if Christians just get up and talk about Jesus. Cause His love's down in our heart. Amen. Amen. Well, we'll continue on with our Bible study tonight. And we've got just enough time to finish up this chapter. Jeremiah chapter 51, we'll be looking at tonight, the finishing it up, starting at verse 33. On our journey through Jeremiah, part number 56. And this'll be the judgment against Babylon, part four. We've been looking at the judgment against Babylon for the last three Bible studies. And tonight will be the final one in that. And then we'll move to the last chapter of Jeremiah and finish it up next week, Lord willing. Jeremiah chapter 51, let's look at verse 33. And here the Bible says, for thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, the daughter of Babylon, is like a threshing floor. It is time to thresh her, yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come. Father, Lord, thank you, God, for the reading of your word. Thank you for the good spirit we can feel here tonight for these folks that's here. Lord, I thank you for them, Lord, for coming out. And God, I'm praying now, Lord, that you just apply this word to our heart, God. Give us something, Lord, from heaven tonight. Give us an anointing, to be able to teach and preach from your word, and Lord, may you be the one that's exalted and glorified in it all. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, Babylon has been basking in its riches for all these years. Now, they've been the dominant world empire for a long time at this point, that the actual judgment's gonna be given out on them. Now, this judgment was spoken to them by Jeremiah several years before it actually happened, and they didn't heed the warning, just like the children of Israel didn't heed the warning. Nobody listened to Jeremiah. He was the most unlistened to prophet, I believe, in the whole Bible, and the Lord told him it'd be that way. And even when he called him, first called him, he said that they wouldn't listen to him, they wouldn't hearken to his voice and all that. And boy, he had a rough time, but he was so faithful. And I'm so glad of that. He was just faithful. He would get out there and keep on, even that one time when he thought he was going to quit, when he didn't want to prophesy anymore. And he said, I can't help but prophesy. There's a fire down in my bones. And he just kept right on at it. Well, Babylon, like I said, has been basking in her riches and her power for a long time, but now the Lord says, you know what, it's time to make them as the threshing floor. Now, the threshing floor, we've talked about this before. This is when they would gather in the wheat and the corn and the different grains, and they would take them to a threshing floor. This was a place that was prepared out in a flat area. It was about 50 feet wide in circumference, a big circle, And they would prepare this ground before they would thresh the wheat and they would beat it. You would either beat it until it got real hard or they would take oxen and they would walk over it and get that ground really, really hard. And then when they would go and they would reap all the grains and the corn and things like that, they would put it on the threshing floor and then they would beat that and they would separate the wheat from the chaff and the corn from the husk and all that. And so all that would be left down on the threshing floor. And the rest of it, it's called winnowing, and they would winnow it away, and they would let the winds blow off the things out into the open air. And then all the good stuff was left behind. Well, the Lord said, he's going to do Babylon that way. He's going to make them like a threshing floor. In other words, he's going to beat them flat. And then he's gonna put them through, he says it's time to thresh her, so he's gonna beat them until they're separated, and then the harvest shall come. And so he's gonna pick them all the way out. And so this is just another way of saying he's completely destroying these people. You can't imagine what it'd be like to be on a threshing floor being threshed like wheat. And so he's going to do that to Babylon. Verse 34, he says, Nebuchadrezzar, the king of Babylon, has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has swallowed me up like a dragon. He has filled his belly with my delicates. He has cast me out. The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say. And my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea shall Jerusalem say. Now, when it's talking right here where it says that Nebuchadnezzar has crushed me, that's not the Lord saying that Nebuchadnezzar crushed him. That's the Lord's people saying that he's crushed us. And so this is them speaking. And they are calling for the Lord to take vengeance out upon them. and to avenge them for the way they've been treated. They just cry out. And that's why it says there in the end of verse 35, shall Jerusalem say. And it said, the inhabitants of Zion say. These are the inhabitants there that's been taken into captivity. And they're calling on the Lord to take vengeance upon Babylon for what they've done, how they've treated them. And they've named all, so they devoured me, crushed me, made them empty vessels, swallowed them up like dragons, filled his belly with our delegates. So they took everything from these people. And so they are looking for the Lord to take vengeance out. Verse 36 says, Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will plead thy cause and take vengeance for thee, and I will dry up her sea and make her springs dry, and Babylon shall become heaps of a dwelling place for dragons and astonishment and a hissing without an inhabitant. So this is the Lord's answer to his people. They're calling out and crying out for vengeance, and he says, Okay, I'll tell you what. I will. I will take vengeance out. He said, I will plead thy cause and take vengeance for thee." And he starts describing what he's going to do. Dry up her seas, make her springs dry. She'll become as heaps and dwell in a place for dragons. This is a description of how utterly destroyed they will be. There won't even be anything left for habitation of human people. It would be nothing good except for animals and things to come and hide out in. And notice he uses those words there, an astonishment and the hissing. These are familiar words to us out of Jeremiah. He uses them a lot. Astonishment and hissing. And these are descriptions that you'll find several times in the Bible. The Bible is very descriptive on when the Lord is taking vengeance out on a nation, punishing someone. He uses those words that when people come by and they see that nation, after it's been destroyed by the Lord, he said, it'll be in an astonishment and a hissing. And we saw that the Lord said that that was what was going to happen to the land of Judah, too. Before they were taken, Jeremiah came out and prophesied, and he said, the Lord said that when he gets done with you, when people come by and see the land of Judah and Jerusalem and what's left of it, it'll be like they'll be in an astonishment and hissing. Listen to it, Jeremiah 25 and 15. The Bible said, For thus saith the Lord God of Israel unto me, Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send thee to drink it. And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them. Then took I the cup of the Lord's hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the Lord had sent me. And listen to this, verse 18, To wit Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah. and the kings thereof and the princes thereof to make them a desolation an astonishment and hissing and a curse as it is it is this day and so he told them the same thing and that's exactly what happened to everything the Lord said would happen happened and Jerusalem of course we know was destroyed city was burned the temple was was was torn down and burned and everything stolen out of it, and when people would come by and see that that once proud place that claimed to be God's place, the city of Zion, Jerusalem, all these proud Jews in there, their mighty fine temple, and they'll come by and they'll look at it and they'll be in an astonishment. What in the world happened to them? I mean, they were a blessed people. How did this happen? And that word astonishment means an amazed confusion kind of mingled with a little bit of fear. And so it's a confused fear that they have because they know something very bad has happened. And in that word hissing, it means a derision, a whistling of scorn. So when everybody sees this place, first of all, they're going to be confused. They're going to be kind of afraid. And then it says they'll be hissing. And you can imagine, if you will, what it might be like when it says hissing. That's kind of like when you see something that's happened really bad and you go, Like that, you know? That's what it is. They come by and they see Babylon and they go, whoa, how in the world did that happen? Or maybe, look at that. I mean, that's what he's talking about. Everybody that walks by that sees Babylon, it used to be in its prime, and they'll walk by and go, look what the Lord's done. Verse 38, they shall roar together like lions, talking about the Chaldeans now, they shall roar together like lions and they shall yell as lions whelps, in their heat I will make their feast and I'll make them drunken that they may rejoice and sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, saith the Lord, and I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he goats. Now, this is a clear indication of how they fell, and they fell hard. The Lord had caused them to be in this. He says that I'm going to make them sleep, perpetual sleep, make them drunken. And you know the night that Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians, that's exactly what they were doing. They were in a drunken state. They were out there partying and living it up and drinking out of the vessels out of the temple of God and handwriting on the wall. And that night, Babylon fell. And so this is descriptions of how the Lord was going to destroy them. Even though the Chaldeans all growl like lions, but the Lord is going to lead them to slaughter like lambs. And so they're not the big ferocious nation that they were. Verse 41, How is Shishak taken? And how is the praise of the whole earth surprised? How has Babylon become an astonishment among the nations? Notice those explanation points through there. This is a great excitement here. How is Shishak taken? We can't believe this has happened. And the whole earth is surprised. How has Babylon become an astonishment among the nations? That name Shishak right there, that is a symbolic name for Babylon and it actually means thy fine linen. Babylon was known for a lot of things. Mostly their riches. They were very, very rich. No wonder they pillaged and plundered every nation around them and took everything they wanted. and they were so powerful you couldn't go against them. But they were known as the Shishak. We only see that used two times in the Bible. Once here and then in Jeremiah 25 and 26 the same word is used, Shishak. And like I said, it's symbolic language meaning Babylon. Verse 42, The sea is come up upon Babylon, she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof. Her cities are a desolation, a dry land and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby. And these are further descriptions of the utter destruction. And I know it starts to look real repetitive to us. And we wonder why in the world does the Lord keep on and on telling us about all this destruction. I mean, it just keeps on. It's almost like we would use the term beating the dead horse. But He's trying to make it clear here exactly what He's doing to this nation. And don't forget, we're dealing also with double prophecy. This is not just for the people during that time of captivity that he's speaking to. We're looking also at a double prophecy that's going to come about one day. In the book of Revelation chapter 18, he goes on further, John the Apostle, in his vision, he sees this destruction of Babylon in the end of times. And so Babylon's going to be revived again. It's going to be another nation again. It's going to rise up and it'll be the dominant nation at the time where the Antichrist will try to rule from. He'll try to rule from Jerusalem. But his main headquarters is going to be Babylon. The whole system is going to be a Babylonian system. The whole spirit of Babylon is going to be prevalent in that day. And then the same thing, all these things that the Bible talks about, this is all going to happen. Listen to it, Revelation 18, 1 and 2. It says, And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven. having great power, and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." And so this same description that God is giving here, that Jeremiah is giving to the land of Babylon, that's going to happen to them when the Medes and Persians come, the same thing's going to happen in the end of times in that spirit and nation of Babylon. Look at verse 44 of our text. He says, And I will punish Baal in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up. And the nations shall not flow together any more unto him, yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall. Well, this is a clear condemnation of their chief deity, their chief god, Baal. Baal was who the Babylonians worshipped, their main god. They worshipped other gods than Baal. But Baal was their main chief god. Baal was not a real god. Baal was a figment of their imagination. He's a false god. He's not even real. I believe the Romans referred to him as Jupiter, the same false god. But he's describing this punishment of Baal as if he is a actual person because the Chaldeans, they worshipped him so much that they believed he was real. And so the Lord is pronouncing this judgment upon their chief god, Baal. Now, Baal, if you remember, over in the book of Daniel, I'm going to give you the reference, Daniel chapter 1, verses 6 and 7, when the captivity began, when the Hebrews were taken over into Babylonian captivity, you remember who was there, Daniel and his three friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Now, the first thing they did to these folks was change their names. They changed all their names into Chaldean names. And listen to what their names become. Start with Daniel 1, verse 6. Now among these were the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, unto whom the prince of the eunuchs gave names, for he gave unto Daniel the name of Bel to Shazar. and to Hanani of Shadrach, and to Mishael of Meshach, and to Azariah of Abednego." Now notice what they named Daniel specifically. Bel to Shazar. That means Bel's prince is what that means. They called Daniel Bel's prince, whom Bel favors also is another interpretation of that. This was an attempt to indoctrinate the Hebrews into Babylonian culture. And so that's what they did. They changed their names. They changed their language. They made them learn all the history of Babylon, the Chaldean history. They had to learn all these things and indoctrinate them into that society to make them what they once were. They want to knock the Hebrew out of them. That's what they want to do. Get the Hebrew out of them and make them Chaldeans. And so they start by changing their name. But I find it interesting that Daniel's name is named after their chief god, Bel, Bel to Shazar. Verse 45 back in Jeremiah 51. My people, go you out of the midst of her and deliver you every man his soul from the fierce anger of the Lord. And lest your heart faint and you fear for the rumor that shall be heard in the land, a rumor shall both come one year and after that in another year shall come a rumor and violence in the land, ruler against ruler. Well, God's people are warned to flee from the midst of Babylon. It's going to be very bad. Now, we know that the Lord is going to call Cyrus to give the edict that the Jews can leave the land of Babylon and they can go back to Jerusalem. He's going to do that when he gets on the throne just shortly after he takes charge. And so at that time, this is an encouragement for the Jews to leave that land of Babylon. Get out of there. You don't belong there. Get out of there. When the Lord says it's time for you to go, you go back over to your land. But we know that it's going to be many of them that will not go. Many of them did not go. Many refused to go, but many were in just, they were inhabitants of Babylon now. That was their life. And so they didn't leave. They stayed there. Verse 47, it says, Therefore behold, the days come that I will do judgment upon the graven images of Babylon, and her whole land shall be confounded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her. So all the inhabitants of Babylon, they're going to be in utter shock. I mean, they'll be dismayed at the destruction of their land. I mean, they're the destroyers. What do they mean coming and destroying us and destroying our land and killing our people? They have trusted their god, Baal, to protect them, and we see that Baal is not going to be a protection. He's not real. It says there, he says that they shall be confounded. meaning running around in bewilderment not knowing what to do. You ever seen anybody run around not knowing what to do? You ever seen anybody right after a bad accident or a car accident or something, they don't know what they're doing? They're just kind of running around looking wild. That's what the inhabitants of Babylon did. When everything happened, they were running around like wild men, didn't know what to do. They were bewildered. Verse 48 says, Then the heaven and earth and all that is therein shall sing for Babylon, for the spooler shall come unto her from the north, saith the Lord. Now, when it says they shall sing for Babylon, I don't mean they're trying to encourage Babylon by singing. No, they're singing songs of praise to the Lord God of heaven for the destruction of Babylon. And so they're singing praises here to the Lord. Then heaven and earth and all therein shall sing for Babylon. The destruction of Babylon will cause all of heaven and earth to rejoice. at the fall of that nation. And they'll sing praises to God and marvel at His mighty and wonderful, marvelous works and His vengeance against sin and evil man. And so they'll be singing the songs for the Lord. Verse 49, As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so Babylon shall fall the slain of all the earth. Well, just like Babylon caused so much death and destruction to all the nations around them, but specifically God's people, they too will experience the same thing that they did to these other lands. And what it's like to be on the other, the receiving end of God's sword is wrath. They're going to experience that like everyone else. Verse 50, ye that have escaped the sword, go away, stand not still, remember the Lord afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind. Again, this is another plea for the children of Israel, for the children of Judah, the inhabitants over there, the ones in captivity, when it's time, leave that land, get out of that land. get out of there, get Jerusalem in your mind. Think about Jerusalem. Now they knew that Jerusalem, the real tried and true Jews, those that knew about it, they knew Jerusalem was the city. And they were to pray toward that way, and to keep it on their mind. Well here, he's telling them to put Jerusalem in your mind, and it's a call for them, like I said, when Cyrus gives the edict, and I'm gonna read that to you, over in Ezra, Chapter 1 verses 1 through 6 is the proclamation that Cyrus gave when the Lord told him, the Lord stirred up Cyrus and told him to let his people go. Now listen to it, Ezra 1 and 1. Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made proclamation throughout all of his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? His God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel. He is the God which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah, and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of the Lord, which is in Jerusalem. And all they that were about them strengthened their hand with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, with beasts, and with precious things. Besides all that was willingly offered." What had happened here, Cyrus actually, when he made this proclamation, he called for everybody. Anybody can go. Everybody can go. But he says, if you're not going to go, if you're going to stay behind, I want you to contribute to the building of the house of God. I want you to give. He talks about all the things there. He wants them to give the gold and the goods and the silver and the vessels and all this so that they can build the house of God. And so it's hard to say exactly how many Jews stayed behind. We don't know. There's a few different numbers in the Bible that tells us how many went over there in the beginning. It's different in Kings than it is in Jeremiah. In different places you find different numbers given. So it's kind of hard to pin all it down how many was there. But we do know how many actually left because it tells us over in the book of Ezra, Ezra 2 and 6, 2 and 64, verse 64, it says that 42,360 left to go over to rebuild the temple and to go back. And so there were several that stayed behind. Why would they do that? Well, think about it. They've been in captivity 70 years. If you were one year old when you got taken into captivity, you were 71 years old now. You're 71 years old. Now, that was pretty young at that time. And actually, that's young nowadays. Nowadays, people are living way up there, 100 years old now. It's not uncommon. With the advancement of medicines and things that people can do now to prolong our life and keep our blood pressure down and all that stuff, we're living longer today. The retirement age is going up, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to retire. I was hoping to retire early. I think my dad was 57 when he retired from teaching. And boy, wouldn't that be great. I'd get to retire in about six years. But I'm probably going to have to work another 20. But people are living a lot longer. But they would have been 71 if they were one year old when they went over there. But just think if they were 20 years old. They'd be 90 by now. And so a lot of these people would have been too old to travel. A lot of them would have probably been sick, probably wouldn't have been able to. But think of the sheer number of them that were born in captivity. We're talking 70 years. You know how many people got born in 70 years? There's no telling. Even if there was just a hundred of years, I mean, that's a lot of people. But we know there was probably a lot more than that. The Jews, they believed in having children, lots of children. That was their glory. And so there were a lot of people, and I'd say a lot of them stayed behind. Simply because that's all they knew. They didn't know Jerusalem. All they knew about Jerusalem is what they'd heard from their parents, or their grandparents, or the people that told them. They didn't have the same heart that these folks did that were taken from there. They didn't know the place. And so a lot of them are going to stay behind because that's all they know. That'd be like ripping me up out of Knox County and move me somewhere that I didn't know anything about. Just because my ancestors from there, I don't know nothing about that place. Our ancestors, they were Scots-Irish. And so while I think Scotland and Northern Ireland are really nice, I don't think I want to just pack up and move over there. I don't know nothing about it. But, you know, that's where my folks come from. But anyway, a lot of them stayed behind. Verse 51, we are confounded because we have heard reproach. Shame has covered our faces, for strangers are come into the sanctuaries of the Lord's house. Well, here's another reason that some of them probably didn't want to go back. The defilement that had happened to their temple was almost more than they could take. I mean, they defiled God's temple by these pagan Gentile people coming into God's house and defiling it, destroying it, burning it. And all the things they did, and this has really, really bothered them. I mean, it says they've been confounded because we have heard reproach, shame has covered our faces for strangers who come into the sanctuaries of the Lord's house. So this is something they don't want to deal with. And maybe they're kind of scared about going over there. What's going to happen if we go? All right, look at verse 52. And we'll take this all the way through verse 57. 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. A sound of a cry cometh from Babylon and great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans, because the Lord has spooled Babylon and destroyed out of her the great voice when her waves do roar like great waters. A noise of the voice is uttered because a spooler has come upon her, even upon Babylon. and her mighty men are taken, every one of their bows is broken, and the Lord God of recompenses shall surely requite. And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her captains, her rulers, and her mighty men, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake save the king, whose name is the Lord of hosts. Well, this is still more description here, the thoroughness of the Lord's destruction of Babylon. He's very thorough about it. I don't know really what else to say about those verses other than what we've already said. I mean, it's just God pronouncing judgment upon them. Verse 58, thus saith the Lord of hosts, the broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gate shall be burned with fire, and the people shall labor in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary. All right, these broad walls of Babylon. If there's one thing that Babylon was known for, it was their huge walls and their huge gate. I mean, this place, Nebuchadnezzar had outfitted this place, this city, like none other before. There are already several items of Babylon were known as the seven wonders of the ancient world, you know, the hanging gardens he made. But the walls and the gates specifically, these walls, broad walls he's talking about, let me tell you what the Greek historian Herodotus, he says this about it, Herodotus, He says that Babylon surpasses in wonder any city in the known world and he praises the walls which he said were 56 miles long, 80 feet thick, and 320 feet high. It is said that the walls were so massive that chariots could race along the top of them. That's some wall, isn't it? Hey, my father-in-law's got a little retaining wall around his driveway and it's only about this wide and it's leaning right now. That's not much of a wall, but that wall around Babylon, now that was 80 feet thick. My goodness, that's a big old wall. And he mentioned her high gates. Now, Babylon had, I believe, eight gates all together, but the main gate, the main entrance of the gate, was the gate of Ishtar. Ishtar Gate was what it was called. And of course, Nebuchadnezzar named it after the goddess Ishtar, whom he worshipped. But it was at the entrance of Babylon. At one time, it was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The way it was built, it was dedicated, like I said, to Ishtar. And let me kind of give you a description according to the ancient history encyclopedia. They say, the front of the gate is adorned with glazed bricks with alternating rows of dragons and bulls. The beasts are furnished in yellow and brown tiles, while the bricks surrounding them are blue. The blue enamel tiles are thought to be of lapis lazuli, which is a very rare blue stone. The gates measure more than 38 feet high with a vast antechamber on the southern side. This gate was something to behold. I've seen pictures. They've actually dug up this gate. pieces of it. And there's different pieces in different museums right now that you can go and visit. But I mean it is spectacular. If you could see these bricks, these yellow ones with the emblems of the lines on the side of them. I mean to think that that happened so many years ago and how intricate and detailed that they were able to make that. If you remember we were talking some about Sodom Hussein, you know who thought he was a reincarnated Nebuchadnezzar One of the things that he did is he built a replica of the gate of Ishtar and erected it there for Babylon and just like Nebuchadnezzar who also made a plaque and out in front of it. Listen to what Nebuchadnezzar put on his plaque. He said, In other words, I did it just to impress people, because I could. And Saddam Hussein did the same thing. He put him a plaque up there, too. He thought for sure he was going to rebuild all of Babylon, and he was doing it. Boy, he had people working night and day trying to restore that place before he was taken out. This tar gate, of course, was probably the one it's referring to here, this high gate he's talking about. Verse 59, and we'll almost be there, 59. The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Saraiah, the son of Nariah, the son of Messiah, when he went with Zedekiah, the king of Judah into Babylon in the fourth year of his reign, and this Saraiah was a quiet prince. And we've talked about him before. We studied on this earlier in Jeremiah, the quiet prince. According to this, at some point during the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah, which was the last king of Judah, Jeremiah had went along with him to Babylon to give them this judgment that he's talking about here, this prophecy, to talk about their destruction. Now look at verse 60. So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written against Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Sarahiah, when thou comest to Babylon and shalt see and shalt read all these words, then shalt thou say, O Lord, thou hast spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be a desolate forever. 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 in the midst of Euphrates. And thou shalt say, thus shall Babylon sink and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her, and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah." And with that, we conclude the prophecy of the judgment of the Gentile nations, specifically here Babylon. And notice that Jeremiah has instructed Saraiah to take the scroll, he says in the book, this would have been a scroll that Jeremiah wrote all these prophecies on. He said, I want you to take that, after you proclaim this out in the land, I want you to tie a rock around it, and then I want you to sling it out in the middle of Euphrates River. Now, he wasn't trying to destroy it. What he was trying to do was to show the Babylonians how fast this judgment was going to come and how far they were going to sink. And this is exactly what John saw in the book of Revelation, chapter 18, verse 21, when John said, a mighty angel took a stone like a great millstone and cast it in the sea, saying, thus with violence shall the great city of Babylon be thrown down and shall be found no more at all. And so this is a description of how quickly the judgment of God was going to be and how fast they were going to sink. And that's exactly what occurred.