A Message to Ethiopia
1 Woe to the land of the rustling insect wings,
which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,
2 that sends ambassadors by the sea,
in vessels of papyrus on the waters,
saying, “Go, you swift messengers,
to a nation tall and smooth,
to a people fearsome from their beginning onward,
a powerful nation that treads down,
whose land the rivers divide!”
3 All you inhabitants of the world,
and you dwellers on the earth,
when a banner is lifted up on the mountains, look!
When the trumpet is blown, listen!
4 For the Lord said to me,
“I will be still, and I will look on from my place,
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 sprigs with pruning hooks,
and he will cut down and take away the spreading branches.
6 They will be left together
for the ravenous birds of the mountains,
and for the animals of the earth.
The ravenous birds will eat them in the summer,
and all the animals of the earth
will eat them in the winter.
7 At that time, a present will be brought to the Lord of Hosts
from a people tall and smooth,
from a people awesome from their beginning onward,
a nation that measures out and treads down,
whose land the rivers divide,
to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, Mount Zion.