“ ‘That is why I will bring disaster on Jeroboam’s house. I will destroy every male in his house, whether slave or freeman in Israel. I will burn down Jeroboam’s house. It will burn like manure until it is gone.
I will measure Jerusalem with the measuring line used for Samaria and the plumb line used for Ahab’s dynasty. I will wipe out Jerusalem in the same way that a dish is wiped out and turned upside down.
It will never be inhabited again, and no one will live in it for generations. Arabs won’t pitch their tents there. Shepherds won’t let their flocks rest there.
This is the divine revelation about the desert by the sea. Like a storm sweeping through the Negev, an invader will come from the desert, from a terrifying land.
Attack them from a distance, open their storehouses, pile up their corpses like piles of grain, claim them for me by destroying them, and don’t leave anyone behind.
Flocks will lie down in it along with animals of every kind. Even pelicans and herons will nest on top of its columns. Listen! A bird will sing in a window. The doorway will be in ruins, because the Lord will expose the cedar beams.
Another angel, a second one, followed him, and said, “Fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen! She has made all the nations drink the wine of her passionate sexual sins.”
He cried out in a powerful voice, “Fallen! Babylon the Great has fallen! She has become a home for demons. She is a prison for every evil spirit, every unclean bird, and every unclean and hated beast.