The ultimate penalty that victors could inflict on a captured city was to burn it (2 Kings 25:9; Joshua 6:24). In God’s righteous judgment this happens to Babylon (Genesis 19:28), be it in the demise of cities or civilizations or states in the course of centuries or their ultimate burning on the day of judgment (2 Peter 3:7).
9 And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning.