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¹“Come down and sit in the dust, Virgin daughter of Babylon; Sit on the ground without a throne, Daughter of the Chaldeans! For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.

²Take the millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, strip off the skirt, Uncover the leg, cross the rivers.

³Your nakedness will be uncovered, Your shame will also be exposed; I will take vengeance and will not spare anyone.”

⁴Our Redeemer, the LORD of armies is His name, The Holy One of Israel.

⁵“Sit silently, and go into darkness, Daughter of the Chaldeans; For you will no longer be called The queen of kingdoms.

⁶I was angry with My people, I profaned My heritage And handed them over to you. You did not show mercy to them, On the aged you made your yoke very heavy.

⁷Yet you said, ‘I will be a queen forever.’ These things you did not consider Nor remember the outcome of them.

⁸“Now, then, hear this, you luxuriant one, Who lives securely, Who says in her heart, ‘I am, and there is no one besides me. I will not sit as a widow, Nor know the loss of children.’

⁹But these two things will come on you suddenly in one day: Loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in full measure In spite of your many sorceries, In spite of the great power of your spells.

¹⁰You felt secure in your wickedness and said, ‘No one sees me,’ Your wisdom and your knowledge, they have led you astray; For you have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one besides me.’

¹¹But evil will come on you Which you will not know how to charm away; And disaster will fall on you For which you cannot atone; And destruction about which you do not know Will come on you suddenly.

¹²“Persist now in your spells And in your many sorceries With which you have labored from your youth; Perhaps you will be able to benefit, Perhaps you may cause trembling.

¹³You are wearied with your many counsels; Let now the astrologers, Those who prophesy by the stars, Those who predict by the new moons, Stand up and save you from what will come upon you.

¹⁴Behold, they have become like stubble, Fire burns them; They cannot save themselves from the power of the flame; There will be no coal to warm by Nor a fire to sit before!

¹⁵So have those become to you with whom you have labored, Those who have done business with you from your youth; Each has wandered in his own way; There is no one to save you.

¹“Hear this, house of Jacob, who are named Israel And who came from the waters of Judah, Who swear by the name of the LORD And invoke the God of Israel, But not in truth nor in righteousness.

²For they name themselves after the holy city, And lean on the God of Israel; The LORD of armies is His name.

³I declared the former things long ago, And they went out of My mouth, and I proclaimed them. Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.

⁴Because I know that you are obstinate, And your neck is an iron tendon And your forehead bronze,

⁵Therefore I declared them to you long ago, Before they took place I proclaimed them to you, So that you would not say, ‘My idol has done them, And my carved image and my cast metal image have commanded them.’

⁶You have heard; look at all this. And you, will you not declare it? I proclaim to you new things from this time, Hidden things which you have not known.

⁷They are created now and not long ago; And before today you have not heard them, So that you will not say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’

⁸You have not heard, you have not known. Even from long ago your ear has not been open, Because I knew that you would deal very treacherously; And you have been called a rebel from birth.

⁹For the sake of My name I delay My wrath, And for My praise I restrain it for you, In order not to cut you off.

¹⁰Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

¹¹For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; For how can My name be profaned? And I will not give My glory to another.

¹²“Listen to Me, Jacob, Israel whom I called; I am He, I am the first, I am also the last.

¹³Assuredly My hand founded the earth, And My right hand spread out the heavens; When I call to them, they stand together.

¹⁴Assemble, all of you, and listen! Who among them has declared these things? The LORD loves him; he will carry out His good pleasure against Babylon, And His arm will be against the Chaldeans.

¹⁵I, yes I, have spoken; indeed I have called him, I have brought him, and He will make his ways successful.

¹⁶Come near to Me, listen to this: From the beginning I have not spoken in secret, From the time it took place, I was there. And now the Lord GOD has sent Me, and His Spirit.”

¹⁷This is what the LORD says, He who is your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to benefit, Who leads you in the way you should go.

¹⁸If only you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your well-being would have been like a river, And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

¹⁹Your descendants would have been like the sand, And your offspring like its grains; Their name would never be eliminated or destroyed from My presence.”

²⁰Go out from Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare with the sound of joyful shouting, proclaim this, Send it out to the end of the earth; Say, “The LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob.”

²¹They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts. He made the water flow out of the rock for them; He split the rock and the water gushed out.

²²“There is no peace for the wicked,” says the LORD.

¹Listen to Me, you islands, And pay attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called Me from the womb; From the body of My mother He named Me.

²He has made My mouth like a sharp sword, In the shadow of His hand He has concealed Me; And He has also made Me a sharpened arrow, He has hidden Me in His quiver.

³He said to Me, “You are My Servant, Israel, In whom I will show My glory.”

⁴But I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength for nothing and futility; Nevertheless, the justice due to Me is with the LORD, And My reward is with My God.”

⁵And now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of the LORD, And My God is My strength),

⁶He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the protected ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

⁷This is what the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and its Holy One, Says to the despised One, To the One abhorred by the nation, To the Servant of rulers: “Kings will see and arise, Princes will also bow down, Because of the LORD who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.”

⁸This is what the LORD says: “At a favorable time I answered You, And on a day of salvation I helped You; And I will watch over You and make You a covenant of the people, To restore the land, to give as inheritances the deserted hereditary lands;

⁹Saying to those who are bound, ‘Go free,’ To those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves.’ They will feed along the roads, And their pasture will be on all bare heights.

¹⁰They will not hunger or thirst, Nor will the scorching heat or sun strike them down; For He who has compassion on them will lead them, And He will guide them to springs of water.

¹¹I will make all My mountains a road, And My highways will be raised up.

¹²Behold, these will come from afar; And behold, these will come from the north and from the west, And these from the land of Aswan.”

¹³Shout for joy, you heavens! And rejoice, you earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, mountains! For the LORD has comforted His people And will have compassion on His afflicted.

¹⁴But Zion said, “The LORD has abandoned me, And the Lord has forgotten me.”

¹⁵“Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.

¹⁶Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me.

¹⁷Your builders hurry; Your destroyers and devastators Will leave you.

¹⁸Raise your eyes and look around; All of them gather together, they come to you. As I live,” declares the LORD, “You will certainly put them all on as jewelry and bind them on as a bride.

¹⁹For your ruins and deserted places and your destroyed land— Now you will certainly be too cramped for the inhabitants, And those who swallowed you will be far away.

²⁰The children you lost will yet say in your ears, ‘The place is too cramped for me; Make room for me that I may live here.’

²¹Then you will say in your heart, ‘Who has fathered these for me, Since I have been bereaved of my children And cannot conceive, and I am an exile, and a wanderer? And who has raised these? Behold, I was left alone; Where are these from?’ ”

²²This is what the Lord GOD says: “Behold, I will lift up My hand to the nations And set up My flag to the peoples; And they will bring your sons in their arms, And your daughters will be carried on their shoulders.

²³Kings will be your guardians, And their princesses your nurses. They will bow down to you with their faces to the ground And lick the dust from your feet; And you will know that I am the LORD; Those who hopefully wait for Me will not be put to shame.

²⁴“Can the prey be taken from a mighty man, Or the captives of a tyrant be rescued?”

²⁵Indeed, this is what the LORD says: “Even the captives of the mighty man will be taken away, And the prey of a tyrant will be rescued; For I will contend with the one who contends with you, And I will save your sons.

²⁶I will feed your oppressors with their own flesh, And they will become drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine; And humanity will know that I, the LORD, am your Savior And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”