Evening Prayer: June 29th, 2023

Jeremiah 51:25–64

25   “Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain,
      declares the LORD,
    which destroys the whole earth;
  I will stretch out my hand against you,
    and roll you down from the crags,
    and make you a burnt mountain.
26   No stone shall be taken from you for a corner
    and no stone for a foundation,
  but you shall be a perpetual waste,
    declares the LORD.


27   “Set up a standard on the earth;
    blow the trumpet among the nations;
  prepare the nations for war against her;
    summon against her the kingdoms,
    Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz;
  appoint a marshal against her;
    bring up horses like bristling locusts.
28   Prepare the nations for war against her,
    the kings of the Medes, with their governors and deputies,
    and every land under their dominion.
29   The land trembles and writhes in pain,
    for the LORD’s purposes against Babylon stand,
  to make the land of Babylon a desolation,
    without inhabitant.
30   The warriors of Babylon have ceased fighting;
    they remain in their strongholds;
  their strength has failed;
    they have become women;
  her dwellings are on fire;
    her bars are broken.
31   One runner runs to meet another,
    and one messenger to meet another,
  to tell the king of Babylon
    that his city is taken on every side;
32   the fords have been seized,
    the marshes are burned with fire,
    and the soldiers are in panic.
33   For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:
  The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor
    at the time when it is trodden;
  yet a little while
    and the time of her harvest will come.”


34   “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me;
    he has crushed me;
  he has made me an empty vessel;
    he has swallowed me like a monster;
  he has filled his stomach with my delicacies;
    he has rinsed me out.
35   The violence done to me and to my kinsmen be upon Babylon,”
    let the inhabitant of Zion say.
  “My blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,”
    let Jerusalem say.
36   Therefore thus says the LORD:
  “Behold, I will plead your cause
    and take vengeance for you.
  I will dry up her sea
    and make her fountain dry,
37   and Babylon shall become a heap of ruins,
    the haunt of jackals,
  a horror and a hissing,
    without inhabitant.


38   “They shall roar together like lions;
    they shall growl like lions’ cubs.
39   While they are inflamed I will prepare them a feast
    and make them drunk, that they may become merry,
  then sleep a perpetual sleep
    and not wake, declares the LORD.
40   I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
    like rams and male goats.


41   “How Babylon is taken,
    the praise of the whole earth seized!
  How Babylon has become
    a horror among the nations!
42   The sea has come up on Babylon;
    she is covered with its tumultuous waves.
43   Her cities have become a horror,
    a land of drought and a desert,
  a land in which no one dwells,
    and through which no son of man passes.
44   And I will punish Bel in Babylon,
    and take out of his mouth what he has swallowed.
  The nations shall no longer flow to him;
    the wall of Babylon has fallen.


45   “Go out of the midst of her, my people!
    Let every one save his life
    from the fierce anger of the LORD!
46   Let not your heart faint, and be not fearful
    at the report heard in the land,
  when a report comes in one year
    and afterward a report in another year,
  and violence is in the land,
    and ruler is against ruler.


47   “Therefore, behold, the days are coming
    when I will punish the images of Babylon;
  her whole land shall be put to shame,
    and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.
48   Then the heavens and the earth,
    and all that is in them,
  shall sing for joy over Babylon,
    for the destroyers shall come against them out of the north,
      declares the LORD.
49   Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel,
    just as for Babylon have fallen the slain of all the earth.


50   “You who have escaped from the sword,
    go, do not stand still!
  Remember the LORD from far away,
    and let Jerusalem come into your mind:
51   ‘We are put to shame, for we have heard reproach;
    dishonor has covered our face,
  for foreigners have come
    into the holy places of the LORD’s house.’


52   “Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD,
    when I will execute judgment upon her images,
  and through all her land
    the wounded shall groan.
53   Though Babylon should mount up to heaven,
    and though she should fortify her strong height,
  yet destroyers would come from me against her,
    declares the LORD.


54   “A voice! A cry from Babylon!
    The noise of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!
55   For the LORD is laying Babylon waste
    and stilling her mighty voice.
  Their waves roar like many waters;
    the noise of their voice is raised,
56   for a destroyer has come upon her,
    upon Babylon;
  her warriors are taken;
    their bows are broken in pieces,
  for the LORD is a God of recompense;
    he will surely repay.
57   I will make drunk her officials and her wise men,
    her governors, her commanders, and her warriors;
  they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake,
    declares the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.


58   “Thus says the LORD of hosts:
  The broad wall of Babylon
    shall be leveled to the ground,
  and her high gates
    shall be burned with fire.
  The peoples labor for nothing,
    and the nations weary themselves only for fire.”

59 The word that Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon, in the fourth year of his reign. Seraiah was the quartermaster. 60 Jeremiah wrote in a book all the disaster that should come upon Babylon, all these words that are written concerning Babylon. 61 And Jeremiah said to Seraiah: “When you come to Babylon, see that you read all these words, 62 and say, ‘O LORD, you have said concerning this place that you will cut it off, so that nothing shall dwell in it, neither man nor beast, and it shall be desolate forever.’ 63 When you finish reading this book, tie a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates, 64 and say, ‘Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I am bringing upon her, and they shall become exhausted.’”

Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

ESV

The Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

A brief silence is kept after the reading.
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2 Peter 3

3 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

11 Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, 12 waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! 13 But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

14 Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. 15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. 18 But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

ESV

The Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

A brief silence is kept after the reading.