Jeremiah 51:22. "[W]ith you I break in pieces man and woman; with you I break in pieces the old man and the youth; with you I break in pieces the young man and the maiden." God is telling His people, through Jeremiah, that He is about to punish Babylon by raising up "the spirit of the kings of Medes" against it (Jeremiah 51:11) against it. He will use foreign kings to bring about His vengeance against Babylon. He will use their armies to break nations and kingdoms, horses and chariots, and all the people of Babylon (Jeremiah 51:20-23).

When God's vengeance comes upon a nation, there is no escaping it. Everything that God wants to be destroyed is destroyed, everything He wants to be broken is broken. We might read these lines and think surely it is not fair to punish the youth, and surely there must be some good Babylonians who don't deserve to be broken, and it very well may be that God spared some of those in Babylon from the worst of the punishments He brought against it. But just by virtue of living there, all the Babylonians suffered and were "broken" to some extent when it fell. Those who weren't killed had to watch their nation destroyed, their fellow countrymen slaughtered.

In that sense, the survivors of the fall of Babylon would be a lot like the survivors of the fall of Jerusalem, who the Babylonians brought into exile. They would have seen the horror of war, a war that completely destroyed everything they held dear. They would have had to learn the lesson that the pride and waywardness of their nations led to this desolation. Some small amount of virtue in their hearts may have saved their lives, but if so, God wants them to use it to to learn the proper lessons, and to rebuild a better society, one that remembers the price of pride.

We all need to be broken to some extent to learn this lesson. We should be thankful If we have only been broken, that means that we still have the opportunity to change and rebuild. Brokenness is the least expensive price of pride.