Isaiah 18:1-6

English Standard Version

An Oracle Concerning Cush

18 Ah, land of ^(A)whirring wings
    that is beyond the rivers of ^(B)Cush,^[a]
²which ^(C)sends ambassadors by the sea,
    in vessels of papyrus on the waters!
Go, you swift messengers,
    to a nation ^(D)tall and smooth,
to a people feared near and far,
    a nation ^(E)mighty and conquering,
    whose land the rivers divide.

³All you inhabitants of the world,
    you who dwell on the earth,
when ^(F)a signal is raised on the mountains, look!
    When a trumpet is blown, hear!
⁴For thus the Lord said to me:
“I will quietly look ^(G)from my dwelling
    like clear heat in sunshine,
    like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
⁵^(H)For before the harvest, when the blossom is over,
    and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks,
    and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away.
⁶^(I)They shall all of them be left
    to the birds of prey of the mountains
    and to the beasts of the earth.
And the birds of prey will summer on them,
    and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.