Sermon Central
Jeremiah 51
Babylon Judged For Sins Against Israel
1Thus says the LORD:
And against the inhabitants of Leb-kamai
The spirit of a destroyer.
And may devastate her land;
For on every side they will be opposed to her
In the day of her calamity.
Nor let him rise up in his scale-armor;
So do not spare her young men;
Devote all her army to destruction.
And pierced through in their streets.”
By his God, the LORD of hosts,
Although their land is full of guilt
Before the Holy One of Israel.
And each of you save his life!
Do not be destroyed in her punishment,
For this is the LORD’S time of vengeance;
He is going to render recompense to her.
Intoxicating all the earth.
The nations have drunk of her wine;
Therefore the nations are going mad.
Wail over her!
Bring balm for her pain;
Perhaps she may be healed.
Forsake her and let us each go to his own country,
For her judgment has reached to heaven
And towers up to the very skies.
Come and let us recount in Zion
The work of the LORD our God!
The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes,
Because His purpose is against Babylon to destroy it;
For it is the vengeance of the LORD, vengeance for His temple.
Post a strong guard,
Station sentries,
Place men in ambush!
For the LORD has both purposed and performed
What He spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.
Abundant in treasures,
Your end has come,
The measure of your end.
“Surely I will fill you with a population like locusts,
And they will cry out with shouts of victory over you.”
Who established the world by His wisdom,
And by His understanding He stretched out the heavens.
And He causes the clouds to ascend from the end of the earth;
He makes lightning for the rain
And brings forth the wind from His storehouses.
Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols,
For his molten images are deceitful,
And there is no breath in them.
In the time of their punishment they will perish.
For the Maker of all is He,
And of the tribe of His inheritance;
The LORD of hosts is His name.
And with you I shatter nations,
And with you I destroy kingdoms.
And with you I shatter the chariot and its rider,
And with you I shatter old man and youth,
And with you I shatter young man and virgin,
And with you I shatter the farmer and his team,
And with you I shatter governors and prefects.
24“But I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil that they have done in Zion before your eyes,” declares the LORD.
Who destroys the whole earth,” declares the LORD,
“And I will stretch out My hand against you,
And roll you down from the crags,
And I will make you a burnt out mountain.
Nor a stone for foundations,
But you will be desolate forever,” declares the LORD.
Blow a trumpet among the nations!
Consecrate the nations against her,
Summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz;
Appoint a marshal against her,
Bring up the horses like bristly locusts.
The kings of the Medes,
Their governors and all their prefects,
And every land of their dominion.
For the purposes of the LORD against Babylon stand,
To make the land of Babylon
A desolation without inhabitants.
They stay in the strongholds;
Their strength is exhausted,
They are becoming like women;
Their dwelling places are set on fire,
The bars of her gates are broken.
And one messenger to meet another,
To tell the king of Babylon
That his city has been captured from end to end;
And they have burned the marshes with fire,
And the men of war are terrified.
33For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:
At the time it is stamped firm;
Yet in a little while the time of harvest will come for her.”
He has set me down like an empty vessel;
He has swallowed me like a monster,
He has filled his stomach with my delicacies;
He has washed me away.
The inhabitant of Zion will say;
And, “May my blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
Jerusalem will say.
36Therefore thus says the LORD,
And exact full vengeance for you;
And I will dry up her sea
And make her fountain dry.
An object of horror and hissing, without inhabitants.
They will growl like lions’ cubs.
And make them drunk, that they may become jubilant
And may sleep a perpetual sleep
And not wake up,” declares the LORD.
Like rams together with male goats.
And the praise of the whole earth been seized!
How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations!
She has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves.
A parched land and a desert,
A land in which no man lives
And through which no son of man passes.
And I will make what he has swallowed come out of his mouth;
And the nations will no longer stream to him.
Even the wall of Babylon has fallen down!
And each of you save yourselves
From the fierce anger of the LORD.
And you are not afraid at the report that will be heard in the land—
For the report will come one year,
And after that another report in another year,
And violence will be in the land
With ruler against ruler—
When I will punish the idols of Babylon;
And her whole land will be put to shame
And all her slain will fall in her midst.
Will shout for joy over Babylon,
For the destroyers will come to her from the north,”
Declares the LORD.
As also for Babylon the slain of all the earth have fallen.
Depart! Do not stay!
Remember the LORD from afar,
And let Jerusalem come to your mind.
Disgrace has covered our faces,
For aliens have entered
The holy places of the LORD’S house.
“When I will punish her idols,
And the mortally wounded will groan throughout her land.
And though she should fortify her lofty stronghold,
From Me destroyers will come to her,” declares the LORD.
And of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!
And He will make her loud noise vanish from her.
And their waves will roar like many waters;
The tumult of their voices sounds forth.
And her mighty men will be captured,
Their bows are shattered;
For the LORD is a God of recompense,
He will fully repay.
Her governors, her prefects and her mighty men,
That they may sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake up,”
Declares the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.
58Thus says the LORD of hosts,
And her high gates will be set on fire;
So the peoples will toil for nothing,
And the nations become exhausted only for fire.”
59The message which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the grandson of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. (Now Seraiah was quartermaster.) 60So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll all the calamity which would come upon Babylon, that is, all these words which have been written concerning Babylon. 61Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “As soon as you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words aloud, 62and say, ‘You, O LORD, have promised concerning this place to cut it off, so that there will be nothing dwelling in it, whether man or beast, but it will be a perpetual desolation.’ 63And as soon as you finish reading this scroll, you will tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates, 64and say, ‘Just so shall Babylon sink down and not rise again because of the calamity that I am going to bring upon her; and they will become exhausted.’” Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.