1   Thvs saith our Lord: ^note Behold I wil raise vpon Babylon and vpon the inhabitants thereof, which haue lifted vp their hart against me, as it were a pestilent winde.

2   And I wil send vpon Babylon fanners, and they shal fanne it, and shal destroy her land: because they are come vpon her on euerie side in the day of her affliction.

3   Let not him that bendeth bend his bow, and let not him goe vp that is in ^note a brigandin, spare not her young men, kil al her host.

4   And the slaine shal fal in the land of the Chaldees, and the wounded in the countries thereof.

5   Because Israel and Iuda haue not bene left as a widow of their God the Lord of hostes: but their land hath bene replenished with sinne from the holie one of Israel.

6   Flee ye out of the middes of Babylon, and let euerie one saue his owne life, hold not your peace vpon her iniquitie: because it is the time of reuenge from our Lord, he wil requite her the like.

7   Babylon is a golden cuppe in the hand of our Lord, inebriating al the earth: of her wine haue the Nations drunke, and therefore they are in commotion.

8   Babylon is fallen sodenly, and is destroyed: howle ye vpon her, take resine for her sorow, if perhaps she may be healed.

9   We haue cured Babylon, and she is not healed: let vs forsake her, & let vs goe euerie man to his owne land: because her iudgement hath reached euen to the heauens, & is lifted vp vnto the clowdes.

10   Our Lord hath brought forth our iustices: come, and let vs tel in Sion the worke of the Lord our God.

11   Make sharpe the arrowes, fil the quiuers: our Lord hath raysed vp the spirite of the kinges of the Medes: and against Babylon his minde is to destroy it, because it is the reuenge of our Lord, the reuenge of his temple.

12   Vpon the walles of Babylon lift vp the ensigne, increase the watch: set vp watchemen, prepare embushments: because our Lord hath meant, and hath done what soeuer he spake against the inhabitants of Babylon.

13   Thou that dwellest vpon manie waters, rich in treasures: thine end is come with in a foote of thy cutting of.

14   The Lord of hostes hath sworne by his soule: that I wil replenish thee with men as it were with the locust, and vpon thee shal the merie shoute be song.

15   He that made the earth

in his strength, hath prepared the world in his wisedom, and with his prudence stretched out the heauens.

16   He geuing a voice, the waters are multiplied in heauen: who lifteth vp the clowdes from the extreme part of the earth, lightenings he hath turned into rayne: and he hath brought forth the winde out of his treasures.

17   Euerie man is become a foole by knowlege: euerie mettal caster is confounded in his sculptil, because his casting is counterfet, neither is there spirite in them.

18   They are vaine workes, and worthie to be laughed at, in the time of their visitation they shal perish.

19   The portion of Iacob is not as these thinges: because he that made al thinges he it is, and Israel is the scepter of his inheritance: the Lord of hostes is his name.

20   Thou doest knocke together the vessels of warre for me, and I wil knock together in thee the Gentiles, and I wil destroy in thee kingdomes:

21   And I wil breake in thee the horse, and his rider: and I wil knock together in thee the chariot, and the rider thereof.

22   And I wil knocke together in thee man and woman, and I wil knocke together in thee the old man and the child, and I wil knock together in thee the young man and the virgin:

23   and I wil knocke together in thee the pastour and his flocke, and I wil knocke together in thee the husbandman and his draweing cattle, and I wil knocke together in thee dukes and magistrates.

24   And I wil render to Babylon, and to al the inhabitants of Chaldee al their euil, that they haue done in Sion, before your eyes, saith our Lord.

25   Behold I to thee thou pestiferous mountaine, saith our Lord, which corruptest the whole earth: and I wil streatch out my hand vpon thee, and wil roll thee out of the rockes, and wil geue thee to be a mountayne of burning.

26   And they shal not take of thee a stone for the corner, and a stone for foundations, but thou shalt be destroyed for euer, saith our Lord.

27   Lift ye vp an ensigne in the land: sound with the trumpet among the Gentiles: ^note sanctifie the Gentiles vpon her: declare against her to the kinges of Ararat, Menni, and Ascenez: number Taphsar against her, bring the horse as the stinging locust.

28   Sanctifie the Gentiles against her, the kings of Media, the dukes thereof, and al the Magistrates thereof, & al the land of his dominion.

29   And the land shal be in a commotion, and shal be trubled: because the cogitation of our Lord shal awake against Babylon, to lay the Land of Babylon desert and inhabitable.

30   The

valiants of Babylon haue ceased from battel, they haue dwelt in holdes: their strength is deuoured, and they are become as wemen: her tabernacles are burnt, her barres are broken.

31   A runner shal come to meete the runner, and messenger to meete messenger: to tel the king of Babylon that his citie is taken from one end to the other:

32   and the fordes are taken before hand, and the fennes be burnt with fire, and the men of warre be trubled.

33   Because thus saith the Lord of hostes, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is as a barne floore, the time of her threshing: yet a litle, and the time of her reaping shal come.

34    ^noteNabuchodosor the king of Babylon hath eaten me, he hath deuoured me: he hath made me as an emptie vessel: he hath swallowed me vp as a dragon, he hath filled his bellie with my tendernes, and hath cast me out.

35   Iniquitie against me, and my flesh vpon Babylon, saith the habitation of Sion: and my bloud vpon the inhabitantes of Chaldee, saith Ierusalem.

36   Therefore thus saith our Lord: Behold I wil iudge thy cause, and wil reuenge thy vengeance, and I wil make her sea desolate, and wil drie vp her vayne.

37   And Babylon shal be into heapes, the habitation of dragons, astonishment, and hissing, because there is not an inhabiter.

38   They shal roare together as lions, they shal shake the manes as the whelpes of lions.

39   In their heate I wil set their drinke: and I wil make them drunke, that they may be drousie, and sleepe an euerlasting sleepe, & not arise, saith our Lord.

40   I wil leade them as lambes to be a victime, and as rammes with kiddes.

41   How is Sesach taken, and the noble one of al the earth apprehended? How is Babylon become an astonishment among the Gentiles?

42   The sea is come vp ouer Babylon: she is couered with the multitude of the waues thereof.

43   Her cities are become an astonishment: a land inhabitable and desolate, a land wherein none can dwel, nor sonne of man may passe by it.

44   And I wil visite vpon Bel in Babylon, and I wil cast out of his mouth that which he had swallowed: and the Gentiles shal no more runne together vnto him, for the wall also of Babylon shal fal.

45   Goe out of the middes of her my people: that euerie one may saue his life from the wrath of the furie of our Lord.

46   And lest perhaps your hartes faint, and ye feare the bruite, that shal be heard in the land: and there shal come a bruite in the yeare, and after this yeare a bruite: and iniquitie in the land, and ruler vpon ruler.

47   Therefore

behold the daies come, and I wil visite vpon the sculptiles of Babylon: and al her land shal be confounded and al her slaine shal fal in the middes of her.

48   And the heauens and the earth shal prayse vpon Babylon, and al thinges that are in them: because spoylers shal come to her from the North, saith our Lord.

49   And as Babylon caused that there should fal slaine in Israel: so of Babylon there shal fal slaine in the whole land.

50   You that haue escaped the sword, come, stand not: remember our Lord a farre of, and let Ierusalem ascend vpon your hart.

51   We are confounded, because we haue heard reproch: ignominie hath couered our faces: because strangers are come vpon the sanctification of the house of our Lord.

52   Therefore behold the daies come, saith our Lord: and I wil visite vpon her sculptiles, and in al her land the wounded shal roare.

53   If Babylon shal ascend vp into heauen, and stablish her strength on high: from me there shal come wasters of her, saith our Lord.

54   A voice of crying from Babylon, and great destruction from the Land of the Chaldees:

55   because our Lord hath wasted Babylon, and destroyed out of it the great voice: and their waues shal sound as manie waters: their voice hath geuen a sound.

56   Because the spoyler is come vpon her, that is, vpon Babylon, and her valiants are apprehended, and their bow is weakened: because the strong reuenger our Lord rendring wil repay.

57   And I wil inebriate her princes, and her wise men, and her dukes, and her magistrates, and her valiants: and they shal sleepe an euerlasting sleepe, and shal not awake, saith the king, the Lord of hostes is his name.

58   Thus saith the Lord of hostes: That most brode wal of Babylon by vndermyning shal be vndermined, and her high gates shal be burnt with fire, and the labours of the peoples shal come to nothing, and of the nations shal be into the fire, and shal perish.

59   The word that Ieremie the prophete commanded Saraias the sonne of Nerias, the sonne of Maasias, when he went with Sedecias the king into Babylon, in the fourth yeare of his kingdome: and Saraias was ^note the prince of prophecie.

60   And Ieremie wrote al the euil, that was to come vpon Babylon in one booke: al these wordes, that are written against Babylon.

61   And Ieremie said to Saraias: When thou shalt come into Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt reade, al these wordes,

62   thou shalt say: Lord thou hast spoken against this place to destroy it: that there be none to inhabite it from

man euen vnto beast, and that it be a perpetual wildernesse.

63   And when thou shalt haue finished reading this booke, thou shalt tye a stone to it, and shalt throw it into the middes of Euphrates:

64   and thou shalt say: So shal Babylon be drowned, & she shal not rise vp from the face of the affliction, that I wil bring vpon her, and she shal be dissolued. ^noteHitherto the wordes of Ieremie.

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