Now after these things had happened, during the reign of King Artaxerxes ¹  of Persia, Ezra came up from Babylon. ²  Ezra was the son of Seraiah, who was the son of Azariah, who was the son of Hilkiah,

For the music director; written by the Korahites, a psalm. O Lord, you showed favor to your land; you restored the well-being of Jacob. ² 

Remember, O Lord, what the Edomites did on the day Jerusalem fell. ¹  They said, “Tear it down, tear it down, ²  right to its very foundation!”

¹ On a bare hill raise a signal flag, shout to them, wave your hand, so they might enter the gates of the princes!

Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; ¹  they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, ²  they will not ³  look with pity on children.

Your splendor ¹  has been brought down to Sheol, as well as the sound of your stringed instruments. ²  You lie on a bed of maggots, with a blanket of worms over you. ³ 

Here is a message about the Desert by the Sea: ¹  Like strong winds blowing in the south, ²  one invades from the desert, from a land that is feared.

My heart palpitates, ¹  I shake in fear; ²  the twilight I desired has brought me terror.

For this is what the sovereign Lord says: “In the beginning my people went to live temporarily in Egypt; Assyria oppressed them for no good reason.

For many nations and great kings will make slaves of the king of Babylon and his nation ¹  too. I will repay them for all they have done!’” ² 

The Lord says, ¹  “Army of Babylon, ²  go and attack a nation that lives in peace and security. They have no gates or walls to protect them. ³  They live all alone.

But Babylonia will be put to great shame. The land where you were born ¹  will be disgraced. Indeed, ²  Babylonia will become the least important of all nations. It will become a dry and barren desert.

Kill all her soldiers! ¹  Let them be slaughtered! ²  They are doomed, ³  for their day of reckoning ⁴  has come, the time for them to be punished.”

“Listen! I am opposed to you, you proud city,” ¹  says the Lord God who rules over all. ²  “Indeed, ³  your day of reckoning ⁴  has come, the time when I will punish you. ⁵ 

No one will use any of your stones as a cornerstone. No one will use any of them in the foundation of his house. For you will lie desolate forever,” ¹  says the Lord. ² 

You who have escaped the sword, ¹  go, do not delay. ²  Remember the Lord in a faraway land. Think about Jerusalem. ³ 

He plucked off its topmost shoot; he brought it to a land of merchants and planted it in a city of traders.

so it would be a lowly kingdom which could not rise on its own but must keep its treaty with him in order to stand.

“‘He gave it to be polished, to be grasped in the hand – the sword is sharpened, it is polished – giving it into the hand of the executioner.

The word of the Lord came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month ¹ :