Bible Verses About Babylon

'Build yourselves houses, and live in them. Plant gardens, and eat what they produce.

Choose women to marry, and have sons and daughters. Choose wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage to men, so that they can have sons and daughters - increase your numbers there, don't decrease.

Seek the welfare of the city to which I have caused you to go in exile, and pray to ADONAI on its behalf; for your welfare is bound up in its welfare.'

Concerning Kedar and the kingdoms of Hatzor, which N'vukhadretzar king of Bavel struck, ADONAI says: "Set out! March against Kedar! Plunder the people of the east!

They will seize their tents and their flocks, their tent curtains and all their equipment; their camels too they will take for themselves and shout at them, 'Terror in every direction!'

Flee! Leave your homes! Hide yourselves well, you who live in Hatzor," says ADONAI; "for N'vukhadretzar king of Bavel has devised a plan against you; he has formed a scheme against you.

Get up! March on a nation at ease, that lives secure," says ADONAI. "They have neither gates nor bars; they live in isolation.

Their camels will be booty, their many cattle a spoil. I will scatter to the winds those who shave the sides of their heads; From every direction I will bring their disaster on them," says ADONAI.

"Hatzor will be a place for jackals to live, desolate forever; no one will settle there any more, no human being will live there again."

The word of ADONAI came to me:

"Human being, propound this riddle, tell the house of Isra'el this allegory,

say that Adonai ELOHIM says this: 'A big eagle having great wings and long pinions full of varicolored feathers came to the L'vanon and took over the top of the cedar.

He cropped off the topmost of its young twigs, carried them to a land of traders and set them down in a city of merchants.

He also took some of the seed in the land and planted it in fertile soil, placing it where there was abundant water, as one would a willow.

It grew to become a fruitful vine sprawling over the ground; its branches turned toward him, and its roots were under him - thus it became a vine, sprouting branches and putting forth shoots.

"'There was another big eagle with great wings and many feathers; and the vine bent its roots toward him and put forth its branches toward him, so that he might water it more than in the bed where it was planted.

It had been planted in good soil, near plenty of water, so that it would produce branches, bear fruit and become a noble vine.'

"Say that Adonai ELOHIM asks: 'Will it succeed? Won't he pull it up by the roots and cut off its fruit; so that it dries up; and all its sprouting leaves wither? There will be no great power and few people there when it is plucked up by the roots.

Will it thrive just because it was planted? Won't it wither altogether when the east wind strikes it? Yes, it will wither right there in the beds where it was growing.'"

The word of ADONAI came to me:

"Say to the rebellious house: 'Don't you know what these things mean?' Tell them: 'Here, the king of Bavel came to Yerushalayim, took its king and princes and brought them to himself in Bavel.

Then he took a member of the royal family and made a covenant with him, putting him under oath. He removed the powerful leaders of the land,

so that this kingdom of his would stay humble and not develop aspirations of its own; rather, it would keep his covenant and live accordingly.

But this man rebelled and sent representatives to Egypt, in order to obtain horses and a sizeable army. Can he succeed? Can someone who does such things escape punishment? Can he break the covenant and still escape punishment?

"'As I live,' says Adonai ELOHIM, 'in the place where the king who gave him his throne lives, whose oath he despised and whose covenant he broke, there with him in Bavel I swear that he will die.