Message to Ethiopia
18 Woe, land of whirring wings
Which lies beyond the rivers of (A)Cush,
2 Which sends messengers by the sea,
Even in (B)papyrus vessels on the surface of the waters.
Go, swift messengers, to a nation (C)tall and smooth,
To a people (D)feared far and wide,
A powerful and oppressive nation
Whose land the rivers divide.
3 (E)All you who inhabit the world, and live on earth,
As soon as a flag is raised on the mountains, (F)you will see it,
And as soon as the trumpet is blown, you will hear it.
4 For this is what the Lord has told me:
“I will quietly look from My (G)dwelling place
Like dazzling heat in the (H)sunshine,
Like a cloud of (I)dew in the heat of harvest.”
5 For (J)before the harvest, as soon as the bud blossoms
And the flower becomes a ripening grape,
He will cut off the shoots with pruning knives,
And remove and tear away the spreading branches.
6 They will be left together for mountain birds (K)of prey,
And for the animals of the earth;
And the birds of prey will spend the summer feeding on them,
And all the animals of the earth will spend harvest time on them.
7 At that time a gift of tribute will be brought to the Lord of armies
From a (L)people tall and smooth,
From a people feared far and wide,
A powerful and oppressive nation,
Whose land the rivers divide—
To the (M)place of the name of the Lord of armies, to Mount Zion.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 18:1
- Isaiah 18:2
- Isaiah 18:2
- Isaiah 18:4
- Isaiah 18:4
- Isaiah 18:5
- Isaiah 18:7
- Isaiah 18:7
- Isaiah 18:7
Cross references
- Isaiah 18:1 : 2 Kin 19:9; Is 20:3-5; Ezek 30:4, 5, 9; Zeph 2:12; 3:10
- Isaiah 18:2 : Ex 2:3
- Isaiah 18:2 : Is 18:7
- Isaiah 18:2 : Gen 10:8, 9; 2 Chr 12:2-4; 14:9; 16:8
- Isaiah 18:3 : Ps 49:1; Mic 1:2
- Isaiah 18:3 : Is 26:11
- Isaiah 18:4 : Is 26:21; Hos 5:15
- Isaiah 18:4 : 2 Sam 23:4
- Isaiah 18:4 : Prov 19:12; Is 26:19; Hos 14:5
- Isaiah 18:5 : Is 17:10, 11; Ezek 17:6-10
- Isaiah 18:6 : Is 46:11; 56:9; Jer 7:33; Ezek 32:4-6; 39:17-20
- Isaiah 18:7 : Ps 68:31; Is 45:14; Zeph 3:10; Acts 8:27-38
- Isaiah 18:7 : Zech 14:16, 17
