43
Its cities will be ruined. It will become a desert, a land where no one lives and where no human travels.
44
I will punish Bel in Babylon. I will make Bel spit out everything that it has swallowed. Nations will no longer stream to Babylon, and its walls will fall.
45
"Leave it, my people! Run for your lives! Run from the burning anger of the LORD.
46
Don't lose courage or be afraid when rumors are heard in the land. One rumor comes one year; another rumor comes the next year. Rumors of violence are in the land. Rumors that one ruler will fight against another are in the land.
47
That is why the days are coming when I will punish Babylon's idols. The whole country will be put to shame, and all its soldiers will lie dead.
48
Then heaven and earth and everything in them will rejoice over Babylon, because destroyers from the north will attack it," declares the LORD.
49
Because the people of Babylon have killed many Israelites and because they have killed many people throughout the earth, Babylon must fall.
50
You people who escaped from the sword, leave! Don't just stand there. Remember the LORD in a distant land, and think about Jerusalem.
51
We have been put to shame, and we have been disgraced. Shame covers our faces, because foreigners have gone into the holy places of the LORD's temple.
52
"That is why the days are coming," declares the LORD, "when I will punish their idols, and those who are wounded will moan everywhere in the land.
53
The people of Babylon might go up to heaven. They might fortify their strongholds. But destroyers will still come from me against them," declares the LORD.