1Woe to those who engrave engravings of injustice and missives of perverseness they write.

2To pervert the judgment of the impoverished and to rob the judgment of the poor of My people, so that the widows are their plunder, and they pillage the orphans.

3And what will you do for the day of visitation, and for the destruction that shall come from afar? To whom will you flee for aid, and where will you leave your riches?

4Where he never knelt, in that place he will be a prisoner, and in that place they will fall slain; despite all this, His anger has not turned away, and His hand is still outstretched.

5Woe that Assyria is the rod of My wrath, and My fury is a staff in their hand[s].

6Against a hypocritical nation I will incite them, and upon the people of My anger will I command them, to plunder and to spoil spoils, and to make it trodden down like the mud of the streets.

7But he does not deem it so, and his heart does not think so, but to destroy is in his heart, and to cut off nations, not a few.

8For he says, "Are not my princes together kings?

9Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is it not like Arpad of Hamath? Will not Samaria be like Damascus?

10As my hand was able to [conquer] the pagan kingdoms, and their graven images were from Jerusalem and Samaria.

11Indeed, as I did to Samaria and to her idols, so will I do to Jerusalem and to her idols."

12And it shall be, when the Lord completes all His work on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will visit retribution upon the increase of the arrogance of the king of Assyria's heart and upon the boasting of the haughtiness of his eyes.

13For he said, "With the strength of my hand I accomplished it, and with my wisdom, for I am clever, and I remove the boundaries of peoples, and their positions have I plundered, and I lowered many inhabitants.

14And my hand found the wealth of the peoples like a nest, and as one gathers abandoned eggs, I gathered the entire world, and no one moved a wing, or opened his mouth, or chirped."

15Shall the axe boast over the one who hews with it, or shall the saw hold itself greater than he who wields it? It is as though the rod wields those who raise it. When the staff is raised, it is not the wood.

16Therefore, the Master, the Lord of Hosts shall send leanness into his fat ones, and in the place of honor, a burning shall burn like the burning of fire.

17And the light of Israel shall become fire, and his holy one shall become a flame, and it shall consume his thorns and his worms in one day.

18And the glory of his forest and his stately forest, both soul and flesh shall it destroy, and it shall be as a tree eaten to powder by the worms.

19And the remaining trees of his forest shall be few, and a lad shall write them.

20And it shall come to pass that on that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob shall not continue to lean on him that smote them; but he shall lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.

21The remnant shall return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.

22For if your people Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, the remnant of them that shall return, shall wash away with righteousness the decreed destruction.

23For destruction and annihilation the Lord God of Hosts performs in the midst of all the land.

24Therefore, so said the Lord God of Hosts, "Fear not, my people who dwell in Zion, Assyria; with a rod may he smite you, and his staff may he bear over you in the way of Egypt."

25For [in] yet a very little [while] the fury shall be over, and My wrath, because of their blasphemy.

26And the Lord of Hosts shall stir up a scourge against him, like the smiting of Midian at the Rock of Oreb, and His staff on the sea, and He shall carry him off after the manner of Egypt.

27And it shall come to pass on that day, that his burden shall be removed from upon your shoulder, and his yoke from upon your neck, and the yoke shall be destroyed because of oil.

28He came upon Aiath; he passed through Migron; at Michmas he deposits his luggage.

29They crossed the ford; at Geba they lodged; Ramah quaked; Gib'ath Saul fled.

30Raise your voice, Bath-Gallim; hearken, Laishah, Aniah Anathoth.

31Madmenah wandered; the inhabitants of Gebim gathered.

32Still today, [he intends] to stand in Nob; he waves his hand toward the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

33Behold the Master, the Lord of Hosts lops off the branches with a saw, and those of lofty height are hewn down, and the tall one shall be humbled.

34And the thickets of the forests shall be cut off with iron, and the Lebanon shall fall through a mighty one.