Judgement against Nineveh
1 Woe to the city of blood!
It is all full of lies and robbery.
There is no end to its victims.
2 The sound of the whip,
the noise of rattling wheels,
prancing horses, and bounding chariots,
3 the horseman mounting,
and the flashing sword,
the glittering spear,
and a multitude of slain,
and a great pile of corpses,
and there is no end to the bodies.
They stumble over their bodies,
4 because of the pervasive prostitution;
the alluring prostitute,
the mistress of witchcraft,
who sells nations through her prostitution,
and families through her witchcraft.
5 “I am against you,” says the Lord of Hosts,
“and I will lift your skirts over your face.
I will show the nations your nakedness,
and the kingdoms your shame.
6 I will throw abominable filth on you,
and make you vile,
and will set you up as a spectacle.
7 It will happen that all those who look at you
will run from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste!
Who will mourn for her?’
Where will I seek comforters for you?”
8 Are you better than No-Amon,
who was situated among the rivers,
who was surrounded with water;
whose rampart was the sea,
and her wall was from the sea?
9 Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength.
Put and Libya were her helpers.
10 Yet she was taken captive.
She was exiled.
Her young children also were dashed to pieces
at the head of every street,
and they cast lots for her honorable men,
and all her great men were bound in chains.
11 You also will be drunken.
You will be hidden.
You also will seek a stronghold
because of the enemy.
12 All your fortresses will be like fig trees
with the first-ripe figs: if they are shaken,
they fall into the mouth of the eater.
13 Your troops among you are women.
The gates of your land are set wide open
to your enemies.
The fire has devoured your bars.
14 Draw water for the siege.
Strengthen your fortresses.
Go into the clay, and tread the mortar.
Make the brick kiln strong.
15 There the fire will devour you.
The sword will destroy you.
It will devour you like the grasshopper.
Multiply like grasshoppers.
Multiply like the locust.
16 You have increased your merchants
more than the stars of the skies.
The grasshopper strips,
and flees.
17 Your guards are like the locusts,
and your officials like the swarms of locusts,
which settle on the walls on a cold day,
but when the sun appears,
they flee away,
and the place where they are
is not known.
18 Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria.
Your nobles lie down.
Your people are scattered on the mountains,
and there is no one to gather them.
19 There is no healing your wound,
for your injury is fatal.
All who hear the report of you clap their hands over you;
for who has not felt your endless cruelty?