“Report it to the nations, now!” Indeed, proclaim against Jerusalem: “Besiegers come from a far country, and lift their voices against the cities of Judah.
Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say, and from where did they come to you?” And Hezekiah said, “They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon.”
For behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, says the Lord. And they will come and they will set each one his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls all around, and against all the cities of Judah.
Both the great and the small will die in this land. They will not be buried; neither will men lament for them, cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them.
Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far off, and say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him and keep him, as a shepherd does his flock.”
In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem and besieged it.
Behold, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, says the Lord. It is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor do you understand what they say.
Therefore a lion out of the forest will slay them, and a wolf from the deserts will destroy them; a leopard will watch over their cities. Everyone who goes out from there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many and their backslidings have increased.
Declare among the nations and proclaim, and set up a standard; do not conceal it, but say, Babylon has been captured. Bel has been humiliated. Marduk has been broken in pieces; her idols have been humiliated; her images have been broken in pieces.
Hear, O earth. Behold, I will bring calamity on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to My words, nor to My law, but rejected it.
They will lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against you, O daughter of Zion.
Behold, the cry of the daughter of my people from a far country: “Is not the Lord in Zion? Is not her king in her?” “Why have they provoked Me to anger with their graven images, with foreign vanities?”
At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem: to appoint battering rams, to open the mouth for the slaughter, to lift up the voice with a battle shout, to appoint battering rams against the gates, to cast up a ramp, and to build a siege tower.