¹WOE TO the bloody city! It is full of lies and booty and [there is] no end to the plunder! [Ezek. 24:6, 9, 10; Hab. 2:12.]

²The cracking of the whip, the noise of the rattling of wheels, and prancing horses and chariots rumbling and bounding,

³Horsemen mounting and charging, the flashing sword, the gleaming spear, a multitude of slain and a great number of corpses, no end of corpses! [The horsemen] stumble over the corpses!

⁴All because of the multitude of the harlotries [of Nineveh], the well-favored harlot, the mistress of deadly charms who betrays and sells nations through her whoredoms [idolatry] and peoples through her enchantments.

⁵Behold, I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will lift up your skirts over your face, and I will let the nations look on your nakedness [O Nineveh] and the kingdoms on your shame.

⁶I will cast abominable things at you and make you filthy, treat you with contempt, and make you a gazingstock.

⁷And all who look on you will shrink and flee from you and say, Nineveh is laid waste; who will pity and bemoan her? Where [then] shall I seek comforters for you?

⁸Are you better than No-amon [Thebes, capital of Upper Egypt], that dwelt by the rivers or canals, that had the waters round about her, whose rampart was a sea [the Nile] and water her wall?

⁹Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and that without limit. Put and the Libyans were her helpers.

¹⁰Yet she was carried away; she went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at all the street corners; lots were cast [by the Assyrian officers] for her nobles, and all her great men were bound with chains.

¹¹You will be drunk [Nineveh, with the cup of God's wrath]; you will be dazed. You will seek and require a refuge because of the enemy.

¹²All your fortresses are fig trees with early figs; if they are shaken they will fall into the mouth of the eater.

¹³Behold, your troops in the midst of you are [as weak and helpless as] women; the gates of your land are set wide open to your enemies [without effort]; fire consumes your bars.

¹⁴Draw for yourself the water [necessary] for a [long continued] siege, make strong your fortresses! Go down into the clay pits and trample the mortar; make ready the brickkiln [to burn bricks for the bulwarks]!

¹⁵[But] there [in the very midst of these preparations] will the fire devour you; the sword will cut you off; it will destroy you as the locusts [destroy]. Multiply yourselves like the licking locusts; make yourselves many like the swarming locusts!

¹⁶You increased your merchants more than the [visible] stars of the heavens. The swarming locust spreads itself and destroys, and then flies away.

¹⁷Your princes are like the grasshoppers and your marshals like the swarms of locusts which encamp in the hedges on a cold day–but when the sun rises, they fly away, and no one knows where they are.

¹⁸Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria; your nobles are lying still [in death]. Your people are scattered on the mountains and there is no one to gather them.

¹⁹There is no healing of your hurt; your wound is grievous. All who hear the news about you clap their hands over [what has happened to] you. For upon whom has not your [unceasing] evil come continually?