31
Runner after runner comes racing in, each on the heels of the last, Bringing reports to the king of Babylon that his city is a lost cause.
32
The fords of the rivers are all taken. Wildfire rages through the swamp grass. Soldiers desert left and right.
33
I, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, said it would happen: 'Daughter Babylon is a threshing floor at threshing time. Soon, oh very soon, her harvest will come and then the chaff will fly!'
34
"Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon chewed up my people and spit out the bones. He wiped his dish clean, pushed back his chair, and belched - a huge gluttonous belch.
35
Lady Zion says, 'The brutality done to me be done to Babylon!' And Jerusalem says, 'The blood spilled from me be charged to the Chaldeans!'
36
Then I, God, step in and say, 'I'm on your side, taking up your cause. I'm your Avenger. You'll get your revenge. I'll dry up her rivers, plug up her springs.
37
Babylon will be a pile of rubble, scavenged by stray dogs and cats, A dumping ground for garbage, a godforsaken ghost town.'
38
"The Babylonians will be like lions and their cubs, ravenous, roaring for food.
39
I'll fix them a meal, all right - a banquet, in fact. They'll drink themselves falling-down drunk. Dead drunk, they'll sleep - and sleep, and sleep . . . and they'll never wake up." God's Decree.
40
"I'll haul these 'lions' off to the slaughterhouse like the lambs, rams, and goats, never to be heard of again.
41
"Babylon is finished - the pride of the whole earth is flat on her face. What a comedown for Babylon, to end up inglorious in the sewer!