Yeremia 50:12-13

50:12 But Babylonia will be put to great shame.

The land where you were born ¹  will be disgraced.

Indeed, ²  Babylonia will become the least important of all nations.

It will become a dry and barren desert.

50:13 After I vent my wrath on it Babylon will be uninhabited. ³ 

It will be totally desolate.

All who pass by will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn

because of all the disasters that have happened to it. ⁴ 

Yeremia 25:12

25:12 “‘But when the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation ⁵  for their sins. I will make the land of Babylon ⁶  an everlasting ruin. ⁷  I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁸ 

Yeremia 51:26

51:26 No one will use any of your stones as a cornerstone.

No one will use any of them in the foundation of his house.

For you will lie desolate forever,” ⁹ 

says the Lord. ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 51:37-38

51:37 Babylon will become a heap of ruins.

Jackals will make their home there. ¹¹ 

It will become an object of horror and of hissing scorn,

a place where no one lives. ¹² 

51:38 The Babylonians are all like lions roaring for prey.

They are like lion cubs growling for something to eat. ¹³ 

Yeremia 51:43

51:43 The towns of Babylonia have become heaps of ruins.

She has become a dry and barren desert.

No one lives in those towns any more.

No one even passes through them. ¹⁴ 

Yeremia 51:62-64

51:62 Then say, ‘O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!’ 51:63 When you finish reading this scroll aloud, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates River. ¹⁵  51:64 Then say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again because of the judgments ¹⁶  I am ready to bring upon her; they will grow faint.’”

The prophecies of Jeremiah end here. ¹⁷ 

[50:12]  ¹ tn Heb “Your mother will be utterly shamed, the one who gave you birth…” The word “mother” and the parallel term “the one who gave you birth” are used metaphorically for the land of Babylonia. For the figure compare the usage in Isa 50:1 (Judah) and Hos 2:2, 5 (2:4, 7 HT) and see BDB 52 s.v. אֵם 2 and 408 s.v. יָלַד Qal.2.c.

[50:12]  ² tn Heb “Behold.” For the use of this particle see the translator’s note on 1:6.

[50:13]  ³ tn Heb “From [or Because of] the wrath of the Lord it will be uninhabited.” The causal connection is spelled out more clearly and actively and the first person has been used because the speaker is the Lord. The referent “it” has been spelled out clearly from the later occurrence in the verse, “all who pass by Babylon.”

[50:13]  ⁴ sn Compare Jer 49:17 and the study note there and see also the study notes on 18:16 and 19:8.

[25:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “that nation.”

[25:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “the land of the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for the use of the term “Chaldeans.”

[25:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will visit upon the king of Babylon and upon that nation, oracle of the Lord, their iniquity even upon the land of the Chaldeans and I will make it everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been restructured to avoid ambiguity and to conform the style more to contemporary English.

[25:12]  sn Compare Isa 13:19-22 and Jer 50:39-40.

[25:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[51:26]  ⁹ tn This is a fairly literal translation of the original which reads “No one will take from you a stone for a cornerstone nor a stone for foundations.” There is no unanimity of opinion in the commentaries, many feeling that the figure of the burned mountain continues and others feeling that the figure here shifts to a burned city whose stones are so burned that they are useless to be used in building. The latter is the interpretation adopted here (see, e.g., F. B. Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 423; W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:426; NCV).

[51:26]  sn The figure here shifts to that of a burned-up city whose stones cannot be used for building. Babylon will become a permanent heap of ruins.

[51:26]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[51:37]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a heap of ruins, a haunt for jackals.” Compare 9:11.

[51:37]  ¹² tn Heb “without an inhabitant.”

[51:38]  ¹³ tn Heb “They [the Babylonians] all roar like lions. They growl like the cubs of lions.” For the usage of יַחְדָו (yakhdav) meaning “all” see Isa 10:8; 18:6; 41:20. The translation strives to convey in clear terms what is the generally accepted meaning of the simile (cf., e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 358, and J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 762).

[51:43]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Its towns have become a desolation, [it has become] a dry land and a desert, a land which no man passes through them [referring to “her towns”] and no son of man [= human being] passes through them.” Here the present translation has followed the suggestion of BHS and a number of the modern commentaries in deleting the second occurrence of the word “land,” in which case the words that follow are not a relative clause but independent statements. A number of modern English versions appear to ignore the third feminine plural suffixes which refer back to the cities and refer the statements that follow to the land.

[51:63]  ¹⁵ tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied for clarity.

[51:64]  ¹⁶ tn Or “disaster”; or “calamity.”

[51:64]  ¹⁷ sn The final chapter of the book of Jeremiah does not mention Jeremiah or record any of his prophecies.