Nahum 2

¹A shatterer has come up against you.

Guard the ramparts;

watch the road;

gird your loins;

collect all your strength.

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.)

³The 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 prance.

⁴The chariots race madly through the streets,

they rush to and fro through the squares;

their appearance is like torches,

they dart like lightning.

⁵He calls his officers;

they stumble as they come forward;

they hasten to the wall,

and the mantelet is set up.

⁶The river gates are opened,

the palace trembles.

⁷It is decreed that the city be exiled,

its slave women led away,

moaning like doves

and beating their breasts.

⁸Nineveh is like a pool

whose waters run away.

“Halt! Halt!”—

but no one turns back.

⁹“Plunder the silver,

plunder the gold!

There is no end of treasure!

An abundance of every precious thing!”

¹⁰Devastation, desolation, and destruction!

Hearts faint and knees tremble,

all loins quake,

all faces grow pale!

¹¹What 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?

¹²The 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.