The Destruction of the Wicked City
2 A scatterer has come up against you.
Guard the ramparts;
watch the road;
gird your loins;
collect all your strength.(A)
2 (For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob,
as well as the majesty of Israel,
though ravagers have ravaged them
and ruined their branches.)(B)
3 The shields of his warriors are red;
his soldiers are clothed in crimson.
The metal on the chariots flashes
on the day when he musters them;
the chargers[a] prance.(C)
4 The chariots race madly through the streets;
they rush to and fro through the squares;
their appearance is like torches;
they dart like lightning.(D)
5 He calls his officers;
they stumble as they come forward;
they hasten to the wall,
and the screen[b] is set up.
6 The river gates are opened;
the palace trembles.
7 It is decreed[c] that the city[d] be exiled,
its slave women led away,
moaning like doves
and beating their breasts.(E)
8 Nineveh is like a pool
whose waters[e] run away.
“Halt! Halt!”—
but no one turns back.(F)
9 “Plunder the silver;
plunder the gold!
There is no end of treasure!
An abundance of every precious thing!”
10 Devastation, desolation, and destruction!
Hearts faint and knees tremble;
all loins quake;
all faces grow pale!(G)
11 What became of the lions’ den,
the cave of the young lions,
where the lion goes,
and the lion’s cubs, with no one to disturb them?(H)
12 The lion has torn enough for his whelps
and strangled prey for his lionesses;
he has filled his caves with prey
and his dens with torn flesh.(I)
13 See, I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will burn your[f] 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 be heard no more.(J)
Footnotes
- 2.3Cn Compare Gk Syr: Heb cypresses
- 2.5Meaning of Heb uncertain
- 2.7Meaning of Heb uncertain
- 2.7Heb it
- 2.8Cn Compare Gk: Heb a pool, from the days that she has become, and they
- 2.13Heb her
Cross references
- 2.1 : Jer 51.20–23; Nah 3.12, 14
- 2.2 : Isa 60.15; Ezek 37.21–23
- 2.3 : Job 39.23; Ezek 23.14, 15
- 2.4 : Jer 4.13; Ezek 26.10
- 2.7 : Isa 59.11
- 2.8 : Jer 46.5; 47.3; Nah 3.7
- 2.10 : Ps 22.14; Isa 13.7, 8; Joel 2.6
- 2.11 : Isa 5.29; Jer 4.7; Nah 3.1
- 2.12 : Isa 10.6–14; Jer 51.34
- 2.13 : Ps 46.9; Isa 49.24, 25; Nah 3.5