18 Woe to the land whirring with wings which is beyond the rivers of Cush or Ethiopia,

² That sends ambassadors by the Nile, even in vessels of papyrus upon the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and polished, to a people terrible from their beginning [feared and dreaded near and far], a nation strong and victorious, whose land the rivers divide!

³ All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains—look! When a trumpet is blown—hear!

⁴ For thus the Lord has said to me: I will be still and I will look on from My dwelling place, like clear and glowing heat in sunshine, like a fine cloud of mist in the heat of harvest.

⁵ For before the harvest, when the blossom is over and the flower becomes a ripening grape, He will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches He will remove and cut away.

⁶ They [the dead bodies of the slain warriors] shall be left together to the ravenous birds of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth; and the ravenous birds will summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth will winter upon them.

⁷ At that time shall a present be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people tall and polished, from a people terrible from their beginning and feared and dreaded near and far, a nation strong and victorious, whose land the rivers or great channels divide—to the place [of worship] of the ^[a]Name of the Lord of hosts, to Mount Zion [in Jerusalem].^(A)