Isaiah 48:20
Isaiah 48:2020Leave Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare it with a shout of joy, proclaim it, let it go out to the ends of the earth, saying, “The LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob!”
"Get out of Babylon!" — the Watchtower reads (and , 51:45) as the Old Testament template for 's "get out of her, my people" call. On the JW reading, "Babylon the Great" of Revelation is the world empire of false religion (especially Christendom), and is its Old Testament prefigurement. Leaving Babylon, in modern application, means leaving any non-JW religion and joining Jehovah's organisation.
's "get out of Babylon" is a literal exilic command — the historical city of Babylon, where Israel was held captive, is to be abandoned. explicitly identifies Revelation's Babylon as "the great city that has a kingdom over the kings of the earth" — a city with imperial dominion, not an abstract religious system. First-century readers would have recognised Rome (cf. , where Peter calls Rome "Babylon"). The Watchtower's "world empire of false religion" reading requires overriding the angel's own interpretation in with a meaning the text never states. Pair with the babylon-the-great-city argument: Revelation's Babylon is a city, not a religion.