⁵ “But suddenly, your ruthless enemies will be crushed
    like the finest of dust.
Your many attackers will be driven away
    like chaff before the wind.
Suddenly, in an instant,

¹³ calamity will come upon you suddenly—
    like a bulging wall that bursts and falls.
In an instant it will collapse
    and come crashing down.

¹³ But though they thunder like breakers on a beach,
    God will silence them, and they will run away.
They will flee like chaff scattered by the wind,
    like a tumbleweed whirling before a storm.
¹⁴ In the evening Israel waits in terror,
    but by dawn its enemies are dead.
This is the just reward of those who plunder us,
    a fitting end for those who destroy us.

⁸ “The Assyrians will be destroyed,
    but not by the swords of men.
The sword of God will strike them,
    and they will panic and flee.
The strong young Assyrians
    will be taken away as captives.

⁵     or like the relentless heat of the desert.
But you silence the roar of foreign nations.
    As the shade of a cloud cools relentless heat,
    so the boastful songs of ruthless people are stilled.

¹⁶ Therefore, the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies,
    will send a plague among Assyria’s proud troops,
    and a flaming fire will consume its glory.
¹⁷ The Lord, the Light of Israel, will be a fire;
    the Holy One will be a flame.
He will devour the thorns and briers with fire,
    burning up the enemy in a single night.
¹⁸ The Lord will consume Assyria’s glory
    like a fire consumes a forest in a fruitful land;
    it will waste away like sick people in a plague.
¹⁹ Of all that glorious forest, only a few trees will survive—
    so few that a child could count them!

⁵ Our boldest enemies have been plundered.
    They lie before us in the sleep of death.
    No warrior could lift a hand against us.
⁶ At the blast of your breath, O God of Jacob,
    their horses and chariots lay still.