World English Bible · Babylon and the exile
Jeremiah 9
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Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh that I had in a lodging place of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people and go from them! For they are all , an of treacherous men. "They bend their , as their bow, for falsehood. They have grown strong in the land, but not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they don't know me," . "Everyone beware of his neighbor, and don't in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go around like a slanderer. Friends deceive each other, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their to speak lies. They weary themselves committing . Your habitation is in the middle of deceit. Through deceit, they refuse to know me," . Therefore of Armies says, "Behold, I will melt them and them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people? Their is a deadly arrow. It speaks deceit. One speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his , but in , he waits to ambush him. Shouldn't I punish them for these things?" . "Shouldn't be on a nation such as this? I will weep and for the mountains, and for the pastures of , because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can't hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of and the animals have fled. They are gone. "I will make heaps, a of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant." Who is enough to understand this? Who is he to whom has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land and burned up like a , so that no one passes through? says, "Because they have forsaken which I set before them, and have not or walked in my ways, but have walked after the stubbornness of their own and after , which their fathers taught them." Therefore of Armies, the of Israel, says, "Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink. I will scatter them also among the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will send after them, until I have consumed them." of Armies says, "Consider, and call for the women, that they may come. Send for the skillful women, that they may come. Let them make haste and take up a for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with waters. For a voice of is heard out of , 'How we are ruined! We are greatly confounded because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.'" Yet hear word, you women. Let your ear receive the word of his . Teach your daughters . Everyone teach her neighbor a . For has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to the children from outside, and the young men from the streets. Speak, " says, "' bodies of men will fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester. No one will gather them.'" says, "Don't let man in his . Don't let the mighty man in his might. Don't let the rich man in his riches. But let him who glories in this, that he has understanding, and knows me, that I am who exercises , justice, and in the earth, for I delight in these things," . "Behold, the days come," , "that I will punish all those who are only in their : , Judah, , , , and all who have the corners of their hair , who in , for all the nations are , and all the are in ."
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The world at this moment · Babylon and the exile, 612 BC to 539 BC ›
Babylon replaces Assyria, Jerusalem and its temple are destroyed in 586 BC, and the leadership of Judah lives in Mesopotamia without a king, a temple, or a country.
- Babylon
- Nebuchadnezzar II rebuilds the city on a scale meant to be seen from a distance: the Ishtar Gate in glazed blue brick, the processional way, the ziggurat, and gardens later counted among the wonders of the world. Babylonian tablets record rations issued to the captive king Jehoiachin of Judah by name, which is one of the tidier points of contact between the Bible and the archives.
- Egypt
- Briefly resurgent. Pharaoh Neco marches north, kills King Josiah at Megiddo, and installs and deposes kings in Jerusalem, until Babylon beats him decisively at Carchemish in 605 BC. Jeremiah spends his career saying that betting on Egypt is suicide, and is proved right.
- Judah
- Deported in stages, then destroyed. The temple is burned, the walls broken, and the leadership marched to Mesopotamia. What happens next is one of the strangest survivals in history: a people keeps its identity without land, king, or sanctuary, and comes out of it with its scriptures more central than before.
- Further afield
- An extraordinary century for ideas everywhere at once. Thales and the first Greek philosophers, Solon's reforms at Athens, the Buddha in India, Confucius and Lao Tzu in China, and Zoroaster in Persia all fall within a few generations of the exile.
All of Jeremiah