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day 200 and 68
the Lord gave Jeremiah the prophet, this message concerning Babylon
and the land of the Babylonians.
This is what the Lord says.
Tell the whole world and keep nothing back.
Raise a signal flag to tell everyone that Babylon will fall.
Her images and idols will be shattered.
Her God's bell and Marduke will be utterly disgraced.
For a nation will attack her from the north and bring such destruction
that no one will live there again.
Everything will be gone.
Both people and animals will flee in those coming days, says the Lord.
The people of Israel will return home together with the people of Judah.
They will come weeping and seeking the Lord their God.
They will ask the way to Jerusalem and will start back home again.
They will bind themselves to the Lord with an eternal covenant
that will never be forgotten.
My people have been lost sheep.
Their shepherds have led them astray and turned them loose in the mountains.
They have lost their way and can't remember how to
get back to the sheep fold.
All who found them devoured them.
Their enemies said We did nothing wrong in attacking them.
For they sinned against the Lord, their true place of rest
and the hope of their ancestors.
Now flee from Babylon.
Leave the land of the Babylonians like male goats at the head of the flock.
Lead my people home again for I am raising up an army of
great nations from the north.
They will join forces to attack Babylon, and she will be captured.
The enemy's arrows will go straight to the mark.
They will not miss.
Babylonia, will be looted until the attackers are glutted with loot.
I the Lord have spoken.
You, rejoice and are glad you who plundered my chosen people.
You frisk about like a calf in a meadow and nay like a stallion.
But your homeland will be overwhelmed with shame and disgrace.
You'll become the least of nations.
A wilderness, a dry and desolate land.
Because of the Lord's anger, Babylon will become a deserted wasteland.
All who passed by will be horrified and will gasp at the
destruction they see there.
Yes.
Prepare to attack Babylon all you surrounding nations.
Let your archers shoot at her.
Spare no arrows for she has sinned against the Lord.
Shout.
War cries against her from every side.
Look she surrenders.
Her walls have fallen.
It is the Lord's vengeance, so take vengeance on her.
Due to her as she has done to others.
Take from Babylon, all those who plant crops send all the harvesters away.
Because of the sword of the enemy, everyone will run away
and rush back to their own lands.
The Israelites are like sheep that have been scattered by lions.
First, the King of Assyria ate them up.
Then King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon cracked their bones.
Therefore, This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies, the God of Israel says.
Now I will punish the king of Babylon and his land just as I punished the
King of Assyria, and I will bring Israel home again to its own land,
to feed in the fields of Carmel and Basin, and to be satisfied once
more in the hill country of Iram and Gilead in those days says the Lord.
No sin will be found in Israel or in Judah.
For I will forgive the remnant I preserve.
Go up my warriors against the land of mith and against the people of
peacock pursue, kill and completely destroy them as I have commanded you.
Says the Lord.
Let the battle cry.
Be heard in the land.
A shout of great destruction Babylon.
The mightiest hammer in all the earth lies broken and shattered.
Babylon is desolate among the nations.
Listen, Babylon, for I have set a trap for you.
You are caught for you have fought against the Lord.
The Lord has opened his armory and brought out weapons to vent his fury.
The terror that falls upon the Babylonians will be the work of the
sovereign Lord of heaven's armies.
Yes, come against her from distant lands.
Break open her granaries, crush her walls and houses into heaps of rubble.
Destroy her completely and leave nothing destroy.
Even her young bulls.
It will be terrible for them too.
Slaughter them all for Babylon's.
Day of Reckoning has come.
Listen to the people who have escaped from Babylon.
As they tell in Jerusalem how the Lord our God has taken vengeance against
those who destroyed his temple.
Send out a call for archers to come to Babylon, surround the city so
none can escape due to her as she has done to others, for she has defied
the Lord, the holy one of Israel.
Her young men will fall in the streets and die.
Her soldiers will all be killed, says the Lord.
See, I am your enemy.
You arrogant people, says the Lord.
The Lord of heaven's armies.
Your day of reckoning has arrived the day when I will punish you.
Oh, land of arrogance.
You will stumble and fall and no one will raise you up for I will light
a fire in the cities of Babylon that will burn up everything around them.
This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies says.
The people of Israel and Judah have been wronged.
Their captors hold them and refuse to let them go, but the
one who redeems them is strong.
His name is the Lord of Heaven's armies.
He will defend them and give them rest again in Israel.
But for the people of Babylon, there will be no rest.
The sword of destruction will strike the Babylonians, says the Lord.
It will strike the people of Babylon.
Her officials and wise men too.
The sword will strike her wise counselors and they will become fools.
The sword will strike her mightiest warriors and panic will seize them.
The sword will strike her horses and chariots and her allies from other lands
and they will all become like women.
The sword will strike her treasures and they all will be plundered.
A drought will strike her water supply, causing it to dry up.
Why?
Because the whole land is filled with idols and the people
are madly in love with them.
Soon Babylon will be inhabited by desert animals and hyenas.
It will be a home for owls.
Never again will people live there.
It will lie desolate forever.
I will destroy it as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and their
neighboring towns says the Lord.
No one will live there.
No one will inhabit it.
Look, a great army is coming from the north, a great nation, and many kings are
rising against you from far off lands.
They are armed with bows and spears.
They are cruel and show no mercy as they ride forward on horses.
They sound like a roaring sea.
They're coming in battle formation, planning to destroy you, Babylon.
The King of Babylon has heard reports about the enemy,
and he is weak with fright.
Pangs of anguish have gripped him, like those of a woman in labor.
I will come like a lion from the thickets of the Jordan leaping
on the sheep in the pasture.
I will chase Babylon from its land and I will appoint the leader of my choice for
who is like me and who can challenge me.
What ruler can oppose my will.
Listen to the Lord's plans against Babylon and the land of the Babylonians.
Even the little children will be dragged off like sheep and
their homes will be destroyed.
The earth will shake with the shout.
Babylon has been taken and its cry of despair will be heard around the world.
This is what the Lord says.
I will stir up a destroyer against Babylon and the people of Babylonia.
Foreigners will come and winnow her, blowing her away as chaff.
They will come from every side to rise against her in her day of trouble.
Don't let the archers put on their armor or draw their bows.
Don't spare.
Even her best soldiers let her army be completely destroyed.
They will fall dead in the land of the babylonians slash to death in her streets.
For the Lord of Heaven's, armies has not abandoned Israel and Judah.
He is still their God.
Even though their land was filled with sin against the holy one of Israel.
Flee from Babylon.
Save yourselves.
Don't get trapped in her punishment.
It is the Lord's time for vengeance.
He will repay her in full.
Babylon has been a gold cup in the Lord's hands.
A cup that made the whole earth drunk.
The nations drank Babylon's wine and it drove them all mad.
But suddenly, Babylon two has fallen, weep for her, give her medicine.
Perhaps she can yet be healed.
We would have helped her if we could, but nothing can save her now.
Let her go.
Abandon her.
Return now to your own land for her punishment reaches to the heavens.
It is so great.
It cannot be measured.
The Lord has vindicated us.
Come let us announce in Jerusalem everything the Lord our God has done.
Sharpen the arrows.
Lift up the shields.
For the Lord has inspired the kings of the meads to march
against Babylon and destroy her.
This is his vengeance against those who desecrated his temple.
Raise the battle flag against Babylon.
Reinforce the guard and station the watchmen.
Prepare an ambush.
For the Lord will fulfill all his plans against Babylon.
You are a city by a great river, a great center of commerce, but your end has come.
The thread of your life is cut.
The Lord of heaven's armies has taken this vow and has sworn to it by his own name.
Your cities will be filled with enemies like fields swarming with locusts, and
they will shout in triumph over you.
The Lord made the earth by his power and he preserves it by his wisdom.
With his own understanding, he stretched out the heavens.
When he speaks in the thunder, the heavens roar with rain.
He causes the clouds to rise over the earth.
He sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from his storehouses.
The whole human race is foolish and has no knowledge.
The craftsmen are disgraced by the idols they make for their
carefully shaped works are a fraud.
These idols have no breath or power.
Idols are worthless.
They are ridiculous Lies.
On the day of reckoning, they will all be destroyed.
But the God of Israel is no idol.
He is the creator of everything that exists, including his people,
his own special possession.
The Lord of Heaven's armies is his name.
You are my battleax and sword, says the Lord.
With you, I will shatter nations and destroy many kingdoms with you.
I will shatter armies, destroying the horse and rider, the
chariot and charioteer with you.
I will shatter men and women, old people and children, young men and young women.
With you.
I will shatter shepherds and flocks, farmers and oxen, captains and officers.
I will repay Babylon and the people of Babylonia for all the wrong they have done
to my people in Jerusalem, says the Lord.
Look almighty mountain, destroyer of the earth.
I am your enemy, says the Lord.
I will raise my fist against you.
To knock you down from the heights.
When I am finished, you will be nothing but a heap of burnt rubble.
You will be desolate forever.
Even your stones will never again be used for building.
You'll be completely wiped out, says the Lord.
Raise a signal.
Flag to the nations.
Sound the battle cry.
Mobilized them all against Babylon.
Prepare them to fight against her.
Bring out the armies of Ara, Minai and Ashkenaz.
Appoint a commander and bring a multitude of horses like swarming, locusts
bring against her, the armies of the nations led by the kings of the Meads
and all their captains and officers.
The earth trembles and rides in pain.
For everything the Lord has planned against Babylon stands unchanged.
Babylon will be left desolate without a single inhabitant.
Her mightiest warriors no longer fight.
They stay in their barracks, their courage gone.
They have become like women.
The invaders have burned the houses and broken down the city gates.
The news is passed from one runner to the next.
As the messengers hurry to tell the king that his city has been captured.
All the escape routes are blocked.
The marshes have been set a flame, and the army is in a panic.
This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies, the God of Israel says.
Babylon is like wheat on a threshing floor, about to be trampled in just a
little while, her harvest will begin.
King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has eaten and crushed us and drained us of strength.
He has swallowed us like a great monster and filled his belly with our riches.
He has thrown us out of our own country.
Make Babylon suffer as she made us suffer.
Say the people of Zion.
Make the people of Babylonia pay for spilling our blood says Jerusalem.
This is what the Lord says to Jerusalem.
I will be your lawyer to plead your case and I will aven you.
I will dry up her river as well as her springs and Babylon
will become a heap of ruins.
Haunted by jackals.
She will be an object of horror and contempt.
A place where no one lives.
Her people will roar together like strong lions.
They will growl like lion cubs, and while they lie inflamed with
all their wine, I will prepare a different kind of feast for them.
I will make them drink until they fall asleep and they will never
wake up again, says the Lord.
I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and goats to
be sacrificed how Babylon is fallen.
Great Babylon praised throughout the earth.
Now she has become an object of horror among the nations.
The sea has risen over Babylon.
She is covered by its crashing waves.
Her city's now lie in ruins.
She is a dry wasteland where no one lives or even passes by.
And I will punish Bell the God of Babylon, and make him vomit up all he has eaten.
The nations will no longer come and worship him.
The wall of Babylon has fallen.
Come out.
My people flee from Babylon.
Save yourselves.
Run from the Lord's fierce anger, but do not panic.
Don't be afraid when you hear the first rumor of approaching forces
for rumors will keep coming.
Year by year, violence will erupt in the land as the leaders
fight against each other.
For the time is surely coming.
When I will punish this great city and all her idols, her whole
land will be disgraced and her dead will lie in the streets.
Then the heavens and earth will rejoice for out of the north, will come destroying
armies against Babylon, says the Lord.
Just as Babylon killed the people of Israel and others throughout the
world, so must her people be killed.
Get out all you who have escaped the sword.
Do not stand and watch.
Flee while you can.
Remember the Lord, though you are in a far off land and think about your
home in Jerusalem, we are ashamed.
The people say we are insulted and disgraced because the Lord's temple
has been defiled by foreigners.
Yes, says the Lord.
But the time is coming when I will destroy Babylon's idols.
The groans of her wounded people will be heard throughout the land.
Though Babylon reaches as high as the heavens and makes her fortifications
incredibly strong, I will still send enemies to plunder her.
I, the Lord have spoken, listen, hear the cry of Babylon, the
sound of great destruction from the land of the Babylonians.
For the Lord is destroying Babylon.
He will silence her loud voice.
Waves of enemies pound against her.
The noise of battle rings through the city destroying armies come against Babylon.
Her mighty men are captured and their weapons break in their hands.
For the Lord is a God who gives just punishment.
He always repays in full.
I will make her officials and wise men drunk along with her captains,
officers and warriors, they will fall asleep and never wake up again.
Says the king whose name is the Lord of Heaven's armies.
This is what the Lord of Heaven's armies says.
The thick walls of Babylon will be leveled to the ground and her
massive gates will be burned.
The builders from many lands have worked in vain.
For their work will be destroyed by fire.
The prophet Jeremiah gave this message to Soraya son of Neriah and grandson of
Macia, a staff officer, when Soraya went to Babylon with Kings Akia of Judah.
This was during the fourth year of Zeke's reign.
Jeremiah had recorded on a scroll all the terrible disasters that
would soon come upon Babylon.
All the words written here, he said to Soraya.
When you get to Babylon, read aloud everything on this scroll.
Then say, Lord, you have said that you will destroy Babylon so that neither
people nor animals will remain here.
She will lie empty and abandoned forever.
When you have finished reading the scroll, tie it to a stone and
throw it into the Euphrates River.
Then say, in this same way, Babylon and her people will sink never again to rise.
Because of the disasters I will bring upon her.
This is the end of Jeremiah's messages.
Zeek was 21 years old when he became King, and he reigned in Jerusalem 11 years.
His mother was Hamal, the daughter of Jeremiah from Libya, but Zeek
did what was evil in the Lord's sight just as JE Hoya Kim had done.
These things happened because of the Lord's anger against the people
of Jerusalem and Judah, until he finally banished them from his
presence and sent them into exile.
Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
So on January 15th, during the ninth year of Zedekiah's reign,
king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon led his entire army against Jerusalem.
They surrounded the city and built siege ramps against its walls.
Jerusalem was kept under siege until the 11th year of King Zia's reign.
By July 18th, in the 11th year of Zia's Reign, the famine in the city
had become very severe, and the last of the food was entirely gone.
Then a section of the city wall was broken down and all the soldiers fled.
Since the city was surrounded by the Babylonians, they waited for nightfall.
Then they slipped through the gate between the two walls, behind the King's Garden
and headed toward the Jordan Valley.
But the Babylonian troops chased Kings atia, and overtook
him on the planes of Jericho.
For his men, had all deserted him and scattered, they captured the king
and took him to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath.
There, the King of Babylon, pronounced judgment upon Zetia.
The King of Babylon made Zeek watch as he slaughtered his sons.
He also slaughtered all the officials of Judah at Riblah.
Then he gouged out Zeek CA's eyes and bound him in bronze chains, and the
King of Babylon led him away to Babylon.
Zeek remained there in prison until the day of his death
on August 17th of that year.
Which was the 19th year of King Nebuchadnezzar's reign.
Neba Arain, the captain of the Guard and an official of the Babylonian
king, arrived in Jerusalem.
He burned down the temple of the Lord, the royal palace and
all the houses of Jerusalem.
He destroyed all the important buildings in the city.
Then he supervised the entire Babylonian army as they tore down
the walls of Jerusalem on every side.
Then Neba Zain, the captain of the guard, took as exiles some of the poorest of
the people, the rest of the people who remained in the city, the defectors, who
had declared their allegiance to the king of Babylon and the rest of the craftsmen.
But Neba Zain allowed some of the poorest people to stay behind to
care for the vineyards and fields.
The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars in front of the Lord's
Temple, the bronze water carts.
And the great bronze Basin called the Sea, and they carried all
the bronze away to Babylon.
They also took all the ash buckets, shovels, lamp, snuffers, basins, dishes,
and all the other bronze articles used for making sacrifices at the temple.
The captain of the guard also took the small bowls, incense, burners,
basins, pots, lampstands, ladles bowls used for liquid offerings.
And all the other articles made of pure gold or silver.
The weight of the bronze from the two pillars, the sea, with the 12
bronze oxen beneath it, and the water carts was too great to be measured.
These things had been made for the Lord's temple in the days of King Solomon.
Each of the pillars was 27 feet tall and 18 feet in circumference.
They were hollow with walls, three inches thick.
The bronze capital on top of each pillar was seven and a half feet high
and was decorated with a network of bronze pomegranates all the way around.
There were 96 pomegranates on the sides and a total of 100
pomegranates on the network.
Around the top Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard took with him
as prisoners, Sreya, the high priest, Zephaniah, the priest of the second
rank and the three chief gatekeepers.
And from among the people still hiding in the city, he took an officer who
had been in charge of the Judean Army, seven of the King's personal
advisors, the Army commander's chief secretary, who was in charge of
recruitment and 60 other citizens.
Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, took them all to the king of
Babylon at Riblah, and there at Riblah in the land of Hamath, the king of
Babylon, had them all put to death.
The people of Judah were sent into exile from their land.
The number of captives taken to Babylon in the seventh year of
Nebuchadnezzar's reign was 3023.
Then in Nebuchadnezzar's 18th year, he took 832 more in Nebuchadnezzar's.
23rd year, he sent Neba Zain, the captain of the guard who took 745
more a total of 4,600 captives in all.
In the 37th year of the exile of King Je Hoa, kin of Judah evil, MEOC
ascended to the Babylonian throne.
He was kind to je Hoa kin and released him from prison on March 31st of that year.
He spoke kindly to JE Hoya kin and gave him a higher place than all
the other exiled kings in Babylon.
He supplied JE Hoya kin with new clothes to replace his prison garb
and allowed him to dine in the King's presence for the rest of his life.
So the Babylonian king gave him a regular food allowance as long as he lived.
This continued until the day of his death.
This concludes today's Immerse Reading experience.
Thank you for joining us.