51There's more. GOD says more: "Watch this: I'm whipping up A death-dealing hurricane against Babylon—'Hurricane Persia'— against all who live in that perverse land.H559H3068H5782H894H3427H3820H6965H7843H73072I'm sending a cleanup crew into Babylon. They'll clean the place out from top to bottom. When they get through there'll be nothing left of her worth taking or talking about. They won't miss a thing. A total and final Doomsday!H7971H894H2114H2219H1238H776H3117H7451H54393Fighters will fight with everything they've got. It's no holds barred. They will spare nothing and no one. It's final and wholesale destruction—the end!H1869H1869H1869H7198H5927H5630H2550H970H2763H66354Babylon littered with the wounded, streets piled with corpses.H2491H5307H776H3778H1856H23515It turns out that Israel and Judah are not widowed after all. As their God, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, I am still alive and well, committed to them even though They filled their land with sin against Israel's most Holy God.H3478H488H3063H430H3068H6635H776H4390H817H6918H34786"Get out of Babylon as fast as you can. Run for your lives! Save your necks! Don't linger and lose your lives to my vengeance on her as I pay her back for her sins.H5127H8432H894H4422H376H5315H1826H5771H6256H3068H5360H7999H15767Babylon was a fancy gold chalice held in my hand, Filled with the wine of my anger to make the whole world drunk. The nations drank the wine and they've all gone crazy.H894H2091H3563H3068H3027H776H7937H1471H8354H3196H1471H19848Babylon herself will stagger and crash, senseless in a drunken stupor—tragic! Get anointing balm for her wound. Maybe she can be cured."H894H6597H5307H7665H3213H3947H6875H4341H74959"We did our best, but she can't be helped. Babylon is past fixing. Give her up to her fate. Go home. The judgment on her will be vast, a skyscraper-memorial of vengeance.H7495H894H7495H5800H3212H376H776H4941H5060H8064H5375H783410"GOD has set everything right for us. Come! Let's tell the good news Back home in Zion. Let's tell what our GOD did to set things right.H3068H3318H6666H935H5608H6726H4639H3068H43011"Sharpen the arrows! Fill the quivers! GOD has stirred up the kings of the Medes, infecting them with war fever: 'Destroy Babylon!' GOD's on the warpath. He's out to avenge his Temple.H1305H2671H4390H7982H3068H5782H7307H4428H4074H4209H894H7843H5360H3068H5360H196412Give the signal to attack Babylon's walls. Station guards around the clock. Bring in reinforcements. Set men in ambush. GOD will do what he planned, what he said he'd do to the people of Babylon.H5375H5251H2346H894H4929H2388H6965H8104H3559H693H3068H2161H6213H1696H3427H89413You have more water than you need, you have more money than you need— But your life is over, your lifeline cut."H7931H7931H7227H4325H7227H214H7093H935H520H121514GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies has solemnly sworn: "I'll fill this place with soldiers. They'll swarm through here like locusts chanting victory songs over you."H3068H6635H7650H5315H4390H120H3218H6030H195915By his power he made earth. His wisdom gave shape to the world. He crafted the cosmos.H6213H776H3581H3559H8398H2451H5186H8064H839416He thunders and rain pours down. He sends the clouds soaring. He embellishes the storm with lightnings, launches the wind from his warehouse.H5414H6963H1995H4325H8064H5387H5927H7097H776H6213H1300H4306H3318H7307H21417Stick-god worshipers look mighty foolish! god-makers embarrassed by their handmade gods! Their gods are frauds, dead sticks— deadwood gods, tasteless jokes.H120H1197H1847H6884H3001H6459H5262H8267H730718They're nothing but stale smoke. When the smoke clears, they're gone.H1892H4639H8595H6256H6486H619But the Portion-of-Jacob is the real thing; he put the whole universe together, With special attention to Israel. His name? GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies!H2506H3290H3335H7626H5159H3068H6635H803420God says, "You, Babylon, are my hammer, my weapon of war. I'll use you to smash godless nations, use you to knock kingdoms to bits.H4661H3627H4421H5310H1471H7843H446721I'll use you to smash horse and rider, use you to smash chariot and driver.H5310H5483H7392H5310H7393H739222I'll use you to smash man and woman, use you to smash the old man and the boy. I'll use you to smash the young man and young woman,H5310H376H802H5310H2205H5288H5310H970H133023use you to smash shepherd and sheep. I'll use you to smash farmer and yoked oxen, use you to smash governors and senators.H5310H7462H5739H5310H406H6776H5310H6346H546124"Judeans, you'll see it with your own eyes. I'll pay Babylon and all the Chaldeans back for all the evil they did in Zion." GOD's Decree.H7999H894H3427H3778H7451H6213H6726H5869H5002H306825"I'm your enemy, Babylon, Mount Destroyer, you ravager of the whole earth. I'll reach out, I'll take you in my hand, and I'll crush you till there's no mountain left. I'll turn you into a gravel pit—H4889H2022H5002H3068H7843H776H5186H3027H1556H5553H5414H8316H202226no more cornerstones cut from you, No more foundation stones quarried from you! Nothing left of you but gravel." GOD's Decree.H3947H68H6438H68H4146H8077H5769H5002H306827"Raise the signal in the land, blow the shofar-trumpet for the nations. Consecrate the nations for holy work against her. Call kingdoms into service against her. Enlist Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a field marshal against her, and round up horses, locust hordes of horses!H5375H5251H776H8628H7782H1471H6942H1471H8085H4467H780H4508H813H6485H2951H5483H5927H5569H321828Consecrate the nations for holy work against her— the king of the Medes, his leaders and people.H6942H1471H4428H4074H6346H5461H776H447529"The very land trembles in terror, writhes in pain, terrorized by my plans against Babylon, Plans to turn the country of Babylon into a lifeless moonscape—a wasteland.H776H7493H2342H4284H3068H6965H894H7760H776H894H8047H342730Babylon's soldiers have quit fighting. They hide out in ruins and caves— Cowards who've given up without a fight, exposed as cowering milksops. Babylon's houses are going up in flames, the city gates torn off their hinges.H1368H894H2308H3898H3427H4679H1369H5405H802H3341H4908H1280H766531Runner after runner comes racing in, each on the heels of the last, Bringing reports to the king of Babylon that his city is a lost cause.H7323H7323H7125H7323H5046H7125H5046H5046H4428H894H5892H3920H709732The fords of the rivers are all taken. Wildfire rages through the swamp grass. Soldiers desert left and right.H4569H8610H98H8313H784H582H4421H92633I, GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, said it would happen: 'Daughter Babylon is a threshing floor at threshing time. Soon, oh very soon, her harvest will come and then the chaff will fly!'H559H3068H6635H430H3478H1323H894H1637H6256H1869H4592H6256H7105H93534"Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon chewed up my people and spit out the bones. He wiped his dish clean, pushed back his chair, and belched—a huge gluttonous belch.H5019H4428H894H398H2000H3322H7385H3627H1104H8577H4390H3770H5730H174035Lady Zion says, 'The brutality done to me be done to Babylon!' And Jerusalem says, 'The blood spilled from me be charged to the Chaldeans!'H2555H7607H894H3427H6726H559H1818H3427H3778H3389H55936Then I, GOD, step in and say, 'I'm on your side, taking up your cause. I'm your Avenger. You'll get your revenge. I'll dry up her rivers, plug up her springs.H559H3068H7378H7379H5358H5360H2717H3220H4726H300137Babylon will be a pile of rubble, scavenged by stray dogs and cats, A dumping ground for garbage, a godforsaken ghost town.'H894H1530H4583H8577H8047H8322H342738"The Babylonians will be like lions and their cubs, ravenous, roaring for food.H7580H3162H3715H5286H738H148439I'll fix them a meal, all right—a banquet, in fact. They'll drink themselves falling-down drunk. Dead drunk, they'll sleep—and sleep, and sleep . . . and they'll never wake up." GOD's Decree.H2527H7896H4960H7937H5937H3462H5769H8142H6974H5002H306840"I'll haul these 'lions' off to the slaughterhouse like the lambs, rams, and goats, never to be heard of again.H3381H3733H2873H352H626041"Babylon is finished— the pride of the whole earth is flat on her face. What a comedown for Babylon, to end up inglorious in the sewer!H8347H3920H8416H776H8610H894H8047H147142Babylon drowned in chaos, battered by waves of enemy soldiers.H3220H5927H894H3680H1995H153043Her towns stink with decay and rot, the land empty and bare and sterile. No one lives in these towns anymore. Travelers give them a wide berth.H5892H8047H6723H776H6160H776H376H3427H1121H120H5674H200444I'll bring doom on the glutton god-Bel in Babylon. I'll make him vomit up all he gulped down. No more visitors stream into this place, admiring and gawking at the wonders of Babylon. The wonders of Babylon are no more.H6485H1078H894H3318H6310H1105H1471H5102H2346H894H530745Run for your lives, my dear people! Run, and don't look back! Get out of this place while you can, this place torched by GOD's raging anger.H5971H3318H8432H4422H376H5315H2740H639H306846Don't lose hope. Don't ever give up when the rumors pour in hot and heavy. One year it's this, the next year it's that— rumors of violence, rumors of war.H3824H7401H3372H8052H8085H776H8052H935H8141H310H8141H8052H2555H776H4910H491047Trust me, the time is coming when I'll put the no-gods of Babylon in their place. I'll show up the whole country as a sickening fraud, with dead bodies strewn all over the place.H3117H935H6485H6456H894H776H954H2491H5307H843248Heaven and earth, angels and people, will throw a victory party over Babylon When the avenging armies from the north descend on her." GOD's Decree!H8064H776H7442H894H7703H935H6828H5002H306849"Babylon must fall— compensation for the war dead in Israel. Babylonians will be killed because of all that Babylonian killing.H1571H894H2491H3478H5307H894H5307H2491H77650But you exiles who have escaped a Babylonian death, get out! And fast! Remember GOD in your long and distant exile. Keep Jerusalem alive in your memory."H6405H2719H1980H5975H2142H3068H7350H3389H5927H382451How we've been humiliated, taunted and abused, kicked around for so long that we hardly know who we are! And we hardly know what to think— our old Sanctuary, GOD's house, desecrated by strangers.H954H8085H2781H3639H3680H6440H2114H935H4720H3068H100452"I know, but trust me: The time is coming" —GOD's Decree— "When I will bring doom on her no-god idols, and all over this land her wounded will groan.H3117H935H5002H3068H6485H6456H776H2491H60253Even if Babylon climbed a ladder to the moon and pulled up the ladder so that no one could get to her, That wouldn't stop me. I'd make sure my avengers would reach her." GOD's Decree.H894H5927H8064H1219H4791H5797H227H7703H935H5002H306854"But now listen! Do you hear it? A cry out of Babylon! An unearthly wail out of Chaldea!H6963H2201H894H1419H7667H776H377855GOD is taking his wrecking bar to Babylon. We'll be hearing the last of her noise— Death throes like the crashing of waves, death rattles like the roar of cataracts.H3068H7703H894H6H1419H6963H1530H1993H7227H4325H7588H6963H541456The avenging destroyer is about to enter Babylon: Her soldiers are taken, her weapons are trashed. Indeed, GOD is a God who evens things out. All end up with their just deserts.H7703H935H894H1368H3920H7198H2865H3068H410H1578H7999H799957"I'll get them drunk, the whole lot of them— princes, sages, governors, soldiers. Dead drunk, they'll sleep—and sleep and sleep . . . and never wake up." The King's Decree. His name? GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies!H7937H8269H2450H6346H5461H1368H3462H5769H8142H6974H5002H4428H8034H3068H663558GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies speaks: "The city walls of Babylon—those massive walls!— will be flattened. And those city gates—huge gates!— will be set on fire. The harder you work at this empty life, the less you are. Nothing comes of ambition like this but ashes."H559H3068H6635H7342H2346H894H6209H6209H1364H8179H3341H784H5971H3021H7385H3816H1767H784H328659Jeremiah the prophet gave a job to Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when Seraiah went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon. It was in the fourth year of Zedekiah's reign. Seraiah was in charge of travel arrangements.H1697H3414H5030H6680H8304H1121H5374H1121H4271H3212H6667H4428H3063H894H7243H8141H4427H8304H4496H826960Jeremiah had written down in a little booklet all the bad things that would come down on Babylon.H3414H3789H259H5612H7451H935H894H1697H3789H89461He told Seraiah, "When you get to Babylon, read this out in public.H3414H559H8304H935H894H7200H7121H169762Read, 'You, O GOD, said that you would destroy this place so that nothing could live here, neither human nor animal—a wasteland to top all wastelands, an eternal nothing.'H559H3068H1696H4725H3772H3427H120H929H8077H576963"When you've finished reading the page, tie a stone to it, throw it into the River Euphrates, and watch it sink.H3615H7121H5612H7194H68H7993H8432H657864Then say, 'That's how Babylon will sink to the bottom and stay there after the disaster I'm going to bring upon her.'"H559H894H8257H6965H6440H7451H935H3286H1697H3414