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One runner runs to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to tell the king of Babylon that his city is taken from end to end:
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the fords have been seized, the marshes have been burned with fire, and the soldiers are in panic.
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For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Daughter Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come.
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"King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me; he has made me an empty vessel, he has swallowed me like a monster; he has filled his belly with my delicacies, he has spewed me out.
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May my torn flesh be avenged on Babylon," the inhabitants of Zion shall say. "May my blood be avenged on the inhabitants of Chaldea," Jerusalem shall say.
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Therefore thus says the Lord: I am going to defend your cause and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea and make her fountain dry;
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and Babylon shall become a heap of ruins, a den of jackals, an object of horror and of hissing, without inhabitant.
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Like lions they shall roar together; they shall growl like lions' whelps.
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When they are inflamed, I will set out their drink and make them drunk, until they become merry and then sleep a perpetual sleep and never wake, says the Lord.
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I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and goats.
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How Sheshach is taken, the pride of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations!
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The sea has risen over Babylon; she has been covered by its tumultuous waves.
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Her cities have become an object of horror, a land of drought and a desert, a land in which no one lives, and through which no mortal passes.
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I will punish Bel in Babylon, and make him disgorge what he has swallowed. The nations shall no longer stream to him; the wall of Babylon has fallen.
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Come out of her, my people! Save your lives, each of you, from the fierce anger of the Lord!
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Do not be fainthearted or fearful at the rumors heard in the land— one year one rumor comes, the next year another, rumors of violence in the land and of ruler against ruler.
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Assuredly, the days are coming when I will punish the images of Babylon; her whole land shall be put to shame, and all her slain shall fall in her midst.
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Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them, shall shout for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers shall come against them out of the north, says the Lord.
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Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel, as the slain of all the earth have fallen because of Babylon.
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You survivors of the sword, go, do not linger! Remember the Lord in a distant land, and let Jerusalem come into your mind:
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We are put to shame, for we have heard insults; dishonor has covered our face, for aliens have come into the holy places of the Lord's house.