An Oracle Concerning Cush

¹Woe to the land vibrating with wings,

which is beyond the rivers of Cush,

²which sends ambassadors by the sea,

even in vessels of reeds on the waters, saying,

“Go, swift messengers,

to a nation tall and smooth,

to a people feared far and wide,

a nation strong and oppressive,

whose land the rivers have divided.”

³All you inhabitants of the world,

and dwellers on the earth:

When he lifts up a banner on the mountains,

you will see it;

and when he blows a trumpet,

you will hear it.

⁴For so the Lord said to me:

I will look from My dwelling place quietly,

like dazzling heat in the sunshine,

like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.

⁵For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect

and the sour grape is ripening in the flower,

then He shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks

and take away and cut down the branches.

⁶They shall be left together for the fowl of the mountains

and for the beasts of the earth;

and the fowl shall spend the summer feeding on them,

and all the beasts of the earth shall spend the winter on them.

⁷In that time a present shall be brought to the Lord of Hosts[#Zep 3:10]

from a people tall and smooth,

and from a people feared far and wide,

a nation strong and oppressive,

whose land the rivers have divided,

to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, even Mount Zion.