Behold, they shall be as stubble. Fire will consume them. They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame! It is not a coal for warming by or a fire to sit before!
Its collapse is like smashing a clay jar, so ruthlessly shattered that a shard will not be found among the pieces to take fire from the hearth or scoop water from the cistern.”
Sinners in Zion are afraid. Trembling has seized the godless: “Who among us can live with the consuming fire?” “Who among us can live with everlasting burnings?”
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely are they sown, scarcely their stem takes root in the earth, when He blows on them and they wither, and a storm carries them off as stubble.
Who has stirred up one from the east? He calls justice to His feet. He gives nations over to him and subdues kings. He makes them like dust with his sword, as driven stubble with his bow.
He burns half of it in the fire. With this half, he eats meat. He roasts a roast and is satisfied. He also warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm, I have seen the fire.”
Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes straw, and as chaff collapses into the flame, so their root will be like rot, and their blossom will go up like dust. For they have rejected the Torah of Adonai–Tzva’ot, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
Babylon’s warriors ceased fighting. They stay in their strongholds. Their might is exhausted. They have become like women. Her dwellings are set ablaze, her gate-bars are broken.
Thus says Adonai-Tzva’ot: “Babylon’s thick wall will be totally razed and her high gates burned with fire. So the peoples are toiling for nothing, and nations weary themselves for fire.”
I will set My face against them. Even if they come out of the fire, the fire will yet devour them. So you will know that I am Adonai, when I set My face against them.
The house of Jacob will be a fire, and the house of Joseph flame, while the house of Esau will be straw—they will set them on fire and consume them. So there will be no survivors of the house of Esau.” —for Adonai has spoken.
Then a mighty angel picked up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying: “So shall Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, never to be found again!