You will winnow them. The wind will carry them away. The windstorm will scatter them. But you will find joy in the Lord and praise the Holy One of Israel.
This is what the Lord, your Defender, the Holy One of Israel, says: For your sake I will send ⌞an army⌟ to Babylon. I will bring back all the Babylonian refugees in the ships that they take pride in.
“I will separate them with a winnowing shovel at the city gates. I will make them childless. I will destroy my people because they will not change their ways.
“Call together the archers, the soldiers with bows, against Babylon. Set up blockades around it. Don’t let anyone escape. Pay the people of Babylon back for what they have done. Do to them what they did to others. They have disobeyed the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.
Those arrogant people will stumble and fall, and there will be no one to help them get up. I will light a fire in their cities that will burn up everything around them.”
One-third of you will die in plagues and be devoured in famines. Another third will die in battles against those around you. I will scatter the remaining third to the wind, and I will pursue them with a sword.
His winnowing shovel is in his hand, and he will clean up his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into a barn, but he will burn the husks in a fire that can never be put out.”