⁷ Will not your creditors suddenly be moved against you, and your troublers get up from their sleep, and you will be to them like goods taken in war?

¹ A man hating sharp words and making his heart hard, will suddenly be broken and will not be made well again.

³ When they say, There is peace and no danger, then sudden destruction will come on them, as birth-pains on a woman with child; and they will not be able to get away from it.

⁹ What are you designing against the Lord? he will put an end to it: his haters will not come up again a second time.

¹⁰ For though they are like twisted thorns, and are overcome as with drink, they will come to destruction like stems of grass fully dry.

²⁵ And this is the writing which was recorded, Mene, tekel, peres.

²⁶ This is the sense of the words: Mene; your kingdom has been numbered by God and ended.

²⁷ Tekel; you have been put in the scales and seen to be under weight.

²⁸ Peres; your kingdom has been cut up and given to the Medes and Persians.

²⁹ Then, by the order of Belshazzar, they put a purple robe on Daniel, and a gold chain round his neck, and a public statement was made that he was to be a ruler of high authority in the kingdom.

³⁰ That very night Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldaeans, was put to death.

⁵⁷ And I will make her chiefs and her wise men, her rulers and her captains and her men of war, overcome with wine; their sleep will be an eternal sleep without awaking, says the King; the Lord of armies is his name.

²⁷ Let a flag be lifted up in the land, let the horn be sounded among the nations, make the nations ready against her; get the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz together against her, make ready a scribe against her; let the horses come up against her like massed locusts.

²⁸ Make the nations ready for war against her, the king of the Medes and his rulers and all his captains, and all the land under his rule.

¹¹ Make bright the arrows; take up the body-covers: the Lord has been moving the spirit of the king of the Medes; because his design against Babylon is its destruction: for it is the punishment from the Lord, the payment for his Temple.

²¹ Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the people of Pekod; put them to death and send destruction after them, says the Lord, and do everything I have given you orders to do.

²² There is a sound of war in the land and of great destruction.

²³ How is the hammer of all the earth cut in two and broken! how has Babylon become a waste among the nations!

²⁴ I have put a net for you, and you have been taken, O Babylon, without your knowledge: you have been uncovered and taken because you were fighting against the Lord.

²⁵ From his store-house the Lord has taken the instruments of his wrath: for the Lord, the Lord of armies, has a work to do in the land of the Chaldaeans.

²⁶ Come up against her one and all, let her store-houses be broken open: make her into a mass of stones, give her to the curse, till there is nothing of her to be seen.

²⁷ Put all her oxen to the sword; let them go down to death: sorrow is theirs, for their day has come, the time of their punishment.

²⁸ The voice of those who are in flight, who have got away safe from the land of Babylon, to give news in Zion of punishment from the Lord our God, even payment for his Temple.

²⁹ Send for the archers to come together against Babylon, all the bowmen; put up your tents against her on every side; let no one get away: give her the reward of her work; as she has done, so do to her: for she has been uplifted in pride against the Lord, against the Holy One of Israel.

³⁰ For this cause her young men will be falling in her streets, and all her men of war will be cut off in that day, says the Lord.

³¹ See, I am against you, O pride, says the Lord, the Lord of armies, for your day has come, the time when I will send punishment on you.

³² And pride will go with uncertain steps and have a fall, and there will be no one to come to his help: and I will put a fire in his towns, burning up everything round about him.

¹⁷ See, I will send snakes and poison-snakes among you, against which the wonder-worker has no power; and they will give you wounds which may not be made well, says the Lord.

¹⁴ Come together, all of you, and give ear; who among you has given news of these things? the Lord's loved one will do his pleasure with Babylon, and with the seed of the Chaldaeans.

¹⁵ I, even I, have given the word; I have sent for him: I have made him come, and have given effect to his undertakings.

¹¹ Because of this evil will come on you, which may not be turned away for any price: and trouble will overtake you, from which no money will give salvation: destruction will come on you suddenly, without your knowledge.

¹¹ Sending for a bird of strong flight from the east, the man of my purpose from a far country; I have said it, and I will give effect to it; the thing designed by me will certainly be done.

¹ The Lord says to the man of his selection, to Cyrus, whom I have taken by the right hand, putting down nations before him, and taking away the arms of kings; making the doors open before him, so that the ways into the towns may not be shut;

² I will go before you, and make the rough places level: the doors of brass will be broken, and the iron rods cut in two:

³ And I will give you the stores of the dark, and the wealth of secret places, so that you may be certain that I am the Lord, who gave you your name, even the God of Israel.

²⁵ I have sent for one from the north, and from the dawn he has come; in my name he will get rulers together and go against them; they will be like dust, even as the wet earth is stamped on by the feet of the potter.

² A vision of fear comes before my eyes; the worker of deceit goes on in his false way, and the waster goes on making waste. Up! Elam; to the attack! Media; I have put an end to her sorrow.

³ For this cause I am full of bitter grief; pains like the pains of a woman in childbirth have come on me: I am bent down with sorrow at what comes to my ears; I am shocked by what I see.

⁴ My mind is wandering, fear has overcome me: the evening of my desire has been turned into shaking for me.

⁵ They make ready the table, they put down the covers, they take food and drink. Up! you captains; put oil on your breastplates.

⁶ For so has the Lord said to me, Go, let a watchman be placed; let him give word of what he sees:

⁷ And when he sees war-carriages, horsemen by twos, war-carriages with asses, war-carriages with camels, let him give special attention.

⁸ And the watchman gave a loud cry, O my lord, I am on the watchtower all day, and am placed in my watch every night:

⁹ See, here come war-carriages with men, horsemen by twos: and in answer he said, Babylon is made low, is made low, and all her images are broken on the earth.

¹⁶ Their young children will be broken up before their eyes; their goods will be taken away, and their wives made the property of others.

¹⁷ See, I am driving the Medes against them, who put no value on silver and have no pleasure in gold.

¹⁸ In their hands are bows and spears; they are cruel, violently putting the young men to death, and crushing the young women; they have no pity for children, and no mercy for the fruit of the body.

¹ The word of the Lord about Babylon which Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saw.

² Put up a flag on a clear mountain-top, make a loud outcry to them, give directions with the hand, so that they may go into the doors of the great ones.

³ I have given orders to my holy ones, I have sent out my men of war, those of mine who take pride in their power, to give effect to my wrath.

⁴ The noise of great numbers in the mountains, like the noise of a strong people! The noise of the kingdoms of the nations meeting together! The Lord of armies is numbering his forces for war.

⁵ They come from a far country, from the farthest part of heaven, even the Lord and the instruments of his wrath, with destruction for all the land.

⁸ He who makes a hole for others will himself go into it, and for him who makes a hole through a wall the bite of a snake will be a punishment.