But Wait, There's More
- Finally, God gets around to proclaiming judgment against Babylon. Just when you thought it was safe to be the conqueror…
- Babylon and its gods Bel and Merodach will be put to shame.
- Another nation will come out of the north to destroy it.
- The people of Israel and Judah will be freed and they'll go back to Zion with a new everlasting covenant.
- They'll be led back home like lost sheep with God as their shepherd.
- God's going to stir up a great (Persian-Median) army against them. Babylon will be plundered.
- Although Judah's plunderers are happy now, they'll soon be punished. Babylon will be devastated and uninhabitable.
- Everyone should go attack Babylon and turn it into a wasteland.
- Israel's been persecuted and exiled by both Assyria and Babylon. God will punish Babylon like he did Assyria, and the Hebrews will all return home and live without sin.
- God continues to get riled up about Babylon—he'll bring out his full armory to destroy them. Its bulls will get killed and its grain will be plundered.
- Refugees from Babylon will even come to Jerusalem, which is ironic given what they did to that city and its Temple.
- God will set Israel free from its captors, saving Israel and crushing Babylon in the process.
- What they did to others will now be done to them.
- God lists all the people who are going to get it: Babylonians, their officials, their sages, their diviners, their warriors, and their horses and chariots. He also curses the foreigners fighting for them, saying they'll become like women, i.e. ravaged.
- He curses Babylon's treasures and water supply, and says the people there have been a bit too infatuated with their idols.
- Wild animals and ostriches will take over Babylon, and it'll never be inhabited by humans again.
New Kids on the Block
- God tells everyone to look to the north where the new conquerors (the Persians) are getting ready for battle, riding toward Babylon like a roaring sea.
- The King of Babylon feels like a woman in labor hearing the news.
- God will appoint whoever he chooses over Babylon's ruined empire. He asks who else is like him or can accomplish all this. Yeah, who?
- The little ones of the Babylonian flock will be dragged away, and the sound of Babylon's cries will be heard everywhere.