1Go down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground with no throne, daughter of the Chaldeans! For no longer will they call you tender and delicate.
2Take the millstones and grind flour; remove your veil, strip off the skirt, bare the leg, cross the rivers.
3Your nakedness will be uncovered, and your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will spare no one.
4Our Redeemer—Yahweh of hosts is his name—the Holy One of Israel.
5Sit in silence and go into the darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans; for no longer will they call you mistress of kingdoms.
6I was angry with my people, I profaned my inheritance and gave them into your hand; you showed them no mercy—on the aged you laid your yoke very heavily.
7And you said, ‘Forever I will be mistress’—to the point that you did not take these things to heart, nor remember their outcome.
8So now hear this, you voluptuous one, sitting securely, saying in your heart, ‘I am, and there is none besides me; I will not sit as a widow, nor will I know the loss of children.’
9But both these will come to you in a moment, in a single day: loss of children and widowhood. In full measure they will come upon you, despite your many sorceries, despite the great power of your spells.
10You trusted in your evil, saying, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and your knowledge—they led you astray, and you said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’
11But evil will come upon you that you will not know how to charm away; disaster will fall upon you that you will not be able to atone for; and ruin will come upon you suddenly, which you will not know.
12Stand now with your spells and with your many sorceries, at which you have labored from your youth—perhaps you may be able to profit, perhaps you may inspire terror.
13You are wearied by your many counsels. Let them stand up now and save you—those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who make known at each new moon what will come upon you.
14Behold, they have become like stubble—fire has burned them up; they cannot deliver their own lives from the power of the flame. It is no coal to warm oneself by, no fire to sit before.
15So they have become to you—those with whom you have labored, your traders from your youth. Each has wandered off to his own quarter; there is none to save you.
Open in the interactive reader →Where this passage connects across Scripture — each link typed and reasoned, part of the AIT Bible Nexus Chart.