3 1 Of the fall of Ninevah. 8 No power can escape the hand of God.
1 O bloody city, it is all full of lies and robbery: [a]the prey departeth not.
2 The noise of a whip, [b]and the noise of the moving of the wheels, and the beating of the horses, and the leaping of the chariots.
3 The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword, and the glittering spear, and a multitude is slain, and the dead bodies are many: there is none end of their corpses: they stumble upon their corpses,
4 Because of the multitude of the fornications of the [c]harlot that is beautiful, and is a mistress of witchcraft, and selleth the people through her whoredom, and the nations through her witchcrafts.
5 Behold, I come upon thee, saith the Lord of hosts, and will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and will show the nations thy filthiness, and the kingdoms thy shame.
6 And I will cast filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing stock.
7 And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee, shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is destroyed, who will have pity upon her? where shall I seek comforters for thee?
8 Art thou better than [d]No, which was full of people? that lay in the rivers, and had the waters round about it? whose ditch was the sea, and her wall was from the sea?
9 Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and there was none end: Put and Lubim were [e]her helpers.
10 Yet was she carried away, and went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets: and they cast lots for her noble men, and all her mighty men were bound in chains.
11 Also thou shalt be drunken: thou shalt hide thyself, and shalt seek help because of the enemy.
12 All thy strong cities shall be like fig trees with the first ripe figs: for if they be shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater.
13 Behold, thy people within thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be opened unto thine enemies, and the fire shall devour thy bars.
14 Draw thee waters for the siege: fortify thy strongholds: go into the clay, and temper the mortar: make strong brick.
15 There shall the fire devour thee: the sword shall cut thee off: it shall eat thee up like the [f]locusts, though thou be multiplied like the locusts, and multiplied like the grasshopper.
16 Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the locust spoileth and flieth away.
17 Thy princes are as the grasshoppers, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers which remain in the hedges in the cold day: but when the sun ariseth, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.
18 Thy [g]shepherds do sleep, O king of Assyria: thy strong men lie down: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them.
19 There is no healing of thy wound: thy plague is grievous: all that hear the brute of thee, shall clap the hands over thee: for upon [h]whom hath not thy malice passed continually?
Footnotes
- Nahum 3:1 It never ceaseth to spoil and rob.
- Nahum 3:2 He showeth how the Chaldeans shall haste, and how courageous their horses shall be in beating the ground when they come against the Assyrians.
- Nahum 3:4 He compareth Nineveh to an harlot, which by her beauty and subtlety enticeth young men, and bringeth them to destruction.
- Nahum 3:8 Meaning, Alexandria, which was in league with so many nations, and yet was now destroyed.
- Nahum 3:9 Or, thine.
- Nahum 3:15 Signifying, that God’s judgments should suddenly destroy the Assyrians, as these vermin are with rain or change of weather.
- Nahum 3:18 Thy princes and counselors.
- Nahum 3:19 Meaning, that there was no people to whom the Assyrians had not done hurt.