Tanakh & Talmud. Various Authors

satisfied upon the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead.²⁰In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord,The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none,And the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found;For I will pardon them whom I leave as a remnant. ²¹Go up against the land of 7Merathaim, even against it,And against the inhabitants of 8Pekod;Waste and utterly destroy after them, saith the Lord,And do according to all that I have commanded thee.²²Hark! battle is in the land,And great destruction.²³How is the hammer of the whole earthCut asunder and broken!How is Babylon becomeA desolation among the nations!²⁴I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon,And thou wast not aware;Thou art found, and also caught,Because thou hast striven against the Lord.²⁵The Lord hath opened His armoury,And hath brought forth the weapons of His indignation;For it is a work that the Lord God of hostsHath to do in the land of the Chaldeans.²⁶Come against her from every quarter, open her granaries,Cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly;Let nothing of her be left.²⁷Slay all her bullocks, let them go down to the slaughter;Woe unto them! for their day is come,The time of their visitation.²⁸Hark! they flee and escape out of the land of Babylon,To declare in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God,The vengeance of His temple.²⁹Call together the archers against Babylon,All them that bend the bow;Encamp against her round about,Let none thereof escape;Recompense her according to her work,According to all that she hath done, do unto her:For she hath been arrogant against the Lord,Against the Holy One of Israel.³⁰Therefore shall her young men fall in her broad places,And all her men of war shall be brought to silence in that day,Saith the Lord. ³¹Behold, I am against thee, O thou most arrogant,Saith the Lord God of hosts;For thy day is come,The time that I will punish thee.³²And the most arrogant shall stumble and fall,And none shall raise him up;And I will kindle a fire in his cities,And it shall devour all that are round about him. ³³Thus saith the Lord of hosts:The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together;And all that took them captives hold them fast;They refuse to let them go.³⁴Their Redeemer is strong,The Lord of hosts is His name;He will thoroughly plead their cause,That He may give rest to the earth,And disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.³⁵A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord,And upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men.³⁶A sword is upon the boasters, and they shall become fools;A sword is upon her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed.³⁷A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots,And upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her,And they shall become as women;A sword is upon her treasures, and they shall be robbed.³⁸A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up;For it is a land of graven images,And they are mad upon things of horror.³⁹Therefore the wild-cats with the jackals shall dwell there,And the ostriches shall dwell therein; and it shall be no more inhabited for ever,Neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.⁴⁰As when God overthrew Sodom and GomorrahAnd the neighbour cities thereof, saith the Lord;So shall no man abide there,Neither shall any son of man dwell therein. ⁴¹Behold, a people cometh from the north,And a great nation, and many kingsShall be roused from the uttermost parts of the earth.⁴²They lay hold on bow and spear,They are cruel, and have no compassion;Their voice is like the roaring sea,And they ride upon horses;Set in array, as a man for war,Against thee, O daughter of Babylon.⁴³The king of Babylon hath heard the fame of them,And his hands wax feeble;Anguish hath taken hold of him,And pain, as of a woman in travail.⁴⁴Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the thickets of the JordanAgainst the strong habitation;For I will suddenly make them run away from it,And whoso is chosen, him will I appoint over it;For who is like Me? and who will appoint Me a time?And who is that shepherd that will stand before Me?⁴⁵Therefore hear ye the counsel of the Lord,That He hath taken against Babylon,And His purposes, that He hath purposed against the land of the Chaldeans:Surely the least of the flock shall drag them away,Surely their habitation shall be appalled at them.⁴⁶At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth quaketh,And the cry is heard among the nations.

       51Thus saith the Lord:

      Behold, I will raise up against Babylon,And against them that dwell in 9Lebkamai, a destroying wind.²And I will send unto Babylon strangers, that shall fan her,And they shall empty her land;For in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about.³Let the archer bend his bow against her,And let him lift himself up against her in his coat of mail;And spare ye not her young men,Destroy ye utterly all her host.⁴And they shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans,And thrust through in her streets.⁵For Israel is not widowed, nor Judah,Of his God, of the Lord of hosts;For their land is full of guiltAgainst the Holy One of Israel.⁶Flee out of the midst of Babylon,And save every man his life,Be not cut off in her iniquity;For it is the time of the Lord's vengeance;He will render unto her a recompense.⁷Babylon hath been a golden cup in Lord's hand,That made all the earth drunken;The nations have drunk of her wine,Therefore the nations are mad.⁸Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed,Wail for her;Take balm for her pain,If so be she may be healed.⁹We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed;Forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country;For her judgment reacheth unto heaven,And is lifted up even to the skies.¹⁰The Lord hath brought forth our victory;Come, and let us declare in ZionThe work of the Lord our God. ¹¹Make bright the arrows,Fill the quivers,The Lord hath roused the spirit of the kings of the Medes;Because His device is against Babylon, to destroy it;For it is the vengeance of the Lord,The vengeance of His temple.¹²Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon,Make the watch strong,Set the watchmen, prepare the ambushes;For the Lord hath both devised and doneThat which He spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.¹³O thou that dwellest upon many waters,Abundant in treasures,Thine end is come,The measure of thy covetousness.¹⁴The Lord of hosts hath sworn by Himself:Surely I will fill thee with men, as with the canker-worm,And they shall lift up a shout against thee. ¹⁵He that hath made the earth by His power,That hath established the world by His wisdom,And hath stretched out the heavens by His discernment;¹⁶At the sound of His giving a multitude of waters in the heavens,He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth;He maketh lightnings at the time of the rain,And bringeth forth the wind out of His treasuries;¹⁷Every man is proved to be brutish, for the knowledge—Every goldsmith is put to shame by the graven image—That his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.¹⁸They are vanity, a work of delusion;In the time of their visitation they shall perish,¹⁹The portion of Jacob is not like these;For He is the former of all things,And [Israel] is the tribe of His inheritance;The Lord of hosts is His name. ²⁰Thou art My maul and weapons of war,And with thee will I shatter the nations,And with thee will I destroy kingdoms;²¹And with thee will I shatter the horse and his rider,And with thee will I shatter the chariot and him that rideth therein;²²And with thee will I shatter man and woman,And with thee will I shatter the old man and the youth,And with thee will I shatter the young man and the maid;²³And with thee will I shatter the shepherd and his flock,And with thee will I shatter the husbandman and his yoke of oxen,And with thee will I shatter governors and deputies.²⁴And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of ChaldeaAll their evil that they have done in Zion, in your sight;Saith the Lord. ²⁵Behold, I am against thee,O destroying mountain, saith the Lord,Which destroyest all the earth;And I will stretch out My hand upon thee,And roll thee down from the rocks,And will make thee a burnt mountain.²⁶And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner,Nor a stone for foundations;But thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the Lord. ²⁷Set ye up a standard in the land,Blow the horn among the nations,Prepare the nations against her,Call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz;Appoint a marshal against her;Cause the horses to come up as the rough canker-worm.²⁸Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes,The governors thereof, and all the deputies thereof,And all the land of his dominion.²⁹And the land quaketh and is in pain;For the purposes of the Lord are performed against Babylon,To make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.³⁰The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight,They remain