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The Fall of Babylon Predicted

¹ Go down and sit in the dust, O Virgin Daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, O Daughter of Chaldea^(a)! For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.² Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil, strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, wade through the streams.³ Your nakedness will be uncovered and your shame will be exposed. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.⁴ Our Redeemer—the LORD of Hosts is His name—is the Holy One of Israel.⁵ Sit in silence and go into darkness, O Daughter of Chaldea. For you will no longer be called the queen of kingdoms.⁶ I was angry with My people; I profaned My heritage, and I placed them under your control. You showed them no mercy; even upon the elderly you laid a most heavy yoke.

⁷ You said, ‘I will be queen forever.’ You did not take these things to heart or consider their outcome.⁸ So now hear this, O lover of luxury, who sits securely, who says to herself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me. I will never be a widow or know the loss of children.’⁹ These two things will overtake you in a moment, in a single day: loss of children, and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells.¹⁰ You were secure in your wickedness; you said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray; you told yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’¹¹ But disaster will come upon you; you will not know how to charm it away. A calamity will befall you that you will be unable to ward off. Devastation will happen to you suddenly and unexpectedly.¹² So take your stand with your spells and with your many sorceries, with which you have wearied yourself from your youth. Perhaps you will succeed; perhaps you will inspire terror!¹³ You are wearied from your many counsels. So let them stand and save you—the astrologers who observe the stars, who monthly predict your fate.¹⁴ Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. There will be no coals to warm them or fire to sit beside.¹⁵ This is what they are to you—those with whom you have labored and traded from youth—each one strays in his own direction; not one of them can save you.