1“Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter 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 your cloak, uncover the thigh, pass through the rivers.
3Your nakedness will be uncovered, yes, your shame will be seen; I will take vengeance, and will spare no man.”
4Our Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies is his name, the Holy One of Israel.
5“Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans; for you will no more be called the queen mother of kingdoms.
6I was angry with my people. I profaned my inheritance and gave them into your hand. You showed no mercy to them; on the aged you made your yoke very heavy.
7You said, ‘I will be a queen mother forever;’ so that you did not lay these things to your heart; you did not remember the end of it.
8“Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sits securely, who says in your heart, ‘I am, and there is none else besides me; I will not sit as a widow, nor will I know the loss of children.’
9But those two things will come to you in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood; in their full measure they will come on you, in the multitude of your sorceries and the great abundance of your magic spells.
10For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you, and you have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is none else besides me.’
11Therefore evil will come on you; you will not know when it dawns; and disaster will fall on you; you will not be able to charm it away; and desolation that you do not know about will come on you suddenly.
12Stand fast now with your magic spells, and with the multitude of your sorceries in which you have labored from your youth. Perhaps you will be able to succeed; perhaps you can cause terror.
13You are wearied with the multitude of your counsels. Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save you from the things that will come on you.
14Behold, they will be like stubble, the fire will burn them up. They will not deliver themselves from the power of the flame. No coal for warming oneself is this, 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. They will wander about, each in his own direction. There is none to save you.”
REV Bible
