3 When the Lord has given you rest from your sorrow and pain and from your trouble and unrest and from the hard service with which you were made to serve,
4 You shall take up this [taunting] parable against the king of Babylon and say, How the oppressor has stilled [the restless insolence]! The golden and exacting city has ceased!
5 The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the [tyrant] rulers,
6 Who smote the peoples in anger with incessant blows and trod down the nations in wrath with unrelenting persecution–[until] he who smote is persecuted and no one hinders any more.
7 The whole earth is at rest and is quiet; they break forth into singing.
8 Yes, the fir trees and cypresses rejoice at you [O kings of Babylon], even the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since you have been laid low, no woodcutter comes up against us.
9 Sheol (Hades, the place of the dead) below is stirred up to meet you at your coming [O tyrant Babylonian rulers]; it stirs up the shades of the dead to greet you–even all the chief ones of the earth; it raises from their thrones [in astonishment at your humbled condition] all the kings of the nations.