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The Destruction of the Wicked City

A scatterer has come up against you.
    Guard the ramparts;
    watch the road;
gird your loins;
    collect all your strength.(A)

(For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob,
    as well as the majesty of Israel,
though ravagers have ravaged them
    and ruined their branches.)(B)

The shields of his warriors are red;
    his soldiers are clothed in crimson.
The metal on the chariots flashes
    on the day when he musters them;
    the chargers[a] prance.(C)
The chariots race madly through the streets;
    they rush to and fro through the squares;
their appearance is like torches;
    they dart like lightning.(D)
He calls his officers;
    they stumble as they come forward;
they hasten to the wall,
    and the screen[b] is set up.
The river gates are opened;
    the palace trembles.
It is decreed[c] that the city[d] be exiled,
    its slave women led away,
moaning like doves
    and beating their breasts.(E)
Nineveh is like a pool
    whose waters[e] run away.
“Halt! Halt!”—
    but no one turns back.(F)
“Plunder the silver;
    plunder the gold!
There is no end of treasure!
    An abundance of every precious thing!”

10 Devastation, desolation, and destruction!
    Hearts faint and knees tremble;
all loins quake;
    all faces grow pale!(G)
11 What became of the lions’ den,
    the cave of the young lions,
where the lion goes,
    and the lion’s cubs, with no one to disturb them?(H)
12 The lion has torn enough for his whelps
    and strangled prey for his lionesses;
he has filled his caves with prey
    and his dens with torn flesh.(I)

13 See, I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will burn your[f] chariots in smoke, and the sword shall devour your young lions; I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers shall be heard no more.(J)

Footnotes

  1. 2.3 Cn Compare Gk Syr: Heb cypresses
  2. 2.5 Meaning of Heb uncertain
  3. 2.7 Meaning of Heb uncertain
  4. 2.7 Heb it
  5. 2.8 Cn Compare Gk: Heb a pool, from the days that she has become, and they
  6. 2.13 Heb her