Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon

Of the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar’s time, M’Clintock and Strong’s “Cyclopædia” says: “Babylon, as the centre of a great kingdom, was the seat of boundless luxury, and its inhabitants were notorious for their addiction to self-indulgence and effeminacy. [The theologian Curtius] asserts that ‘nothing could be more corrupt than its morals, nothing more fitted to excite and allure to immoderate pleasures. The rites of hospitality were polluted by the grossest and most shameless lusts.’” After describing the depraved sex worship and corruption of that city, the “Cyclopædia” concludes: “Babylon even stands, therefore in the New Test[ament] (Rev. xvii, 5) as the type of the most shameless profligacy and idolatry.”