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Nahum 3
New International Version
Nahum 3
New International Version
Woe to Nineveh
3 Woe to the city of blood,(A)
full of lies,(B)
full of plunder,
never without victims!
2 The crack of whips,
the clatter of wheels,
galloping horses
and jolting chariots!
3 Charging cavalry,
flashing swords
and glittering spears!
Many casualties,
piles of dead,
bodies without number,
people stumbling over the corpses(C)—
4 all because of the wanton lust of a prostitute,
alluring, the mistress of sorceries,(D)
who enslaved nations by her prostitution(E)
and peoples by her witchcraft.
5 “I am against(F) you,” declares the Lord Almighty.
“I will lift your skirts(G) over your face.
I will show the nations your nakedness(H)
and the kingdoms your shame.
6 I will pelt you with filth,(I)
I will treat you with contempt(J)
and make you a spectacle.(K)
7 All who see you will flee(L) from you and say,
‘Nineveh(M) is in ruins(N)—who will mourn for her?’(O)
Where can I find anyone to comfort(P) you?”
8 Are you better than(Q) Thebes,(R)
situated on the Nile,(S)
with water around her?
The river was her defense,
the waters her wall.
9 Cush[a](T) and Egypt were her boundless strength;
Put(U) and Libya(V) were among her allies.
10 Yet she was taken captive(W)
and went into exile.
Her infants were dashed(X) to pieces
at every street corner.
Lots(Y) were cast for her nobles,
and all her great men were put in chains.(Z)
11 You too will become drunk;(AA)
you will go into hiding(AB)
and seek refuge from the enemy.
12 All your fortresses are like fig trees
with their first ripe fruit;(AC)
when they are shaken,
the figs(AD) fall into the mouth of the eater.
13 Look at your troops—
they are all weaklings.(AE)
The gates(AF) of your land
are wide open to your enemies;
fire has consumed the bars of your gates.(AG)
14 Draw water for the siege,(AH)
strengthen your defenses!(AI)
Work the clay,
tread the mortar,
repair the brickwork!
15 There the fire(AJ) will consume you;
the sword(AK) will cut you down—
they will devour you like a swarm of locusts.
Multiply like grasshoppers,
multiply like locusts!(AL)
16 You have increased the number of your merchants
till they are more numerous than the stars in the sky,
but like locusts(AM) they strip the land
and then fly away.
17 Your guards are like locusts,(AN)
your officials like swarms of locusts
that settle in the walls on a cold day—
but when the sun appears they fly away,
and no one knows where.
18 King of Assyria, your shepherds[b] slumber;(AO)
your nobles lie down to rest.(AP)
Your people are scattered(AQ) on the mountains
with no one to gather them.
19 Nothing can heal you;(AR)
your wound is fatal.
All who hear the news about you
clap their hands(AS) at your fall,
for who has not felt
your endless cruelty?(AT)
Footnotes
- Nahum 3:9 That is, the upper Nile region
- Nahum 3:18 That is, rulers
Nahum 3
The Message
Nahum 3
The Message
Let the Nations Get Their Fill of the Ugly Truth
3 1-4 Doom to Murder City—
full of lies, bursting with loot, addicted to violence!
Horns blaring, wheels clattering,
horses rearing, chariots lurching,
Horsemen galloping,
brandishing swords and spears,
Dead bodies rotting in the street,
corpses stacked like cordwood,
Bodies in every gutter and alley,
clogging every intersection!
And whores! Whores without end!
Whore City,
Fatally seductive, you’re the Witch of Seduction,
luring nations to their ruin with your evil spells.
* * *
5-7 “I’m your enemy, Whore Nineveh—
I, God-of-the-Angel-Armies!
I’ll strip you of your seductive silk robes
and expose you on the world stage.
I’ll let the nations get their fill of the ugly truth
of who you really are and have been all along.
I’ll pelt you with dog dung
and place you on a pedestal: ‘Slut on Exhibit.’
Everyone who sees you will gag and say,
‘Nineveh’s a pigsty:
What on earth did we ever see in her?
Who would give her a second look? Ugh!’”
Past the Point of No Return
8-13 Do you think you’re superior to Egyptian Thebes,
proudly invincible on the River Nile,
Protected by the great River,
walled in by the River, secure?
Ethiopia stood guard to the south,
Egypt to the north.
Put and Libya, strong friends,
were ready to step in and help.
But you know what happened to her:
The whole city was marched off to a refugee camp,
Her babies smashed to death
in public view on the streets,
Her prize leaders auctioned off,
her celebrities put in chain gangs.
Expect the same treatment, Nineveh.
You’ll soon be staggering like a bunch of drunks,
Wondering what hit you,
looking for a place to sleep it off.
All your forts are like peach trees,
the lush peaches ripe, ready for the picking.
One shake of the tree and they fall
straight into hungry mouths.
Face it: Your warriors are wimps.
You’re sitting ducks.
Your borders are gaping doors, inviting
your enemies in. And who’s to stop them?
* * *
14-15 Store up water for the siege.
Shore up your defenses.
Get down to basics: Work the clay
and make bricks.
Sorry. Too late.
Enemy fire will burn you up.
Swords will cut you to pieces.
You’ll be chewed up as if by locusts.
* * *
15-17 Yes, as if by locusts—a fitting fate,
for you yourselves are a locust plague.
You’ve multiplied shops and shopkeepers—
more buyers and sellers than stars in the sky!
A plague of locusts, cleaning out the neighborhood
and then flying off.
Your bureaucrats are locusts,
your brokers and bankers are locusts.
Early on, they’re all at your service,
full of smiles and promises,
But later when you return with questions or complaints,
you’ll find they’ve flown off and are nowhere to be found.
18-19 King of Assyria! Your shepherd-leaders,
in charge of caring for your people,
Are busy doing everything else but.
They’re not doing their job,
And your people are scattered and lost.
There’s no one to look after them.
You’re past the point of no return.
Your wound is fatal.
When the story of your fate gets out,
the whole world will applaud and cry “Encore!”
Your cruel evil has seeped
into every nook and cranny of the world.
Everyone has felt it and suffered.
Nahum 3
The Voice
Nahum 3
The Voice
3 Hopelessness and despair,
that’s the destiny of the city that shed so much blood,
That perfected its use of lies,
that overflows with stolen treasures,
Leaving behind endless victims.
2 The sharp cracking of the whip in the air;
clattering of wheels on the streets;
Galloping horse hooves;
clanging, banging chariots;
3 Charging cavalry troops;
flashing swords and gleaming spears;
Armies of casualties, piles of dead bodies—too many to count—
so many you can’t walk without stumbling over them!
4 This is all because you tempted and lured the nations like a harlot,
dangling the allure of immorality.
You were a sorceress promising control of the spiritual world,
enslaving nations to lives of immorality and families to sorcery.
Nineveh is laid waste as God watches.
5 Eternal One: Look at Me and My armies.
I stand against you, Nineveh!
I will treat you like the harlot you are, lifting your dress over your face—
peeling back your outward façade
And exposing your true condition, your nakedness underneath.
You will be humiliated and ashamed in front of the world.
6 I’ll throw all your own filth on you.
I’ll treat you with contempt and make a humiliating public display of you.
7 Then the whole world will turn its back on you and flee, saying,
“Poor, pitiful Nineveh—you are totally ruined.”
Is there anyone who will sympathize with you?
Where will I find anyone to comfort you?
Nahum expresses God’s sentiment against Nineveh, and it is not attractive! The prophet uses graphic images to show how angry God truly is. If showing the nakedness of the Assyrian people to the nations is not demoralizing enough, then the shame of God throwing excrement at His enemies is unmistakable. The indignity of being stripped naked and covered in filth is the fullest expression of God’s rejection. While these images are disturbing, they are also typical of how powerful enemies, such as the armies of Nineveh, have treated their victims. Now the table is turned; the victor is now the victim. There is no one to comfort the Assyrian people: they are without a prophet; they are without a poet; they are without hope.
8 Are you any stronger than the city of Thebes[a] in its glory days?
Sitting at the edge of the Nile, its waters created a moat of protection on one side of her.
The Red Sea was a perfect defense against her eastern enemies,
As good as the protection of a wall.
9 The bounty of the regions of Cush and Egypt supported her, and
the areas of Put and Libya were her[b] strong allies.
10 Yet she was taken captive and exiled.
Her babies were broken to pieces at the crossroads of every street.
They tossed lots into a bag and drew out names to establish control of her honored men;
all her best and brightest were put in chains.
11 And just like them, you will go into hiding, getting drunk to escape your terror,
searching for some place to hide from your enemies.
12 But those strongholds, Nineveh, are easy pickings,
like figs on a tree when they first become ripe.
Just shake the tree,
and figs fall into your open mouth.
13 Look at your fierce troops surrounding you now.
They cower like untrained women, not battle-hardened warriors.
The gates that should have protected your land
instead are standing wide open.
Fire burns through the bars; your enemies stroll right in.
14 Draw up plenty of water to put out the fires,
and prepare, for your enemy will begin a siege.
Get busy working the clay and mud to make extra bricks;
you’ll need them to repair holes punched in your walls.
15 The attackers’ fire will consume you.
Their swords will cut you down,
And like grasshoppers attacking a field of grain,
they will totally consume you.
Like grasshoppers, multiply yourselves;
like locusts, make your numbers countless.
16 You brought so many merchants
till they are more numerous than the stars in the skies.
Like grasshoppers, they strip sustenance from the land,
only to fly away before justice can be sought.
17 Your courtiers are like locusts;
your city officials like swarms of locusts
Who become chilled against the wall on a cold day.
When the sun comes up and they are warmed,
They fly away, abandoning you.
Searching, no one can find them.
18 O king of Assyria, your shepherds felt safe enough to sleep in the fields.
Your leaders slept soundly in the city.
When judgment comes, your people are scattered like lost sheep,
far and wide among the mountains.
There is no leader left to rally them together.
19 Nothing and no one can heal your wound.
Your city’s wounds are fatal; you cannot survive.
Everyone who hears the news of your destruction
claps his hands in celebration,
Because who among them has not felt
your legendary and endless cruelty?
Nahum 3
King James Version
Nahum 3
King James Version
3 Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not;
2 The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots.
3 The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:
4 Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.
5 Behold, I am against thee, saith the Lord of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame.
6 And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock.
7 And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?
8 Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea?
9 Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers.
10 Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.
11 Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy.
12 All thy strong holds shall be like fig trees with the firstripe figs: if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater.
13 Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars.
14 Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.
15 There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm: make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts.
16 Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth, and fleeth away.
17 Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.
18 Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them.
19 There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?
New International Version (NIV) 
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.
The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
The Voice (VOICE)
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.