Nahum 3

¹Ah! City of bloodshed,

utterly deceitful, full of booty—

no end to the plunder!

²The crack of whip and rumble of wheel,

galloping horse and bounding chariot!

³Horsemen charging,

flashing sword and glittering spear,

piles of dead,

heaps of corpses,

dead bodies without end—

they stumble over the bodies!

⁴Because of the countless debaucheries of the prostitute,

gracefully alluring, mistress of sorcery,

who enslaves nations through her debaucheries,

and peoples through her sorcery,

⁵I am against you,

says the Lord of hosts,

and will lift up your skirts over your face;

and I will let nations look on your nakedness

and kingdoms on your shame.

⁶I will throw filth at you

and treat you with contempt,

and make you a spectacle.

⁷Then all who see you will shrink from you and say,

“Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan her?”

Where shall I seek comforters for you?

⁸Are you better than Thebes

that sat by the Nile,

with water around her,

her rampart a sea,

water her wall?

⁹Ethiopia was her strength,

Egypt too, and that without limit;

Put and the Libyans were her helpers.

¹⁰Yet she became an exile,

she went into captivity;

even her infants were dashed in pieces

at the head of every street;

lots were cast for her nobles,

all her dignitaries were bound in fetters.

¹¹You also will be drunken,

you will go into hiding;

you will seek

a refuge from the enemy.

¹²All your fortresses are like fig trees

with first-ripe figs—

if shaken they fall

into the mouth of the eater.

¹³Look at your troops:

they are women in your midst.

The gates of your land

are wide open to your foes;

fire has devoured the bars of your gates.

¹⁴Draw water for the siege,

strengthen your forts;

trample the clay,

tread the mortar,

take hold of the brick mold!

¹⁵There the fire will devour you,

the sword will cut you off.

It will devour you like the locust.

Multiply yourselves like the locust,

multiply like the grasshopper!

¹⁶You increased your merchants

more than the stars of the heavens.

The locust sheds its skin and flies away.

¹⁷Your guards are like grasshoppers,

your scribes like swarms of locusts

settling on the fences

on a cold day—

when the sun rises, they fly away;

no one knows where they have gone.

¹⁸Your shepherds are asleep,

O king of Assyria;

your nobles slumber.

Your people are scattered on the mountains

with no one to gather them.

¹⁹There is no assuaging your hurt,

your wound is mortal.

All who hear the news about you

clap their hands over you.

For who has ever escaped

your endless cruelty?