Hark! a cry from Babylon! is more literally “voice of a shout from Babylon.” Good News Translation interprets this to mean “Listen to the sound of crying in Babylon,” and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has the equivalent of “Listen! A cry for help from Babylon.” Translators can also say, for example, “Listen, the people of Babylon are calling for help.”

The noise of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans: This can be expressed as “You can hear the noise of destruction coming from Babylonia” or “You can hear the destroyers at work in Babylonia.” For great destruction, see 4.6. The Chaldeans are the Babylonians (see verse 1 and 21.4).

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .