Dregs

Dregs (Hebrew shᵊmārîm, meaning lees or sediment) refers to the thick residue that settles at the bottom of wine vessels during fermentation and aging—the material strained off when wine is clarified. In biblical usage the dregs of a cup of wine became one of the most powerful and recurring images of divine judgment: Psalm 75:8 pictures the LORD holding a cup of foaming wine full of mixture, which all the wicked of the earth must drain to its dregs.

Isaiah 51:17 intensifies the image with Jerusalem as one who has drunk from the cup of God's wrath and drained "the bowl of staggering, the dregs of the cup of staggering," staggering so that no one can help her up. Isaiah 51:22 then reverses the image as divine comfort: God will take the cup from her hand and pass it to her tormentors instead. This cup-of-wrath imagery—drained to the last drops of the dregs—recurs in the prophets and culminates in Revelation 14:10 and 16:19, where Babylon drinks the wine of God's wrath undiluted.