“Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured me, crushed me, set me aside like an empty dish, swallowed me up like a dragon, filled his belly with my delicacies, rinsed me away.”
But this is a people robbed and looted. all of them trapped in holes, hidden away in prisons. They have become a prey with no one to deliver them, and plunder, with none to say, “Give them back!”
Israel is a scattered flock— lions have driven them away. First, Assyria’s king devoured him. This last one who broke his bones was King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
Everyone finding them devoured them. Their foes said: ‘We’re not guilty!’ Instead, they sinned against Adonai, the habitation of justice—Adonai, the hope of their fathers.”
I will punish Bel in Babylon— What he swallowed I will make him disgorge out of his mouth. Nations will no longer stream to him. Yes, the wall of Babylon has fallen!
How lonely sits the city, once so full of people! She who was once great among the nations has become like a widow. The princess among the provinces has become a forced laborer.
All your enemies opened their mouth wide against you; they hissed and gnashed their teeth, and say, “We have swallowed her up! Surely this is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it!”
Therefore prophesy and say, thus says Adonai Elohim: ‘Because they ravaged and crushed you from every side, so that you became the possession of the rest of the nations and you became the talk and evil gossip of people,’
“But woe to you, Torah scholars and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not enter yourselves, nor do you let those enter who are trying to go in.