Nahum 2:1-3:19

The scatterer has come up against you.

Man the ramparts; watch the road;

dress for battle;

collect all your strength.

2 For the Lord is restoring the majesty of

Jacob

as the majesty of Israel,

for plunderers have plundered them

and ruined their branches.

3 The shield of his mighty men is red;

his soldiers are clothed in scarlet.

The chariots come with flashing metal

on the day he musters them;

the cypress spears are brandished.

4 The chariots race madly through the

streets;

they rush to and fro through the

squares; they gleam like torches;

they dart like lightning.

5 He remembers his officers;

they stumble as they go,

they hasten to the wall;

the siege tower is set up.

6 The river gates are opened;

the palace melts away;

7 its mistress is stripped; she is carried

off, her slave girls lamenting,

moaning like doves

and beating their breasts.

8 Nineveh is like a pool

whose waters run away.

“Halt! Halt!” they cry,

but none turns back.

9 Plunder the silver, plunder the gold!

There is no end of the treasure

or of the wealth of all precious things.

10 Desolate! Desolation and ruin!

Hearts melt and knees tremble;

anguish is in all loins;

all faces grow pale!

11 Where is the lions' den,

the feeding place of the young lions,

where the lion and lioness went,

where his cubs were, with none to dis-

turb?

12 The lion tore enough for his cubs

and strangled prey for his lionesses;

he filled his caves with prey

and his dens with torn flesh.

13 Behold, I am against you, declares

the Lord of hosts, and I will burn

your chariots in smoke, and the sword

shall devour your young lions. I will cut

off your prey from the earth, and the

voice of your messengers shall no longer

be heard.

3:1 Woe to the bloody city,

all full of lies and plunder—

no end to the prey!

2 The crack of the whip, and rumble of

the wheel, galloping horse

and bounding chariot!

3 Horsemen charging,

flashing sword and glittering spear,

hosts of slain, heaps of corpses,

dead bodies without end—

they stumble over the bodies!

114 And all for the countless whorings of

the prostitute,

graceful and of deadly charms,

who betrays nations with her whorings,

and peoples with her charms.

5 Behold, I am against you,

declares the Lord of hosts,

and will lift up your skirts over your face;

and I will make nations look at your na-

kedness and kingdoms at your shame.

6 I will throw filth at you

and treat you with contempt

and make you a spectacle.

7 And all who look at you will shrink

from you and say, “Wasted

is Nineveh; who will grieve for her?”

Where shall I seek comforters for you?

8 Are you better than Thebes

that sat by the Nile,

with water around her,

her rampart a sea, and water her wall?

9 Cush was her strength;

Egypt too, and that without limit;

Put and the Libyans were her helpers.

10 Yet she became an exile;

she went into captivity;

her infants were dashed in pieces

at the head of every street;

for her honored men lots were cast,

and all her great men were bound in

chains.

11 You also will be drunken;

you will go into hiding;

you will seek a refuge from the enemy.

12 All your fortresses are like fig trees

with first-ripe figs— if shaken they fall

into the mouth of the eater.

13 Behold, your troops

are women in your midst.

The gates of your land

are wide open to your enemies;

fire has devoured your bars.

14 Draw water for the siege;

strengthen your forts;

go into the clay; tread the mortar;

take hold of the brick mold!

15 There will the fire devour you;

the sword will cut you off.

It will devour you like the locust.

Multiply yourselves like the locust;

multiply like the grasshopper!

16 You increased your merchants

more than the stars of the heavens.

The locust spreads its wings and flies

away.

17 Your princes are like grasshoppers,

your scribes like clouds of locusts

settling on the fences in a day of cold—

when the sun rises, they fly away;

no one knows where they are.

18 Your shepherds are asleep,

O king of Assyria; your nobles slumber.

Your people are scattered on the moun-

tains with none to gather them.

19 There is no easing your hurt;

your wound is grievous.

All who hear the news about you

clap their hands over you.

For upon whom has not come

your unceasing evil?