Behold, they shall be as stubble, the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame; it shall not be coal to be warmed by nor a fire to sit before.
He shall break it as the breaking of the potter’s vessel that is broken in pieces; He shall not spare so that there shall not be found in the breaking of it a shard to take fire from the hearth or with which to take water out of a cistern.
The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has seized the hypocrites: “Who among us can live with the continual fire? Who among us can live with everlasting burning?”
Scarcely shall they be planted; scarcely shall they be sown; scarcely shall their tree take root in the earth, when He will also blow on them, and they will wither, and the whirlwind will take them away as stubble.
Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to His foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? He makes them as the dust with his sword, and as driven stubble with his bow.
He burns half of it in the fire; over this half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire.”
Therefore, as the fire devours the stubble and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; because they have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting; they have remained in their strongholds. Their might has failed; they became as women. They have burned her dwelling places; the bars of her gates are broken.
Thus says the Lord of Hosts: The broad wall of Babylon will be utterly broken, and her high gates will be burned with fire; and the peoples will labor in vain, and the nations become exhausted only for fire.
I will set My face against them. Though they go out from one fire, yet the fire shall devour them. Then you shall know that I am the Lord when I set My face against them.
As with the sound of chariots, they leap on the mountaintops, as with the sound of a flame of fire consuming stubble, as a mighty army arrayed for war.
The house of Jacob shall be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, but the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivors from the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken.
Surely the day is coming, burning like an oven; all the proud, yes, all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming will burn them up, says the Lord of Hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying: “With such violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more.