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 said to me:
“I will quietly look from my dwelling
    like clear heat in sunshine,
    like a cloud of dew 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 shoots with pruning hooks,
    and the spreading branches he will hew away.
⁶ They shall all of them be left
    to the birds of prey of the mountains
    and to the beasts of the earth.
And the birds of prey will summer upon them,
    and all the beasts of the earth will winter upon them,

⁵ And the waters of the Nile will be dried up,
    and the river will be parched and dry;
⁶ and its canals will become foul,
    and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up,
    reeds and rushes will rot away.
⁷ There will be bare places by the Nile,
    on the brink of the Nile,
and all that is sown by the Nile will dry up,
    be driven away, and be no more.
⁸ The fishermen will mourn and lament,
    all who cast hook in the Nile;
and they will languish
    who spread nets upon the water.
⁹ The workers in combed flax will be in despair,
    and the weavers of white cotton.
¹⁰ Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed,
    and all who work for hire will be grieved.

¹¹ The princes of Zo′an are utterly foolish;
    the wise counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
    “I am a son of the wise,
    a son of ancient kings”?
¹² Where then are your wise men?
    Let them tell you and make known
    what the Lord of hosts has purposed against Egypt.
¹³ The princes of Zo′an have become fools,
    and the princes of Memphis are deluded;
those who are the cornerstones of her tribes
    have led Egypt astray.
¹⁴ The Lord has mingled within her a spirit of confusion;
and they have made Egypt stagger in all her doings
    as a drunken man staggers in his vomit.
¹⁵ And there will be nothing for Egypt
    which head or tail, palm branch or reed, may do.

His way is in whirlwind and storm,
    and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
⁴ He rebukes the sea and makes it dry,
    he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither,
    the bloom of Lebanon fades.
⁵ The mountains quake before him,
    the hills melt;
the earth is laid waste before him,
    the world and all that dwell therein.

⁶ Who can stand before his indignation?
    Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
    and the rocks are broken asunder by him.
⁷ The Lord is good,
    a stronghold in the day of trouble;
    he knows those who take refuge in him.
⁸ But with an overflowing flood
    he will make a full end of his adversaries,^[a]
    and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
⁹ What do you plot against the Lord?
    He will make a full end;
    he will not take vengeance^[b] twice on his foes.^[c]
10 Like entangled thorns they are consumed,^[d]
    like dry stubble.
¹¹ Did one not^[e] come out from you,
    who plotted evil against the Lord,
    and counseled villainy?

¹⁴ The Lord has given commandment about you:
    “No more shall your name be perpetuated;
from the house of your gods I will cut off
    the graven image and the molten image.
I will make your grave, for you are vile.”

^15 [g] Behold, on the mountains the feet of him
    who brings good tidings,
    who proclaims peace!
Keep your feasts, O Judah,
    fulfil your vows,
for never again shall the wicked come against you,
    he is utterly cut off.

² (For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob
    as the majesty of Israel,
for plunderers have stripped them
    and ruined their branches.)

³ The shield of his mighty men is red,
    his soldiers are clothed in scarlet.
The chariots flash like flame^[h]
    when mustered in array;
    the chargers^[i] prance.
⁴ The chariots rage in the streets,
    they rush to and fro through the squares;
they gleam like torches,
    they dart like lightning.
⁵ The officers are summoned,
    they stumble as they go,
they hasten to the wall,
    the mantelet is set up.
⁶ The river gates are opened,
    the palace is in dismay;
⁷ its mistress^[j] is stripped, she is carried off,
    her maidens lamenting,
moaning like doves,
    and beating their breasts.
⁸ Nin′eveh is like a pool
    whose waters^[k] run away.
“Halt! Halt!” they cry;
    but none turns back.
⁹ Plunder the silver,
    plunder the gold!
There is no end of treasure,
    or wealth of every precious thing.

¹⁰ Desolate! Desolation and ruin!
    Hearts faint and knees tremble,
anguish is on all loins,
    all faces grow pale!
¹¹ Where is the lions’ den,
    the cave^[l] of the young lions,
where the lion brought his prey,
    where his cubs were, with none to disturb?
¹² The lion tore enough for his whelps
    and strangled prey for his lionesses;
he filled his caves with prey
    and his dens with torn flesh.