Babylon is the second most frequently mentioned city in the Bible. In the NKJV, it appears 287 times in 253 verses.

We've gathered a list of 15 passages to provide a brief glimpse of Babylon's prophetic history and future, along with the pagan attributes that make the city perennially infamous.

Prophecy of the Babylon Captivity and Babylon's Destruction

Isaiah 13:19–20

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,
The beauty of the Chaldeans' pride,
Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
It will never be inhabited,
Nor will it be settled from generation to generation;
Nor will the Arabian pitch tents there,
Nor will the shepherds make their sheepfolds there.

Isaiah 14:22–23

"For I will rise up against them," says the Lord of hosts,
"And cut off from Babylon the name and remnant,
And offspring and posterity," says the Lord.
"I will also make it a possession for the porcupine,
And marshes of muddy water;
I will sweep it with the broom of destruction," says the Lord of hosts.

Daniel 3:1

Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its width six cubits. He set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon.

Jeremiah 25:9

"Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north," says the Lord, "and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations."

Jeremiah 51:58

The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken,
And her high gates shall be burned with fire;
The people will labor in vain,
And the nations, because of the fire;
And they shall be weary.

1 Chronicles 9:1

So all Israel was recorded by genealogies, and indeed, they were inscribed in the book of the kings of Israel. But Judah was carried away captive to Babylon because of their unfaithfulness.

Psalm 137:8–9

O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed,
Happy the one who repays you as you have served us!
Happy the one who takes and dashes
Your little ones against the rock!

Jeremiah 29:10

For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit [the exiled Jews] and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place.

2 Kings 24:7

And the king of Egypt did not come out of his land anymore, for the king of Babylon had taken all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the Brook of Egypt to the River Euphrates.

Daniel 5:30–31

That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty–two years old.

Ezra 5:13–15

However, in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, King Cyrus issued a decree to build this house of God. Also, the gold and silver articles of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple that was in Jerusalem and carried into the temple of Babylon—those King Cyrus took from the temple of Babylon, and they were given to one named Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor. And he said to him, "Take these articles; go, carry them to the temple site that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be rebuilt on its former site."

Babylon in End Times Prophecy

Revelation 14:8

And another angel followed, saying, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication."

Revelation 16:19

Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.

Revelation 17:3–6

So he carried me away in the Spirit into the wilderness. And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written:

MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT,
THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS
AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS
OF THE EARTH.

I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her, I marveled with great amazement.

Revelation 18:10

Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour your judgment has come."