“Now therefore hear this, you are who are given to pleasures,
You who dwell carelessly, who say in your heart,
‘I am and there is none else beside me.
I will not sit as a widow, nor will I know the loss of children.' ”
This is all one with the previous statement. She was given to excessive pleasures and considered that she had a unique right to them. And history records the extravagant living in Babylon. She was noted for it. She dwelt carelessly, confident that no one could call her to account. And above all she spoke as though she was above all others, almost the equal of Yahweh (compare Isaiah 45:5-6; Isaiah 45:18; Isaiah 45:21; see Isaiah 14:12-14). And she arrogantly assumed that no harm could befall her, and that she could not lose her protector, either her king or her god Marduk (Bel), nor see her children, her citizens, slaughtered. This may be seen as reflecting a time when she was virtually independent, but not necessarily. Babylon felt herself superior even to her conquerors. She seduced them to her will. It was an attitude that prevailed whatever condition she was in.
Isaiah sees no inconsistency between ‘bethulah' in Isaiah 47:1 and widowhood and children here. At this time a ‘bethulah' could be married and have children (unlike an ‘almah). She was not at this time an intact virgin in the modern sense.