² But go over to Calneh
    and see what happened there.
Then go to the great city of Hamath
    and down to the Philistine city of Gath.
You are no better than they were,
    and look at how they were destroyed.

⁸ Are you any better than the city of Thebes,^[a]
    situated on the Nile River, surrounded by water?
She was protected by the river on all sides,
    walled in by water.

“To whom would you compare your greatness?
³ You are like mighty Assyria,
    which was once like a cedar of Lebanon,
with beautiful branches that cast deep forest shade
    and with its top high among the clouds.

¹⁰ “Go west and look in the land of Cyprus^[a];
    go east and search through the land of Kedar.
Has anyone ever heard of anything
    as strange as this?
¹¹ Has any nation ever traded its gods for new ones,
    even though they are not gods at all?
Yet my people have exchanged their glorious God^[b]
    for worthless idols!