^{20 Ref} You are my battle-axe and weapons of war: and with you will I break in pieces the nations; and with you will I destroy kingdoms;

^{21 Ref} and with you will I break in pieces the horse and his rider;

^{22 Ref} and with you will I break in pieces the chariot and him who rides therein; and with you will I break in pieces man and woman; and with you will I break in pieces the old man and the youth; and with you will I break in pieces the young man and the virgin;

^{23 Ref} and with you will I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; and with you will I break in pieces the farmer and his yoke [of oxen]; and with you will I break in pieces governors and deputies.

^{24 Ref} I will render to Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, says Yahweh.

^{25 Ref} Behold, I am against you, destroying mountain, says Yahweh, which destroy all the earth; and I will stretch out my hand on you, and roll you down from the rocks, and will make you a burnt mountain.

^{26 Ref} They shall not take of you a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but you shall be desolate for ever, says Yahweh.

^{27 Ref} 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.

^{28 Ref} Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, the governors of it, and all the deputies of it, and all the land of their dominion.

^{29 Ref} The land trembles and is in pain; for the purposes of Yahweh against Babylon do stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.

^{30 Ref} The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they remain in their strongholds; their might has failed; they are become as women: her dwelling-places are set on fire; her bars are broken.

^{31 Ref} One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to met another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter:

^{32 Ref} and the passages are seized, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are frightened.

^{33 Ref} For thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for her.

^{34 Ref} Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me, he has made me an empty vessel, he has, like a monster, swallowed me up, he has filled his maw with my delicacies; he has cast me out.

^{35 Ref} The violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and, My blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say.

^{36 Ref} Therefore thus says Yahweh: Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you; and I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry.

^{37 Ref} Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant.

^{38 Ref} They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as lions' cubs.

^{39 Ref} When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, says Yahweh.

^{40 Ref} I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats.

^{41 Ref} How is Sheshach taken! and the praise of the whole earth seized! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!

^{42 Ref} The sea is come up on Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of the waves of it.

^{43 Ref} Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no man dwells, neither does any son of man pass thereby.

^{44 Ref} I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up; and the nations shall not flow any more to him: yes, the wall of Babylon shall fall.

^{45 Ref} My people, go you out of the midst of her, and save yourselves every man from the fierce anger of Yahweh.

^{46 Ref} Don't let your heart faint, neither fear for the news that shall be heard in the land; for news shall come one year, and after that in another year [shall come] news, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler.