38A sword is on her waters, drying them up; for it is a land of images, and their minds are fixed on false gods.
39For this reason the beasts of the waste land with the wolves will make their holes there and the ostriches will be living in it: never again will men be living there, it will be unpeopled from generation to generation.
40As when Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighbouring towns were overturned by God, says the Lord, so no man will be living in it, and no son of man will have a resting-place there.
41See, a people is coming from the north; a great nation and a number of kings will be put in motion from the inmost parts of the earth.
42Bows and spears are in their hands; they are cruel and have no mercy; their voice is like the thunder of the sea, and they go on horses; everyone in his place like men going to the fight, against you, O daughter of Babylon.
43The king of Babylon has had news of them, and his hands have become feeble: trouble has come on him and pain like the pain of a woman in childbirth.
44See, he will come up like a lion from the thick growth of Jordan against the resting-place of Teman: but I will suddenly make them go in flight from her; and I will put over her the man of my selection: for who is like me? and who will put forward his cause against me? and what keeper of sheep will keep his place before me?
