Dual Panel1Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Descend from your throne and sit on the ground, daughter of the Chaldaeans; never again will you be called tender and delicate.
2Take the handmill, grind meal, remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thighs, wade through rivers,
3so that your nakedness may be seen, your shame exposed. I shall take vengeance and show clemency to none,
4says our Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, whose name is the LORD of Hosts.
5Daughter of the Chaldaeans, go into the darkness and sit in silence; for never again will you be called queen of many kingdoms.
6I was angry with my people; I dishonoured my own possession and surrendered them into your power. You showed them no mercy; even on the aged you laid a very heavy yoke.
7You said, “I shall reign a queen for ever”; you gave no thought to your actions, nor did you consider their outcome.
8Now listen to this, you lover of luxury, carefree on your throne, saying to yourself, “I am, and there is none other. I shall never sit in widow's mourning, never know the loss of children.”
9Yet suddenly, in a single day, both these things will come upon you; they will both come upon you in full measure: loss of children and widowhood, despite your many sorceries, all your countless spells.
10Secure in your wicked ways you thought, “No one can see me.” It was your wisdom and knowledge that led you astray. You said to yourself, “I am, and there is none other.”
11Therefore evil will overtake you, and you will not know how to conjure it away; disaster will befall you, and you will not be able to avert it; ruin all unforeseen will suddenly come upon you.
12Persist in your spells and your many sorceries, in which you have trafficked all your life. Maybe you can get help from them! Maybe you will yet inspire terror!
13In spite of your many wiles you are powerless. Let your astrologers, your star-gazers who foretell your future month by month, persist, and save you!
14But they are like stubble and fire burns them up; they cannot snatch themselves from the flame. It is not a glowing coal to warm them, not a fire for them to sit by!
15So much for your magicians with whom you have trafficked all your life: they have wandered off, each his own way, and there is not one to save you.