4, 5. (a) What does Jehovah foretell for Babylon? (b) What will those attacking Babylon have to deal with?

⁴ Babylon is not yet the dominant world power. Yet, issuing a proclamation through Isaiah, Jehovah looks to the time when she will occupy that position, and he foretells her fall. He says: “Howl, you people, for the day of Jehovah is near! As a despoiling from the Almighty it will come.” (Isaiah 13:6) Yes, Babylon’s boasting will be replaced by grief-filled howling. Why? Because of “the day of Jehovah,” the day when Jehovah executes judgment against her.

7. What “day of Jehovah” is coming, and what will be the results for Babylon?

⁷ Nevertheless, fall it will. Babylon is to face a day of reckoning, a “day of Jehovah,” that will be painful indeed. The supreme Judge will express his anger and bring well-deserved judgment upon Babylon’s sinful inhabitants. The prophecy says: “Look! The day of Jehovah itself is coming, cruel both with fury and with burning anger, in order to make the land an object of astonishment, and that it may annihilate the land’s sinners out of it.” (Isaiah 13:9)