The Skeptics Annotated Bible (612 page)

39 In their heat I will make their feasts, and
I will make them drunken
, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake,
saith the LORD
.

(51.39)
“I will make them drunken … saith the LORD.”

40
I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he goats.

(51.40)
“I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he goats.”

41 How is Sheshach taken! and how is the praise of the whole earth surprised! how is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations!

42
The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

(51.42)
“The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.”

43
Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.

(51.43)
“Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.”

44 And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up: and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.

45 My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of the LORD.

46 And lest your heart faint, and ye fear for the rumour that shall be heard in the land; a rumour shall both come one year, and after that in another year shall come a rumour, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler.

47 Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will do judgment upon the graven images of Babylon: and her whole land shall be confounded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

48 Then the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for Babylon: for the spoilers shall come unto her from the north, saith the LORD.

49 As Babylon hath caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon shall fall the slain of all the earth.

50 Ye that have escaped the sword, go away, stand not still: remember the LORD afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

51 We are confounded, because we have heard reproach: shame hath covered our faces: for strangers are come into the sanctuaries of the LORD’S house.

52 Wherefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will do judgment upon her graven images: and through all her land the wounded shall groan.

53 Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the LORD.

54 A sound of a cry cometh from Babylon, and great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans:

55 Because the LORD hath spoiled Babylon, and destroyed out of her the great voice; when her waves do roar like great waters, a noise of their voice is uttered:

56 Because the spoiler is come upon her, even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, every one of their bows is broken: for the LORD God of recompences shall surely requite.

57 And
I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

(51.57)
“I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.”
God will force the Babylonians to get so drunk that they die from alcohol poisoning.

58 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary.

59 The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Maaseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah into Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. And this Seraiah was a quiet prince.

60 So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon.

(51.61-63) Jeremiah gave a copy of the book he had written to Seraiah and told him to read it and then tie a rock to it and throw it in the river.

61 And
Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When thou comest to Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read all these words;

(51.61)
“Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When thou comest to Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read all these words.”

62
Then shalt thou say, O LORD, thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever.

(51.62)
“Then shalt thou say, O LORD, thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever.”

63 And it shall be,
when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates:

(51.63)
“When thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates.”

64 And thou shalt say,
Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her:
and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

(51.64)
“Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her.”

52
Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

2 And he did that which was evil in the eyes of the LORD, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.

3 For through the anger of the LORD it came to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, till he had cast them out from his presence, that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

4 And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and built forts against it round about.

5 So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.

6 And in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

7 Then the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled, and went forth out of the city by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden; (now the Chaldeans were by the city round about:) and they went by the way of the plain.

8 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him.

9 Then they took the king, and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; where he gave judgment upon him.

(52.10-11) God promised Zedekiah (Jeremiah 34.5) that he would die peacefully and be buried with his fathers. But here we see that he died a miserable death in a foreign land.

10 And
the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes
: he slew also all the princes of Judah in Riblah.

(52.10)
“The king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes.”

11
Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death
.

(52.11)
“Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.”

12 Now in the fifth month,
in the tenth day of the month
, which was the nineteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzar-adan, captain of the guard, which served the king of Babylon, into Jerusalem,

13 And
burned the house of the LORD
, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the houses of the great men, burned he with fire: