In view of the great uncertainty as to the origin and history of this prophecy, we do not intend to attempt any detailed exposition. Elsewhere whatever non-Jeremianic matter occurs in the book is mostly by way of expansion and interpretation, and thus lies in the direct line of the prophet's teaching. But the section on Babylon attaches itself to the new departure in religious thought that is more fully expressed in Isaiah xl.-lxvi. Chapters l., li., may possibly be Jeremiah's swan-song, called forth by one of those Pisgah visions of a new dispensation sometimes granted to aged seers; but such visions of a new era and a new order can scarcely be combined with earlier teaching. We will therefore only briefly indicate the character and contents of this section. It is apparently a mosaic, complied from lost as well as extant sources; and dwells upon a few themes with a persistent iteration of ideas and phrases hardly to be paralleled elsewhere, even in the Book of Jeremiah. It has been reckoned[249] that the imminence of the attack on Babylon is introduced afresh eleven times, and its conquest and destruction nine times. The advent of an enemy from the north is announced four times.[250] The main theme is naturally that dwelt upon most frequently, the imminent invasion of Chaldea by victorious enemies who shall capture and destroy Babylon. Hereafter the great city and its territory will be a waste, howling wilderness:-- "Your mother shall be sore ashamed, She that bare you shall be confounded; Behold, she shall be the hindmost of the nations, A wilderness, a parched land, and a desert. Because of the wrath of Jehovah, it shall be uninhabited; The whole land shall be a desolation. Every one that goeth by Babylon Shall hiss with astonishment because of all her plagues."[251] The gods of Babylon, Bel and Merodach, and all her idols, are involved in her ruin, and reference is made to the vanity and folly of idolatry.[252] But the wrath of Jehovah has been chiefly excited, not by false religion, but by the wrongs inflicted by the Chaldeans on His Chosen People. He is moved to avenge His Temple[253]:-- "I will recompense unto Babylon And all the inhabitants of Chaldea All the evil which they wrought in Zion, And ye shall see it--it is the utterance of Jehovah" (li. 24). Though He thus avenge Judah, yet its former sins are not yet blotted out of the book of His remembrance:-- "Their adversaries said, We incur no guilt, Because they have sinned against Jehovah, the Pasture of Justice, Against the Hope of their fathers, even Jehovah" (l. 7). Yet now there is forgiveness:--