A reading from the book of Jeremiah.

The word that the Lord spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet.

Declare among the nations and proclaim. Set up a banner and proclaim, conceal it not, and say.

Babylon is taken. Bell is put to shame. Meridoc is dismayed, her images are put to shame, her idols

are dismayed. For out of the north a nation has come up against her, which shall make her land

a desolation, and none shall dwell in it. Both man and beast shall flee away. In those days and in that

time declares the Lord, the people of Israel and the people of Judah

shall come together, weeping as they come, and they shall seek the Lord their God. They shall ask

the way to Zion, with faces turned toward it, saying, come, let us join ourselves to the Lord

in an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten. My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray,

turning them away on the mountains. From mountain to hill they have gone. They have forgotten their

fold. All who found them have devoured them, and their enemies have said, we are not guilty

for they have sinned against the Lord, their habitation of righteousness, the Lord, the hope of their

fathers. Flee from the midst of Babylon and go out of the Lord, the hope of their fathers.

Flee from the midst of Babylon and go out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as male goats before the flock. For behold, I am stirring up and bringing against Babylon a gathering

of great nations from the north country, and they shall array themselves against her.

From there she shall be taken. Their arrows are like a skilled

warrior who does not return empty-handed. Caldea shall be plundered. All who plunder her shall be sated,

declares the Lord. Though you rejoice, though you exult, O plunderers of my heritage, though you frolic,

like a heifer in the pasture, and nay like stallions, your mother shall

be utterly shamed, and she who bore you shall be disgraced. Behold, she shall be the last of the

nations, a wilderness, a dry land in the desert. Because of the wrath of the Lord, she shall not

...