⁸ “Because this is what he is saying:
    ‘My commanders are all kings, are they not?
⁹ Isn’t Calno like Carchemish?
    Isn’t Hamath like Arpad?
        Isn’t Samaria like Damascus?
¹⁰ As my hand has reached to the idolatrous kingdoms^[d]
    whose carved images were greater than those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
¹¹ will I not deal with Jerusalem and her idols
    as I have dealt with Samaria and her images?’”

‘I’ve done it by the strength of my hand,
    and by my wisdom,
        because I’m so clever.^[h]
I removed the boundaries of peoples,
    and plundered their treasures;
like a bull I brought down
    those who sat on thrones.
¹⁴ My hand has found, as if in a nest,
    the wealth of the people;
and as one gathers eggs that have been abandoned,
    so I have gathered all the inhabitants of the^[i] earth.
Nothing moved a wing,
    opened its mouth,
        or chirped.’

¹⁵ “Does the ax exalt itself
    over the one who swings it?
Or does the saw magnify itself
    in opposition to the one who wields it?
As if a rod were to wield those who lift^[j] it,
    or as if a club were to brandish the one who is not wood!
¹⁶ Therefore, the Lord God^[k] of the Heavenly Armies will send a wasting disease
    among Assyria’s^[l] sturdy warriors,
and under its glory a conflagration will be kindled,
    like a blazing bonfire.

¹⁷ “The light of Israel will become a fire,
    and its Holy One a flame,
and it will burn
    and consume Assyria’s^[m] thorns and briers
        in a single day.
¹⁸ The splendor of its forest and its fruitful land
    the Lord will destroy—
        both soul and body—
and Assyria^[n] will be
    as when a dying man wastes away.
¹⁹ What survives of the trees in his forest will be so few
    that a child can count them.”^[o]