So the LORD said, "Listen, you nations, and learn what is going to happen to my people.

The LORD says, "Nations, listen to me and proclaim my words on the far-off shores. I scattered my people, but I will gather them and guard them as a shepherd guards his flock.

"Proclaim it in the towns of Egypt, in Migdol, Memphis, and Tahpanhes: 'Get ready to defend yourselves; all you have will be destroyed in war!

They will all be afraid; they will think about what God has done and tell about his deeds.

Proclaim his glory to the nations, his mighty deeds to all peoples.

A day is coming when people will sing, "Give thanks to the LORD! Call for him to help you! Tell all the nations what he has done! Tell them how great he is!

"All I foretold has now taken place; you have to admit my predictions were right. Now I will tell you of new things to come, events that I did not reveal before.

I know their thoughts and their deeds. I am coming to gather the people of all the nations. When they come together, they will see what my power can do

and will know that I am the one who punishes them. "But I will spare some of them and send them to the nations and the distant lands that have not heard of my fame or seen my greatness and power: to Spain, Libya, and Lydia, with its skilled archers, and to Tubal and Greece. Among these nations they will proclaim my greatness.

Then I saw another angel flying high in the air, with an eternal message of Good News to announce to the peoples of the earth, to every race, tribe, language, and nation.

A second angel followed the first one, saying, "She has fallen! Great Babylon has fallen! She made all peoples drink her wine---the strong wine of her immoral lust!"

On the top of a barren hill raise the battle flag! Shout to the soldiers and raise your arm as the signal for them to attack the gates of the proud city.

Babylonia has suddenly fallen and is destroyed! Mourn over it! Get medicine for its wounds, and maybe it can be healed.

Suddenly, here they come! Riders on horseback, two by two. The sentry gives the news, "Babylon has fallen! All the idols they worshiped lie shattered on the ground."

A second angel followed the first one, saying, "She has fallen! Great Babylon has fallen! She made all peoples drink her wine---the strong wine of her immoral lust!"

He cried out in a loud voice: "She has fallen! Great Babylon has fallen! She is now haunted by demons and unclean spirits; all kinds of filthy and hateful birds live in her.

I will punish Bel, the god of Babylonia, and make him give up his stolen goods; the nations will not worship him any more. "Babylon's walls have fallen.

"This is the end for Babylon's gods! Bel and Nebo once were worshiped, but now they are loaded on donkeys, a burden for the backs of tired animals.

In the year that Evil-merodach became king of Babylonia, he showed kindness to King Jehoiachin of Judah by releasing him from prison. This happened on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year after Jehoiachin had been taken away as a prisoner.

About that same time the king of Babylonia, Merodach Baladan, son of Baladan, heard that King Hezekiah had been sick, so he sent him a letter and a present.

When Babylon falls, there will be such a noise that the entire earth will shake, and the cries of alarm will be heard by the other nations."

I will set fire to the temples of Egypt's gods, and the king of Babylonia will either burn their gods or carry them off. As shepherds pick their clothes clean of lice, so the king of Babylonia will pick the land of Egypt clean and then leave victorious.

He will destroy the sacred stone monuments at Heliopolis in Egypt and will burn down the temples of the Egyptian gods."

and burned up their gods---which were no gods at all, only images of wood and stone made by human hands.

The LORD will terrify them. He will reduce the gods of the earth to nothing, and then every nation will worship him, each in its own land.