1“Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon.
Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans.
For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.
2Take the millstones and grind flour.
Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs,
and wade through the rivers.
3Your nakedness will be uncovered.
Yes, your shame will be seen.
I will take vengeance,
and will spare no one.”
4Our Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies is his name,
is the Holy One of Israel.
5“Sit in silence, and go into darkness,
daughter of the Chaldeans.
For you shall no longer be called
the mistress of kingdoms.
6I was angry with my people.
I profaned my inheritance
and gave them into your hand.
You showed them no mercy.
You laid a very heavy yoke on the aged.
7You said, ‘I will be a princess forever,’
so that you didn’t lay these things to your heart,
nor did you remember the results.
8“Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures,
who sit securely,
who say in your heart,
‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.
I won’t sit as a widow,
neither will I know the loss of children.’
9But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day:
the loss of children and widowhood.
They will come on you in their full measure,
in the multitude of your sorceries,
and the great abundance of your enchantments.
10For you have trusted in your wickedness.
You have said, ‘No one sees me.’
Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you.
You have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’
11Therefore disaster will come on you.
You won’t know when it dawns.
Mischief will fall on you.
You won’t be able to put it away.
Desolation will come on you suddenly,
which you don’t understand.
12“Stand now with your enchantments
and with the multitude of your sorceries,
in which you have labored from your youth,
as if you might profit,
as if you might prevail.
13You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels.
Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you.
14Behold, they are like stubble.
The fire will burn them.
They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame.
It won’t be a coal to warm at
or a fire to sit by.
15The things that you labored in will be like this:
those who have trafficked with you from your youth will each wander in his own way.
There will be no one to save you.
The sins of Babylon included self-glorification and sensuality, which were reasons for the saints deserting her, and caused her destruction in a single day. Since the command to leave Babylon is addressed to “My people,” it is God calling out from heaven. It is a warning to those living during the Tribulation not to participate in the economic system of the time. Those who participate will be punished along with the city and its economic system. It is also a warning to get out of the physical city of “Babylon” before its destruction. This is like Jesus’ warning to the Jews to flee Jerusalem when they see the armies of Antichrist approaching in Matthew 24-25.
The city getting “double” for what it has done follows the pattern of God’s judgments. He always repays the wicked more than equal punishment. This punishment will be the opposite of what the city’s patrons had sought.
The arrogant attitude of the city is expressed through the quote, “I sit as a queen and am no widow.” This is both pride and the belief that the city and its patrons will never experience economic loss, but only economic success. Widows in the ancient world and the first century normally experienced poverty. This reflects Babylon’s attitude in Isaiah 47:7-9, quoting snatches from it. Again, if Babylon represents both a literal city and a literal economic system centered in that city, then it will be an arrogant city that will dominate the world’s economy during the Tribulation, and then be destroyed by God, both the city and the system.