Jeremiah 51:18
They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.
BSB
ASV
They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.
KJV
They are vanity, the work of errors: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.
Repeated from Jer 10:12-16; except that "Israel" is not in the Hebrew of Jer 51:19, which ought, therefore, to be translated, "He is the Former of all things, and (therefore) of the rod of His inheritance" (that is, of the nation peculiarly His own).
The idols are falsehood, they are vanity, they are the work of errors; when they come to be visited (to be examined and enquired into) they perish, that is, their reputation sinks and they appear to be nothing; and those that make them are like unto them.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Jeremiah 50:2“Announce and declare to the nations; lift up a banner and proclaim it; hold nothing back when you say, ‘Babylon is captured; Bel is put to shame; Marduk is shattered, her images are disgraced,…
leads to
Look, here come the riders, horsemen in pairs.” And one answered, saying: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon! All the images of her gods lie shattered on the ground!”
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
Bel crouches; Nebo cowers. Their idols weigh down beasts and cattle. The images you carry are burdensome, a load to the weary animal.
Through
Jonah 2:8Those who cling to worthless idols forsake His loving devotion.
leads to
I hate those who cling to worthless idols, but in the LORD I trust.
“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
They rejected His statutes and the covenant He had made with their fathers, as well as the decrees He had given them. They pursued worthless idols and themselves became worthless, going after the surrounding…
Do not turn aside after worthless things that cannot profit you or deliver you, for they are empty.
But they are altogether senseless and foolish, instructed by worthless idols made of wood!
Through
Isaiah 46:1Bel crouches; Nebo cowers. Their idols weigh down beasts and cattle. The images you carry are burdensome, a load to the weary animal.
leads to
I will punish Bel in Babylon. I will make him spew out what he swallowed. The nations will no longer stream to him; even the wall of Babylon will fall.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.