The costly cargo of Revelation 18:12–13 had fed Babylon’s desire to find happiness not in God the Creator but in things. So she treasured them as splendid luxuries, the fine things of life, the delicacies that satisfy the soul. In the Greek the terms translated as “delicacies” and “splendors” sound alike: lipara and lampra. Each explains the other, and both get to the heart of what Babylon is all about.
14 “The fruit for which your soul longed has gone from you, and all your delicacies and your splendors are lost to you, never to be found again!”