The Fall of Babylon

¹“Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon.

Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans.

For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.

²Take the millstones and grind flour.

Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs,

and wade through the rivers.

³Your nakedness will be uncovered.

Yes, your shame will be seen.

I will take vengeance,

and will spare no one.”

⁴Our Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies is his name,

is the Holy One of Israel.

⁵“Sit in silence, and go into darkness,

daughter of the Chaldeans.

For you shall no longer be called

the mistress of kingdoms.

⁶I was angry with my people.

I profaned my inheritance

and gave them into your hand.

You showed them no mercy.

You laid a very heavy yoke on the aged.

⁷You said, ‘I will be a princess forever,’

so that you didn’t lay these things to your heart,

nor did you remember the results.

⁸“Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures,

who sit securely,

who say in your heart,

‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.

I won’t sit as a widow,

neither will I know the loss of children.’

⁹But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day:

the loss of children and widowhood.

They will come on you in their full measure,

in the multitude of your sorceries,

and the great abundance of your enchantments.

¹⁰For you have trusted in your wickedness.

You have said, ‘No one sees me.’

Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you.

You have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’

¹¹Therefore disaster will come on you.

You won’t know when it dawns.

Mischief will fall on you.

You won’t be able to put it away.

Desolation will come on you suddenly,

which you don’t understand.

¹²“Stand now with your enchantments

and with the multitude of your sorceries,

in which you have labored from your youth,

as if you might profit,

as if you might prevail.

¹³You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels.

Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you.

¹⁴Behold, they are like stubble.

The fire will burn them.

They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame.

It won’t be a coal to warm at

or a fire to sit by.

¹⁵The things that you labored in will be like this:

those who have trafficked with you from your youth will each wander in his own way.

There will be no one to save you.

Study Questions for Isaiah 47

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The Fall of Babylon

Study Questions for Isaiah 47