Add parallel Print Page Options

16 ·Don’t let the people from Babylon plant their crops [L Cut the sower off from Babylon]
    ·or gather [L seize the sickle wielder at the time of] the harvest.
·The soldiers treated their captives cruelly [L …before the sword of the oppressor].
    Now, let everyone ·go back home [L turn face toward his people].
Let everyone ·run [flee] to his own country [C after the fall of Babylon, the Persians allowed the exiled people to return to their own lands; Ezra 1].

17 “The people of Israel are like a flock of sheep that are scattered
    from being ·chased [driven] by lions.
The first lion to eat them up
    was the king of Assyria [C Sennacherib defeated the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 bc].
The last lion to ·crush [gnaw] their bones
    was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon [C defeated the southern kingdom of Judah in 586 bc].”

18 So this is what the Lord ·All-Powerful [Almighty; of Heaven’s Armies; T of hosts], the God of Israel, says:

“I will punish the king of Babylon and his country
    as I punished the king of Assyria [C defeated by Babylon at the end of the seventh century bc].

Read full chapter

16 Cut off from Babylon the sower,
    and the reaper with his sickle at harvest.
Because of the sword(A) of the oppressor
    let everyone return to their own people,(B)
    let everyone flee to their own land.(C)

17 “Israel is a scattered flock(D)
    that lions(E) have chased away.
The first to devour(F) them
    was the king(G) of Assyria;
the last to crush their bones(H)
    was Nebuchadnezzar(I) king(J) of Babylon.”

18 Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says:

“I will punish the king of Babylon and his land
    as I punished the king(K) of Assyria.(L)

Read full chapter