Jeremiah 51:26
“They won’t take a cornerstone from you, nor a stone for foundations; but you will be desolate for ever,” says Yahweh.”
What does Jeremiah 51:26 mean?
Jeremiah is describing Babylon's coming destruction, and this image is particularly painful: not a single stone from the city will be worth salvaging or reusing. In that ancient world, recycling building materials was normal practice, so the fact that even scavengers would leave Babylon's ruins untouched speaks to how utterly the city would fall. It's the difference between a building that decays over time and one that is so completely ruined that it becomes a permanent wasteland. The prophet is emphasizing that Babylon's downfall won't be a temporary setback or a disaster that the city could recover from, but rather an ending so thorough that the place becomes a memorial to ruin itself.