Jeremiah 51:50-53

The Message

Remember God in Your Long and Distant Exile

^49-50“Babylon must fall—
    compensation for the war dead in Israel.
Babylonians will be killed
    because of all that Babylonian killing.
But you exiles who have escaped a Babylonian death,
    get out! And fast!
Remember God in your long and distant exile.
    Keep Jerusalem alive in your memory.”

⁵¹How we’ve been humiliated, taunted and abused,
kicked around for so long that we hardly know who we are!
And we hardly know what to think—
our old Sanctuary, God’s house, desecrated by strangers.

^52-53“I know, but trust me: The time is coming”
    —God’s Decree—
“When I will bring doom on her no-god idols,
    and all over this land her wounded will groan.
Even if Babylon climbed a ladder to the moon
    and pulled up the ladder so that no one could get to her,
That wouldn’t stop me.
    I’d make sure my avengers would reach her.”
        God’s Decree.