Jeremiah 4:16

Set up a banner on the bare mountain! Lift up your voice to them! Wave your hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles.

Bel bows down. Nebo stoops. Their idols are carried by animals, and on the livestock. The things that you carried around are heavy loads, a burden for the weary.

Lay siege against it, build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it. Also set camps against it and plant battering rams against it all around.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom. He will gently lead those who have their young.

Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand,

Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs.” He answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground.

A lion has gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations. He is on his way. He has gone out from his place, to make your land desolate, that your cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.

“Prepare war against her! Arise! Let’s go up at noon. Woe to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.

All your lovers have forgotten you. They don’t seek you. For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins were increased.

In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about.

You will stumble in the day, and the prophet will also stumble with you in the night; and I will destroy your mother.

“ ‘You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you. I am Yahweh.

You are the children of Yahweh your God. You shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.

Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

Yahweh is my shepherd: I shall lack nothing.

He appointed it in Joseph for a covenant, when he went out over the land of Egypt, I heard a language that I didn’t know.

He will lift up a banner to the nations from far away, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly.

But he will speak to this nation with stammering lips and in another language,

“Keep silent before me, islands, and let the peoples renew their strength. Let them come near, then let them speak. Let’s meet together for judgment.

Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the peoples be assembled. Who among them can declare this, and show us former things? Let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified, or let them hear, and say, “That is true.”

The Lord Yahweh, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, says, “I will yet gather others to him, in addition to his own who are gathered.”

“I will set a sign among them, and I will send those who escape of them to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to far-away islands, who have not heard my fame, nor have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations.

For, behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north,” says Yahweh. “They will come, and they will each set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its walls all around, and against all the cities of Judah.

Set up a standard toward Zion. Flee for safety! Don’t wait; for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.”

Behold, I will bring a nation on you from far away, house of Israel,” says Yahweh. “It is a mighty nation. It is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you don’t know and don’t understand what they say.

“But this people has a revolting and a rebellious heart. They have revolted and gone.

Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: “Isn’t Yahweh in Zion? Isn’t her King in her?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign idols?”

“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name’s sake, Yahweh; for our rebellions are many. We have sinned against you.

Therefore Yahweh says concerning Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah: “They won’t lament for him, saying, ‘Ah my brother!’ or, ‘Ah sister!’ They won’t lament for him, saying ‘Ah lord!’ or, ‘Ah his glory!’

behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says Yahweh, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, with all his army, all the kingdoms of the earth that were under his dominion, and all the peoples, were fighting against Jerusalem and against all its cities, saying:

All the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, Nergal Sharezer, Samgarnebo, Sarsechim, Rabsaris, Nergal Sharezer, Rabmag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon.

men came from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even eighty men, having their beards shaved and their clothes torn, and having cut themselves, with meal offerings and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to Yahweh’s house.

The daughter of Egypt will be disappointed; she will be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.”

Baldness has come on Gaza; Ashkelon is brought to nothing, the remnant of their valley: how long will you cut yourself?

“Israel is a hunted sheep. The lions have driven him away. First, the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.”

A drought is on her waters, and they will be dried up; for it is a land of engraved images, and they are mad over idols.

“Set up a standard in the land! Blow the trumpet 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!

I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up. The nations will not flow any more to him. Yes, the wall of Babylon will fall.

Therefore behold, the days come that I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole land will be confounded. All her slain will fall in the middle of her.

In his right hand was the lot for Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounds, and to build forts.

“Son of man, write the name of the day, this same day. The king of Babylon drew close to Jerusalem this same day.

He will kill your daughters in the field with the sword. He will make forts against you, cast up a mound against you, and raise up the buckler against you.

As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so I will seek out my sheep. I will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

Nebuchadnezzar answered them, “Is it on purpose, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you don’t serve my god, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?

Therefore I am like a lion to them. Like a leopard, I will lurk by the path.

Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour.

Her princes within her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day.

If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of the heavens, from there Yahweh your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back.

When they arose early on the following morning, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before Yahweh’s ark; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off on the threshold. Only Dagon’s torso was intact.

Yahweh sent Nathan to David. He came to him, and said to him, “There were two men in one city; the one rich, and the other poor.

At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said to him, “Because you have relied on the king of Syria, and have not relied on Yahweh your God, therefore the army of the king of Syria has escaped out of your hand.

but if you return to me, and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts were in the uttermost part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and will bring them to the place that I have chosen, to cause my name to dwell there.’

The boar out of the wood ravages it. The wild animals of the field feed on it.

And gathered out of the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.

Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for Yahweh has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me.

Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. Yes, they shall roar, and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to deliver.

The burden of Egypt. “Behold, Yahweh rides on a swift cloud, and comes to Egypt. The idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence; and the heart of Egypt will melt within it.

Your choicest valleys were full of chariots, and the horsemen set themselves in array at the gate.

In that day, the Lord, Yahweh of Armies, called to weeping, to mourning, to baldness, and to dressing in sackcloth;

“Woe to the rebellious children”, says Yahweh, “who take counsel, but not from me; and who make an alliance, but not with my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin,

You will no longer see the fierce people, a people of a deep speech that you can’t comprehend, with a strange language that you can’t understand.

Then Isaiah the prophet came to king Hezekiah, and asked him, “What did these men say? From where did they come to you?” Hezekiah said, “They have come from a country far from me, even from Babylon.”

Leave Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! With a voice of singing announce this, tell it even to the end of the earth: say, “Yahweh has redeemed his servant Jacob!”

“Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backsliding will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing, that you have forsaken Yahweh your God, and that my fear is not in you,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.

Cut off your hair, and throw it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights; for Yahweh has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.

“They will die grievous deaths. They will not be lamented, neither will they be buried. They will be as dung on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by the sword and by famine. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.”

Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless and widows. Let their men be killed and their young men struck by the sword in battle.

and tell them, Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne on these stones that I have hidden; and he will spread his royal pavilion over them.

They will roar together like young lions. They will growl as lions’ cubs.

Her princes within it are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain.

He will set his battering engines against your walls, and with his axes he will break down your towers.

After this he will turn his face to the islands, and will take many; but a prince will cause the reproach offered by him to cease. Yes, moreover, he will cause his reproach to turn on him.

For, behold, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, that march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.

Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north,’ says Yahweh; ‘for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the sky,’ says Yahweh.

In the law it is written, “By men of strange languages and by the lips of strangers I will speak to this people. They won’t even hear me that way, says the Lord.”

All you inhabitants of the world, and you dwellers on the earth, when a banner is lifted up on the mountains, look! When the trumpet is blown, listen!

Come near, you nations, to hear! Listen, you peoples. Let the earth and all it contains hear, the world, and everything that comes from it.

The young lions have roared at him and yelled. They have made his land waste. His cities are burned up, without inhabitant.

As keepers of a field, they are against her all around, because she has been rebellious against me,’ ” says Yahweh.

Therefore a lion out of the forest will kill them. A wolf of the evenings will destroy them. A leopard will watch against their cities. Everyone who goes out there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many and their backsliding has increased.

Therefore hear, you nations, and know, congregation, what is among them.

Their widows are increased more than the sand of the seas. I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly.

Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men won’t lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them.

O earth, earth, earth, hear Yahweh’s word!

“Hear Yahweh’s word, you nations, and declare it in the distant islands. Say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.’

Behold, I will command,” says Yahweh, “and cause them to return to this city. They will fight against it, take it, and burn it with fire. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem, and besieged it.

“Declare among the nations and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and don’t conceal: say, ‘Babylon has been taken, Bel is disappointed, Merodach is dismayed! Her images are disappointed. Her idols are dismayed.’

They ravished the women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah.