and let
Jerusalem come into your mind. We are ashamed, because we have heard
reproach; confusion hath covered our faces: for strangers are come
into the sanctuaries of the Lord's house.

"'Wherefore, behold, the days come,' saith the Lord, 'that I will do
judgment upon her graven images; and through all her land the wounded
shall groan. Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she
should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers
come unto her,' saith the Lord.

"The sound of a cry from Babylon, and of great destruction from the
land of the Chaldeans! for the Lord spoileth Babylon, and destroyeth
out of her the great voice; and their waves roar like many waters, the
noise of their voice is uttered: for the spoiler is come upon her,
even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows are broken
in pieces: for the Lord is a God of recompenses, he shall surely
requite. 'And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her
governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a
perpetual sleep, and not wake,' saith the King, whose name is the Lord
of hosts. Thus saith the Lord of hosts: 'The broad walls of Babylon
shall be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with
fire; and the peoples shall labour for vanity, and the nations for the
fire; and they shall be weary.'"

The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of
Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when {343} he went with Zedekiah the king
of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was
chief chamberlain. And Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that
should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written
concerning Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, "When thou comest to
Babylon, then see that thou read all these words, and say, 'O Lord,
thou hast spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that none shall
dwell therein, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate
for ever.' And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this
book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst
of Euphrates: and thou shalt say, 'Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall
not rise again because of the evil that I will bring upon her: and
they shall be weary.'"

{344}

EZEKIEL

(The book of Ezekiel differs from every other book of prophecy in the
fact that none of it was written in Palestine. It was written in
Babylonia, whither Ezekiel