Woe to Nineveh
3 Woe to the bloody city!
It is full of lies
and plunder.
The prey never departs.
2 The noise of the whip
and the noise of the rattling of the wheels,
galloping horses,
and rushing chariots!
3 Horsemen charging
with flashing sword
and glittering spear.
Multitude of slain,
great number of corpses,
dead bodies without end—
they stumble on the corpses—
4 because of the countless harlotries of the seductive harlot,
the mistress of sorceries,
who sells nations through her harlotries
and families through her sorceries.
5 I am against you, says the Lord of Hosts;
I will lift your skirts over your face,
and I will show the nations your nakedness,
and the kingdoms your shame.
6 I will throw filth on you,
and make you vile,
and make you a spectacle.
7 All who look at you will flee from you, and say,
“Nineveh is devastated! Who will lament for her?”
Where shall I seek comforters for you?
8 Are you better than Thebes
that sat by the Nile,
with water around her,
whose rampart was the sea,
and whose wall was the water?
9 Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was without limit;
Put and Libya were her helpers.
10 Yet she went into exile,
she went into captivity;
her young children were dashed to pieces
at the head of every street;
they cast lots for her honorable men,
and all her great men were bound in chains.
11 You also will be drunk;
you will go into hiding;
you will seek refuge from the enemy.
12 All your fortresses are like fig trees
with first-ripe figs:
If they are shaken,
they fall into the mouth of the eater.
13 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 and
tread the mortar!
Take hold of the brick mold!
15 There the fire will devour you,
the sword will cut you off;
it will eat you up like the locust.
Multiply yourselves—like the locust!
Multiply—like the grasshopper!
16 You have multiplied your merchants
more than the stars of heaven.
The locust plunders
and flies away.
17 Your leaders are like grasshoppers,
your commanders like swarms of locusts,
which camp in the hedges on a cold day;
when the sun rises they fly away,
and the place where they are is not known.
18 Your shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria;
Your nobles lie in the dust.
Your people are scattered on the mountains,
and no one gathers them.
19 There is no healing of your injury,
your wound is grievous.
All who hear news about you
clap their hands over you,
for upon whom has not your wickedness
continually passed?
