“She shall never be inhabited, nor be settled from generation to generation; nor shall the Araḇian pitch tents there, nor shepherds rest their flocks there.
“But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be filled with owls. And ostriches shall dwell there, and wild goats frolic there.
“And I shall make it a possession for the porcupine, and marshes of muddy water; and shall sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares יהוה of hosts.
“And the stronghold shall cease from Ephrayim, and the reign from Dammeseq, and the remnant of Aram be as the esteem of the sons of Yisra’ĕl,” declares יהוה of hosts.
“And see this, a chariot of men coming with a pair of horsemen!” And he spoke up and said, “Baḇel is fallen, is fallen! And all the carved images of her mighty ones He has broken to the ground.”
See the land of the Kasdim – this people did not exist. Ashshur founded it for wild beasts of the desert. They set up their siege-towers, they demolished her palaces, and made her a ruin.
For the city of defence is lonely, a home forsaken and left like a wilderness – there the calf feeds, and there it lies down, and shall consume its branches.
“Have you not heard long ago how I made it, from days of old, that I formed it? Now I have brought it about, that you should be for crushing walled cities into heaps of ruins.
“And gather all its plunder into the middle of the street, and completely burn with fire the city and all its plunder, before יהוה your Elohim. And it shall be a heap forever, never to be built again.
“And they threw dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and mourning, and saying, ‘Woe! Woe, the great city, in which all who had ships on the sea became rich by her wealth! For in one hour she was laid waste.’