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.”

51 How 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.

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49 “Babylon must fall because of Israel’s slain,
    just as the slain in all the earth
    have fallen because of Babylon.(A)
50 You who have escaped the sword,
    leave(B) and do not linger!
Remember(C) the Lord in a distant land,(D)
    and call to mind Jerusalem.”

51 “We are disgraced,(E)
    for we have been insulted
    and shame covers our faces,
because foreigners have entered
    the holy places of the Lord’s house.”(F)

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