ For, behold, I stir up against Babylon the gatherings of nations out of the land of the north; and they shall set themselves in array against her: thence shall she be taken, as the dart of an expert warrior shall not return ²empty. ¹⁰ And Chaldea shall be a spoil: all that spoil her shall be satisfied.

¹¹ Because ye rejoiced, and boasted, while plundering mine heritage; because ye exulted as calves in the grass, and pushed with the horn as bulls. ¹² Your mother is greatly ashamed; your mother that bore you for prosperity is confounded: she is the last of the nations, desolate, ¹³ by reason of the Lord's anger: it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be all a desolation; and every one that passes through Babylon shall ³scowl, and they shall hiss at all her plague.

¹⁴ Set yourselves in array against Babylon round about, all ye that bend the bow; shoot at her, spare not your arrows, ¹⁵ and prevail against her: her hands are weakened, her bulwarks are fallen, and her wall is broken down: for it is vengeance from God: take vengeance upon her; as she has done, do to her. ¹⁶ Utterly destroy seed out of Babylon, and him that holds a sickle in time of harvest: for fear of the Grecian sword, they shall return every one to his people, and every one shall flee to his own land.

¹⁷ Israel is a wandering sheep; the lions have driven him out: the king of Assyria firsts devoured him, and afterward this king of Babylon has gnawed his bones. ¹⁸ Therefore thus saith the Lord; Behold, I will take vengeance on the king of Babylon, and upon his land, as I took vengeance on the king of Assyria. ¹⁹ And I will restore Israel to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and on mount Ephraim and in Galaad, and his soul shall be satisfied. ²⁰ In those days, and at that time,⁴ they shall seek for the iniquity of Israel, and there shall be none; and for the sins of Juda, and they shall not be found: for I will be merciful to them that are left ²¹ on the land, saith the Lord.

Go up against it ⁵roughly, and against them that dwell on it: avenge, O sword, and destroy utterly, saith the Lord, and do according to all that I command thee. ²² A sound of war, and great destruction in the land of the Chaldeans! ²³ How is the hammer of the whole earth broken and crushed! How is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! ²⁴ They shall come upon thee, and thou shalt not know it, Babylon, that thou wilt even be taken captive: thou art found and taken, because thou didst resist the Lord.

²⁵ The Lord has opened his treasury, and brought forth the weapons of his anger: for the Lord God has a work in the land of the Chaldeans. ²⁶ For her times are come: open ye her storehouses: search her as a cave, and utterly destroy her: let there be no remnant

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of her. ²⁷ Dry ye up all her fruits, and let them go down to the slaughter: woe to them! for their day is come, and the time of their retribution. ²⁸ A voice of men fleeing and escaping from the land of Babylon, to declare to Sion the vengeance that comes from the Lord our God.

²⁹ Summon many against Babylon, even every one that bends the bow: camp against her round about; let no one of her people escape: render to her according to her works; according to all that she has done, do to her: for she has resisted the Lord, the Holy God of Israel. ³⁰ Therefore shall her young men fall in the streets, and all her warriors shall be cast down, saith the Lord.

³¹ Behold, I am against thee the haughty one, saith the Lord: for thy day is come, and the time of thy retribution. ³² And thy pride shall fail, and fall, and there shall be no one to set it up again: and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all things round about her.

³³ Thus saith the Lord; The children of Israel and the children of Juda have been oppressed: all they that have taken them captive have oppressed them together; for they would not let them go. ³⁴ But their Redeemer is strong; the Lord Almighty is his name: he will enter into judgment with his adversaries, that he may destroy the earth; ³⁵ and he will sharpen a sword against the Chaldeans, and against the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her nobles and upon her wise men; ³⁶ a sword upon her warriors, and they shall be weakened: a sword upon their horses, and upon their chariots: ³⁷ a sword upon their warriors and upon the mixed people in the midst of her; and they shall be as women: a sword upon the treasures, and they shall be scattered upon her water, ³⁸ and they shall be ashamed: for it is a land of graven images; and in the islands, where they boasted. ³⁹ Therefore shall idols dwell in the islands, and the ⁶young of monsters shall dwell in it: it shall not be inhabited any more for ever. ⁴⁰ As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities bordering upon them, saith the Lord: no man shall dwell there, and no son of man shall sojourn there.

⁴¹ Behold, a people comes from the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall be stirred up from the end of the earth; holding bow and dagger: ⁴² the people is fierce, and will have no mercy: their voices shall sound as the sea, they shall ride upon horses, prepared for war, like fire, against thee, O daughter of Babylon. ⁴³ The king of Babylon heard the sound of them, and his hands were enfeebled: anguish overcame him, pangs as of a woman in travail. ⁴⁴ Behold, he shall come up as a lion from Jordan to ⁷Gæthan; for I will speedily drive them from her, and I will set all the youths against her: for who is like me? and who will resist me? and who is this shepherd who will stand before me?

⁴⁵ Therefore hear ye the counsel of the

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Lord, which he has taken against Babylon; and his devices, which he has devised upon the Chaldeans inhabiting it: surely lambs of their flock shall be destroyed: surely pasture shall be cut off from them. ⁴⁶ For at the sound of the taking of Babylon the earth shall quake, and a cry shall be heard among the nations.