3:1 | Woe to the city guilty of bloodshed!* She is full of lies;* she is filled with plunder;* she has hoarded her spoil!* |
3:2 | The chariot drivers will crack their whips;* the chariot wheels will shake the ground;* the chariot horses* will gallop;* the war chariots* will bolt forward!* |
3:3 | The charioteers* will charge ahead;* their swords* will flash* and their spears* will glimmer!* There will be many people slain;* there will be piles of the dead, and countless casualties* – so many that people* will stumble over the corpses. |
3:4 | “Because* you have acted like a wanton prostitute* – a seductive mistress who practices sorcery,* who* enslaves* nations by her harlotry,* and entices peoples by her sorcery* – |
3:5 | I am against you,” declares the Lord who commands armies.* “I will strip off your clothes!* I will show your nakedness to the nations and your shame to the kingdoms; |
3:6 | I will pelt you with filth;* I will treat you with contempt; I will make you a public spectacle. |
3:7 | Everyone who sees you will turn away from you in disgust; they will say, ‘Nineveh has been devastated! Who will lament for her?’ There will be no one to comfort you!”* |
3:8 | You are no more secure* than Thebes* – she was located on the banks of the Nile; the waters surrounded her, her* rampart* was the sea, the water* was her wall. |
3:9 | Cush* and Egypt had limitless strength;* Put and the Libyans* were among* her* allies.* |
3:10 | Yet she went into captivity as an exile;* even her infants were smashed to pieces* at the head of every street. They cast lots* for her nobility;* all her dignitaries were bound with chains. |
3:11 | You too will act like drunkards;* you will go into hiding;* you too will seek refuge from the enemy. |
3:12 | All your fortifications will be like fig trees* with first-ripe fruit:* If they are shaken,* their figs* will fall* into the mouth of the eater!* |
3:13 | Your warriors will be like women in your midst; the gates of your land will be wide open* to your enemies; fire will consume* the bars of your gates.* |
3:14 | Draw yourselves water for a siege!* Strengthen your fortifications! Trample the mud* and tread the clay! Make mud bricks to strengthen your walls!* |
3:15 | There the fire will consume* you; the sword will cut you down; it will devour* you like the young locust would.Multiply yourself* like the young locust; multiply yourself like the flying locust! |
3:16 | Increase* your merchants more than the stars of heaven! They are like* the young locust which sheds* its skin and flies away. |
3:17 | Your courtiers* are like locusts, your officials* are like a swarm of locusts! They encamp in the walls on a cold day, yet when the sun rises, they* fly away;* and no one knows where they* are.* |
3:18 | Your shepherds* are sleeping, O king of Assyria! Your officers* are slumbering!* Your people are scattered like sheep* on the mountains and there is no one to regather them! |
3:19 | Your destruction is like an incurable wound;* your demise is like a fatal injury!* All who hear what has happened to you* will clap their hands for joy,* for no one ever escaped your endless cruelty!* |