2 This is what the lord says:“Tell the whole world,and keep nothing back.Raise a signal flagto tell everyone that Babylon will fall!Her images and idols will be shattered.Her gods Bel and Marduk will be utterly disgraced.
3 For a nation will attack her from the northand bring such destruction that no one will live there again.Everything will be gone;both people and animals will flee.
4 “In those coming days,”says the lord,“the people of Israel will return hometogether with the people of Judah.They will come weepingand seeking the lord their God.
5 They will ask the way to Jerusalemand will start back home again.They will bind themselves to the lordwith an eternal covenant that will never be forgotten.
6 “My people have been lost sheep.Their shepherds have led them astrayand turned them loose in the mountains.They have lost their wayand can’t remember how to get back to the sheepfold.
7 All who found them devoured them.Their enemies said,‘We did nothing wrong in attacking them,for they sinned against the lord,their true place of rest,and the hope of their ancestors.’
8 “But now, flee from Babylon!Leave the land of the Babylonians.Like male goats at the head of the flock,lead my people home again.