| 1 | Woe to the land whirring with wings which is beyond the rivers of Cush
or
Ethiopia, |
| 2 | That sends ambassadors by the Nile, even in vessels of papyrus upon the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and polished, to a people terrible from their beginning [feared and dreaded near and far], a nation strong and victorious, whose land the rivers divide! |
| 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 has said to me: I will be still and I will look on from My dwelling place, like clear
and
glowing heat in sunshine, like a fine cloud of mist 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 the spreading branches He will remove and cut away. |
| 6 | They [the dead bodies of the slain warriors] shall be left together to the ravenous birds of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth; and the ravenous birds will summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth will winter upon them. |
| 7 | At that time shall a present be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people tall and polished, from a people terrible from their beginning
and
feared
and
dreaded near and far, a nation strong and victorious, whose land the rivers
or
great channels divide—to the place [of worship] of the
[a]Name of the Lord of hosts, to Mount Zion [in Jerusalem]. |
Cross references:
-
Isaiah 18:7 : Deut. 12:5; II Chron. 32:23; Isa. 16:1; 45:14; Zeph. 3:10.
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