Isaiah 47:8

"Now therefore hear this, thou that art given to pleasures, that sittest securely, that sayest in thy heart, I am, and there is none else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: but these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood; in their full measure shall they come upon thee, in the multitude of thy sorceries, and the great abundance of thine enchantments. For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness; thou hast said, None seeth me; thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thy heart, I am, and there is none else besides me. Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know the dawning thereof: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it away: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou knowest not." The various sins of Babylon are listed here: (1) her egotistical boasting; (2) her reliance upon the black arts of sorcery and enchantments; (3) her having given herself wholly to lustful, sinful pleasures; (4) her trusting in her wickedness; (5) her over-confident sense of security; (6) her reliance upon her own wisdom and knowledge; and (7) most importantly of all the attitude that is mentioned twice, in Isaiah 47:8,10, her self-deification visible in her thoughts that, "I am, and there is none else besides me!" What is glaringly plain in such an attitude is that there is no consciousness of God or belief in Him whatsoever. This was the greatest and the worst of Babylon's sins.

The false sense of security in Babylon was described by Xenophon thus: "The inhabitants of Babylon could not but have laughed at the siege of Cyrus, knowing that they had provisions for more than twenty years; and they treated his siege with mockery."[12] They had never learned the lesson that "Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it; and unless the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain" (Psalms 127:1).