Nahum - The Old Testament

¹ Disaster to the city of blood, packed throughout with lies, stuffed with booty, where plundering has no end!

² The crack of the whip! The rumble of wheels! Galloping horse, jolting chariot,

³ charging cavalry, flashing swords, gleaming spears, a mass of wounded, hosts of dead, countless corpses; they stumble over corpses-

⁴ because of the countless whorings of the harlot, the graceful beauty, the cunning witch, who enslaved nations by her harlotries and tribes by her spells.

⁵ Look, I am against you!- declares Yahweh Sabaoth- I shall lift your skirts as high as your face and show your nakedness to the nations, your shame to the kingdoms.

⁶ I shall pelt you with filth, I shall shame you and put you in the pillory.

⁷ Then all who look at you will shrink from you and say, 'Nineveh has been ruined!' Who will mourn for her? Where would I find people to comfort you?

⁸ Are you better off than No-Amon situated among rivers, her defences the seas, her rampart the waters?

⁹ In Ethiopia and Egypt lay her strength, and it was boundless; Put and the Libyans served in her army.

¹⁰ But she too went into exile, into captivity; her little ones too were dashed to pieces at every crossroad; lots were drawn for her nobles, all her great men were put in chains.

¹¹ You too will become drunk, you will go into hiding; you too will have to search for a refuge from the enemy.

¹² Your fortifications are all fig trees, with early ripening figs: as soon as they are shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater.

¹³ Look at your people: you are a nation of women! The gates of your country gape open to your enemies; fire has devoured their bars!

¹⁴ Draw yourselves water for the siege, strengthen your fortifications! Into the mud with you, puddle the clay, repair the brick-kiln!

¹⁵ There the fire will burn you up, the sword will cut you down. Make yourselves as numerous as locusts, make yourselves as numerous as the hoppers,

¹⁶ let your commercial agents outnumber the stars of heaven,

¹⁷ your garrisons, like locusts, and your marshals, like swarms of hoppers! They settle on the walls when the day is cold. The sun appears, the locusts spread their wings, they fly away,away they fly, no one knows where. Alas,

¹⁸ your shepherds are asleep, king of Assyria, your bravest men slumber; your people are scattered on the mountains with no one to gather them.

¹⁹ There is no remedy for your wound, your injury is past healing. All who hear the news of you clap their hands at your downfall. For who has not felt your unrelenting cruelty?