Beginning
Oracle of Judgment on Cush
18 Ah! land of the whirring of wings,
which is beyond the rivers of Cush,
2 that sends messengers by the sea
and in vessels of papyrus on the surface of the waters!
Go, swift messengers, to a tall[a] and smooth[b] nation,
to a people feared near and far,[c]
a mighty, mighty[d] and trampling[e] nation,
whose land rivers divide.
3 All you inhabitants of the world
and dwellers of the earth,
when a signal is raised on the[f] mountains, you must look,
and when a trumpet is blown,[g] you must listen!
4 For Yahweh said this to me:
“I will be quiet,
and I will look from my dwelling place
like clear heat because of light,[h]
like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is complete[i]
and a blossom becomes ripening fruit,
and one cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks,
and one removes, tears away the tendrils.
6 They shall all be left[j] for birds[k] of prey of the mountains
and for the animals[l] of the earth.
And the birds[m] of prey will pass the summer on it,
and every animal of the earth will winter on it.
7 At that time, a gift[n] will be brought to Yahweh of hosts
from a tall[o] and smooth[p] people,
and from a people feared near and far,
a mighty, mighty and trampling nation,
whose land the rivers divide,
to the place of the name of Yahweh of hosts,
the mountain of Zion.
Oracle of Judgment on Egypt
19 An oracle of Egypt:
Look! Yahweh is riding on a swift cloud
and is coming to Egypt.
And the idols of Egypt will tremble in front of him,
and the heart of Egypt melts in his inner parts.
2 “And I will stir up Egyptians[q] against Egyptians,[r]
and each one will fight against his brother
and each one against his neighbor,
city against city, kingdom against kingdom.
3 And the spirit of the Egyptians[s] will be disturbed in his midst,
and I will confuse[t] his plans,[u]
and they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead,
and the ghosts and the spiritists.
4 And I will hand over the Egyptians[v] into the hand of a hard master,
and a powerful king will rule over them,”
declares[w] the Lord Yahweh of hosts.
5 And the waters will be dried up from the sea,
and the river will be parched and dry.
6 And the rivers will become foul-smelling;
the branches of the Nile of Egypt will become little and dry up;
reed and rush will wither.
7 Bare places by the Nile will be dried up,
by the edge of the Nile and all the sown land of the Nile;
it will be driven about, and it will be no more.[x]
8 And the fishers will mourn,
and all of those who cast fishhooks[y] in the Nile will lament,
and those who spread out fishing nets[z] on the surface[aa] of the water will languish.
9 And the workers of combed flax will be ashamed,
and those who weave white linen.
10 And her weavers will be crushed;
all the hired workers[ab] will be grieved of heart.
11 Surely the princes of Zoan are foolish;
the wise of the counselors of Pharaoh give senseless counsel.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
“I myself am a son of sages,
a descendant[ac] of ancient kings”?
12 Where are your sages then?
Now, let them tell you,
and let them know what Yahweh of hosts has planned against Egypt.
13 The princes of Zoan have become foolish;
the princes of Memphis are deceived;
the leaders of her tribes have led Egypt astray.
14 Yahweh has mixed a spirit of confusion into her midst,
and they have caused Egypt to stagger in all of its doings,
as when a drunkard staggers[ad] in his vomit.
15 And there will be nothing for Egypt to do,[ae]
head or tail, palm branch or reed.
The Future Blessing of Egypt, Assyria, and Egypt
16 On that day, Egypt will be like women, and will tremble and be afraid before the waving hand of Yahweh of hosts that he is waving against it. 17 And the land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt, everyone to whom one mentions it will be afraid in himself because of the plan of Yahweh of hosts that he is planning against him.
18 On that day, there will be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language[af] of Canaan and swear an oath to Yahweh of hosts. One will be called “City of the Sun.”
19 On that day, there will be an altar for Yahweh in in the middle of the land of Egypt, and a stone pillar for Yahweh at her border. 20 And it will be a sign and a witness to Yahweh of hosts in the land of Egypt; when they cry out to Yahweh because of oppressors, he will send them a savior and a defender,[ag] and he will deliver them. 21 And Yahweh will make himself known to Egypt, and Egypt will know Yahweh on that day, and they will worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows[ah] to Yahweh, and they will fulfill them. 22 And Yahweh will strike Egypt, striking and healing; and they will return to Yahweh, and he will respond to their prayer, and he will heal them.
23 On that day, there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and Egypt will worship together with Assyria.
24 On that day, Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, 25 whom Yahweh of hosts blessed, saying, “May Egypt my people be blessed, and Assyria, the work of my hands, and my inheritance, Israel.”
A Sign regarding Egypt and Cush
20 In the year the commander-in-chief came[ai] to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and he took it, 2 at that time, Yahweh had spoken by the hand of Isaiah son of Amoz, saying,
“Go and loosen the sackcloth from your loins,
and take off your sandals[aj] from your feet,”
and he had done so, walking naked and barefoot.
3 Then[ak] Yahweh said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Cush, 4 so shall the king of Assyria lead the captives[al] of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old, naked and barefoot, with bared buttocks,[am] the shame of Egypt.
5 And they shall be dismayed,
and they shall be ashamed
because of Cush, their hope,
and because of Egypt, their pride.
6 And the inhabitant[an] of the coastland will say this on that day:
‘Look! This is our hope to whom we fled for help, to be delivered from[ao] the king of Assyria, and how shall we escape?’”
The Fall of Babylon
21 The oracle of the wilderness of the sea:
As storm winds passing over in the Negev,
it comes[ap] from the desert,
from a frightful land.
2 A hard revelation is told to me;
the treacherous deals treacherously,
and the destroyer destroys.
Go up, Elam;
lay siege, Media!
I put an end to all of her sighing.
3 Therefore my loins are filled with anguish;
pangs have seized me, like the pangs of a woman giving birth.
I am too bent to hear,[aq]
I am too dismayed to see.[ar]
4 My mind[as] staggers; fear terrifies me;
the twilight I desired[at] brought[au] me fear.
5 Set out the table in order!
Spread out the rugs![av]
Eat! drink!
Rise up, commanders;
smear[aw] the shield!
6 For the Lord said this to me:
“Go, set a watchman in position.
He must announce what he sees.
7 When[ax] he sees riders,[ay]
a pair of horsemen,
riders[az] of donkeys,[ba]
riders[bb] of camels,[bc]
then[bd] he must listen attentively,
paying attention, paying special[be] attention.”
8 Then[bf] the watchman[bg] called,
“Lord, I am standing on the watchtower continually by day,
and I am standing at my post throughout[bh] the night.
9 And look at this! A man’s a chariot is coming,
a pair of horsemen!”
Then[bi] he responded and said,
“It has fallen! Babylon has fallen!
And all the images of her gods are[bj] smashed on the ground!”
10 My downtrodden people
and the son of my threshing floor,
I will announce to you what I have heard from Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel.
Oracle regarding Dumah
11 The oracle of Dumah:
One is calling to me from Seir,
12 The watchman says,
“Morning comes,
and also the night.
If you will inquire, inquire;
come back again.”[bm]
Oracle against Arabia
13 An oracle concerning[bn] Arabia:
You will spend the night in the thicket in a desert-plateau,[bo]
caravans of Dedanites.
14 When you happen to meet[bp] the thirsty, bring water.
Inhabitants of the land of Tema came to meet the fugitive with his bread.
15 For they have fled from the swords,
from the drawn sword and the bent bow,
and from the heaviness of the battle.
16 For the Lord said this to me:
“In one more year,[bq] like the years of a hired worker,
all the glory of Kedar will come to an end.
17 And the remainder of the number of the bows[br] of the warriors of the sons of Kedar will be few.”
For Yahweh, the God of Israel, has spoken.
Oracle against Jerusalem
22 The oracle of the valley of vision:
What business do you have going[bs] up, all of you, to the roofs,
2 noisy,[bt] tumultuous city,
exultant town?
Your slain are not slain by the sword,
nor are they dead from battle.
3 All of your rulers have fled together without a bow;
all of you who were found[bu] were captured.
They were captured together;
they had fled far away.
4 Therefore I said,
“Look away from me,
let me weep bitterly;[bv]
you must not insist on comforting me
for the destruction of the daughter of my people.”
5 For the Lord Yahweh of hosts has a day of tumult and trampling and confusion[bw] in the valley of vision,
a tearing down of walls[bx] and a cry for help to the mountains.[by]
6 And Elam lifted up the quiver,
with chariots[bz] of men[ca] and cavalry.
And Kir uncovered the shield.
7 And this happened:
the choicest of your valleys were full of chariots,[cb]
and the cavalry confidently stood at the gate.
8 And he uncovered the covering of Judah.
And you looked, on that day, to the weapons[cc] of the House of the Forest,
9 and you saw that the breaches in the walls of the city of David were many,
and you gathered the waters of the lower pool.
10 And you counted the houses of Jerusalem,
and you broke down the houses to fortify the wall.
11 And you made a reservoir between the walls for the waters of the old pool,
but you did not look to its maker,
and you did not see the one who created it long ago.[cd]
12 And the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, called on that day
for weeping and mourning,
and for baldness and girding with[ce] sackcloth.
13 But look! Joy and gladness,
the killing of oxen[cf] and the slaughtering of sheep,
the eating of meat and the drinking of wine!
“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”
14 And it was revealed in my ears by Yahweh of hosts:
“Surely this sin will not be atoned for you until you die!”
says the Lord, Yahweh of hosts.
Oracle regarding Shebna
15 The Lord, Yahweh of hosts, says this:
“Go! Go to this steward, to Shebna,
who is over the house:
16 ‘What business do you have[cg] here,
and who do you have[ch] here,
that you have cut a grave cutting here for yourself,
carving his grave on the height,
a dwelling place for him in the rock?
17 Look! Yahweh is about to really hurl[ci] you, man!
And he is about to grasp you firmly;
18 he will wind a winding tightly around you like a ball, to a wide land.[cj]
There you shall die,
and there the chariots of your splendor will be,
disgrace to your master’s house!
19 And I will push you from your office,
and he will throw you down from your position.
20 And this shall happen:
On that day I will call to my servant, Eliakim son of Hilkiah,
21 and I will clothe him with your tunic,
and I will bind your sash firmly about him,
and I will put your authority into his hand,
and he shall be like a father to the inhabitants[ck] of Jerusalem
and to the house of Judah.
22 And I will put the key of the house of David on his shoulder,
and he shall open and no one will be able to shut;
and he shall shut and no one will be able to open.
23 And I will drive him in like a peg into a secure place,
and he will become like a throne of glory to the house of his father.
24 And they will hang all of the heaviness of his father’s house on him,
the offspring and the offshoot,
all of the small vessels,
from the bowls to the jars.[cl]
25 On that day, declares[cm] Yahweh of hosts, the peg that was driven will move away into a secure place, and it will be cut down and fall, and the load that was on her will be cut off. For Yahweh has spoken.’”
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