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    Jeremiah · 64 verses

    Jeremiah 51

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    Babylon’s doom ends with a scroll being read aloud, weighted with a stone, and thrown into the Euphrates—an unusually elaborate way to give a prophecy its sinking feeling.

    The cup, the club, and the monstervv. 1–24

    The LORD summons destroyers against Babylon from every side, while Israel and Judah, though guilty, are not abandoned. Babylon has made the nations drunk like a gold cup, and now the cup is shattered; even the would-be physicians give up and go home. The kings of the Medes are stirred to vengeance for the temple, and the city rich in treasures is told that its thread is cut. Then comes the chapter’s grand military metaphor: someone is the LORD’s war club, used to shatter nations, horses, chariots, shepherds, oxen, governors, and officials. Babylon has managed to become both drinking vessel and weapon’s target—a perilous range of household objects.

    The feast and the fallen gatesvv. 25–58

    Babylon is now a destroying mountain to be rolled over the cliffs and left without even a cornerstone worth retrieving. Nations are summoned against her—Ararat, Minni, Ashkenaz, and the kings of the Medes—while the Babylonian warriors sit in their strongholds, exhausted, as couriers hurry to announce that the city has been captured from end to end. Jerusalem describes Nebuchadnezzar as a monster who swallowed its delicacies and then vomited them out. The LORD answers with a feast of His own: Babylon’s revelers are made drunk and put to sleep forever. The sea rises over the city, Bel is made to disgorge what he swallowed, and the thick walls and high gates are destined to become fuel. It is not a subtle menu.

    The scroll takes the rivervv. 59–64

    At the end, Jeremiah gives Seraiah a single scroll when Seraiah goes to Babylon with King Zedekiah of Judah. Seraiah is to read every word aloud, declare that no man or beast will remain, then tie a stone to the scroll and cast it into the Euphrates. The object lesson is supplied in the same breath: Babylon will sink and never rise again. Here end the words of Jeremiah, with the prophecy itself sent downriver like a very heavy final note.

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    Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.

    1. Jer 51:1This is what the LORD says: “Behold, I will stir up against Babylon and against the people of Leb-kamai the spirit of a destroyer.

    2. Jer 51:2I will send strangers to Babylon to winnow her and empty her land; for they will come against her from every side in her day of disaster.

    3. Jer 51:3Do not let the archer bend his bow or put on his armor. Do not spare her young men; devote all her army to destruction!

    4. Jer 51:4And they will fall slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and pierced through in her streets.

    5. Jer 51:5For Israel and Judah have not been abandoned by their God, the LORD of Hosts, though their land is full of guilt before the Holy One of Israel.”

    6. Jer 51:6Flee from Babylon! Escape with your lives! Do not be destroyed in her punishment. For this is the time of the LORD’s vengeance; He will pay her what she deserves.

    7. Jer 51:7Babylon was a gold cup in the hand of the LORD, making the whole earth drunk. The nations drank her wine; therefore the nations have gone mad.

    8. Jer 51:8Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been shattered. Wail for her; get her balm for her pain; perhaps she can be healed.

    9. Jer 51:9“We tried to heal Babylon, but she could not be healed. Abandon her! Let each of us go to his own land, for her judgment extends to the sky and reaches to the clouds.”

    10. Jer 51:10“The LORD has brought forth our vindication; come, let us tell in Zion what the LORD our God has accomplished.”

    11. Jer 51:11Sharpen the arrows! Fill the quivers! The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because His plan is aimed at Babylon to destroy her, for it is the vengeance of the LORD—vengeance for His temple.

    12. Jer 51:12Raise a banner against the walls of Babylon; post the guard; station the watchmen; prepare the ambush. For the LORD has both devised and accomplished what He spoke against the people of Babylon.

    13. Jer 51:13You who dwell by many waters, rich in treasures, your end has come; the thread of your life is cut.

    14. Jer 51:14The LORD of Hosts has sworn by Himself: “Surely I will fill you up with men as with locusts, and they will shout in triumph over you.”

    15. Jer 51:15The LORD made the earth by His power; He established the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.

    16. Jer 51:16When He thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He generates the lightning with the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.

    17. Jer 51:17Every man is senseless and devoid of knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols. For his molten images are a fraud, and there is no breath in them.

    18. Jer 51:18They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.

    19. Jer 51:19The Portion of Jacob is not like these, for He is the Maker of all things, and of the tribe of His inheritance—the LORD of Hosts is His name.

    20. Jer 51:20“You are My war club, My weapon for battle. With you I shatter nations; with you I bring kingdoms to ruin.

    21. Jer 51:21With you I shatter the horse and rider; with you I shatter the chariot and driver.

    22. Jer 51:22With you I shatter man and woman; with you I shatter the old man and the youth; with you I shatter the young man and the maiden.

    23. Jer 51:23With you I shatter the shepherd and his flock; with you I shatter the farmer and his oxen; with you I shatter the governors and officials.

    24. Jer 51:24Before your very eyes I will repay Babylon and all the dwellers of Chaldea for all the evil they have done in Zion,” declares the LORD.

    25. Jer 51:25“Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, you who devastate the whole earth, declares the LORD. I will stretch out My hand against you; I will roll you over the cliffs and turn you into a charred mountain.

    26. Jer 51:26No one shall retrieve from you a cornerstone or a foundation stone, because you will become desolate forever,” declares the LORD.

    27. Jer 51:27“Raise a banner in the land! Blow the ram’s horn among the nations! Prepare the nations against her. Summon the kingdoms against her—Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a captain against her; bring up horses like swarming locusts.

    28. Jer 51:28Prepare the nations for battle against her—the kings of the Medes, their governors and all their officials, and all the lands they rule.

    29. Jer 51:29The earth quakes and writhes because the LORD’s intentions against Babylon stand: to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.

    30. Jer 51:30The warriors of Babylon have stopped fighting; they sit in their strongholds. Their strength is exhausted; they have become like women. Babylon’s homes have been set ablaze, the bars of her gates are broken.

    31. Jer 51:31One courier races to meet another, and messenger follows messenger, to announce to the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end.

    32. Jer 51:32The fords have been seized, the marshes set on fire, and the soldiers are terrified.”

    33. Jer 51:33For this is what the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, says: “The Daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time it is trampled. In just a little while her harvest time will come.”

    34. Jer 51:34“Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me. He has set me aside like an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like a monster; he filled his belly with my delicacies and vomited me out.

    35. Jer 51:35May the violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon,” says the dweller of Zion. “May my blood be on the dwellers of Chaldea,” says Jerusalem.

    36. Jer 51:36Therefore this is what the LORD says: “Behold, I will plead your case and take vengeance on your behalf; I will dry up her sea and make her springs run dry.

    37. Jer 51:37Babylon will become a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals, an object of horror and scorn, without inhabitant.

    38. Jer 51:38They will roar together like young lions; they will growl like lion cubs.

    39. Jer 51:39While they are flushed with heat, I will serve them a feast, and I will make them drunk so that they may revel; then they will fall asleep forever and never wake up, declares the LORD.

    40. Jer 51:40I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats.

    41. Jer 51:41How Sheshach has been captured! The praise of all the earth has been seized. What a horror Babylon has become among the nations!

    42. Jer 51:42The sea has come up over Babylon; she is covered in turbulent waves.

    43. Jer 51:43Her cities have become a desolation, a dry and arid land, a land where no one lives, where no son of man passes through.

    44. Jer 51:44I will punish Bel in Babylon. I will make him spew out what he swallowed. The nations will no longer stream to him; even the wall of Babylon will fall.

    45. Jer 51:45Come out of her, My people! Save your lives, each of you, from the fierce anger of the LORD.

    46. Jer 51:46Do not let your heart grow faint, and do not be afraid when the rumor is heard in the land; for a rumor will come one year—and then another the next year—of violence in the land and of ruler against ruler.

    47. Jer 51:47Therefore, behold, the days are coming when I will punish the idols of Babylon. Her entire land will suffer shame, and all her slain will lie fallen within her.

    48. Jer 51:48Then heaven and earth and all that is in them will shout for joy over Babylon because the destroyers from the north will come against her,” declares the LORD.

    49. Jer 51:49“Babylon must fall on account of the slain of Israel, just as the slain of all the earth have fallen because of Babylon.

    50. Jer 51:50You who have escaped the sword, depart and do not linger! Remember the LORD from far away, and let Jerusalem come to mind.”

    51. Jer 51:51“We are ashamed because we have heard reproach; disgrace has covered our faces, because foreigners have entered the holy places of the LORD’s house.”

    52. Jer 51:52“Therefore, behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will punish her idols, and throughout her land the wounded will groan.

    53. Jer 51:53Even if Babylon ascends to the heavens and fortifies her lofty stronghold, the destroyers I send will come against her,” declares the LORD.

    54. Jer 51:54“The sound of a cry comes from Babylon, the sound of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

    55. Jer 51:55For the LORD will destroy Babylon; He will silence her mighty voice. The waves will roar like great waters; the tumult of their voices will resound.

    56. Jer 51:56For a destroyer is coming against her—against Babylon. Her warriors will be captured, and their bows will be broken, for the LORD is a God of retribution; He will repay in full.

    57. Jer 51:57I will make her princes and wise men drunk, along with her governors, officials, and warriors. Then they will fall asleep forever and not wake up,” declares the King, whose name is the LORD of Hosts.

    58. Jer 51:58This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Babylon’s thick walls will be leveled, and her high gates consumed by fire. So the labor of the people will be for nothing; the nations will exhaust themselves to fuel the flames.”

    59. Jer 51:59This is the message that Jeremiah the prophet gave to the quartermaster Seraiah son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon with King Zedekiah of Judah in the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign.

    60. Jer 51:60Jeremiah had written on a single scroll about all the disaster that would come upon Babylon—all these words that had been written concerning Babylon.

    61. Jer 51:61And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, see that you read all these words aloud,

    62. Jer 51:62and say, ‘O LORD, You have promised to cut off this place so that no one will remain—neither man nor beast. Indeed, it will be desolate forever.’

    63. Jer 51:63When you finish reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and cast it into the Euphrates.

    64. Jer 51:64Then you are to say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again, because of the disaster I will bring upon her. And her people will grow weary.’” Here end the words of Jeremiah.

    01 — Also here

    Who else the chapter reaches

    Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.

    Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.

    Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.

    02 — Read alongside

    Where this is echoed

    Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 903 passages were voted onto 64 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.

    • 20Isaiah 41:15–16Behold, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff.
    • 20Micah 4:13Rise and thresh, O Daughter of Zion, for I will give you horns of iron and hooves of bronze to break to pieces many peoples. Then you will devote their gain to the LORD, their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.
    • 20Isaiah 37:26Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should crush fortified cities into piles of rubble.
    • 15Jeremiah 10:12–16The LORD made the earth by His power; He established the world by His wisdom and stretched out the heavens by His understanding.
    • 15Revelation 4:11“Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things; by Your will they exist and were created.”
    • 15Jeremiah 32:17“Oh, Lord GOD! You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for You!
    • 20Zechariah 9:13–14For I will bend Judah as My bow and fit it with Ephraim. I will rouse your sons, O Zion, against the sons of Greece. I will make you like the sword of a mighty man.
    • 30Nahum 3:13Look at your troops—they are like your women! The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire consumes their bars.
    • 16Psalms 135:7He causes the clouds to rise from the ends of the earth. He generates the lightning with the rain and brings forth the wind from His storehouses.
    • 50Jeremiah 44:28Those who escape the sword will return from Egypt to Judah, few in number, and the whole remnant of Judah who went to dwell in the land of Egypt will know whose word will stand, Mine or theirs!
    • 6Jeremiah 50:8Flee from the midst of Babylon; depart from the land of the Chaldeans; be like the he-goats that lead the flock.
    • 7Revelation 14:8Then a second angel followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, who has made all the nations drink the wine of the passion of her immorality.”
    • 15Romans 1:20For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.
    • 15Colossians 1:16–17For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him.
    • 15Acts 14:15“Men, why are you doing this? We too are only men, human like you. We are bringing you good news that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them.
    • 20Jeremiah 27:5–7By My great power and outstretched arm, I made the earth and the men and beasts on the face of it, and I give it to whom I please.

    Onward

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