Nahum - Chapter 3 | English Standard Version

  • 1. Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder-- no end to the prey!
  • 2. The crack of the whip, and rumble of the wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot!
  • 3. Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end-- they stumble over the bodies!
  • 4. And all for the countless whorings of the prostitute, graceful and of deadly charms, who betrays nations with her whorings, and peoples with her charms.
  • 5. Behold, I am against you, declares the LORD of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will make nations look at your nakedness and kingdoms at your shame.
  • 6. I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle.
  • 7. And all who look at you will shrink from you and say, Wasted is Nineveh; who will grieve for her? Where shall I seek comforters for you?
  • 8. Are you better than Thebes that sat by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart a sea, and water her wall?
  • 9. Cush was her strength; Egypt too, and that without limit; Put and the Libyans were her helpers.
  • 10. Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity; her infants were dashed in pieces at the head of every street; for her honored men lots were cast, and all her great men were bound in chains.
  • 11. You also will be drunken; you will go into hiding; you will seek a refuge from the enemy.
  • 12. All your fortresses are like fig trees with first-ripe figs-- if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater.
  • 13. Behold, your troops are women in your midst. The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire has devoured your bars.
  • 14. Draw water for the siege; strengthen your forts; go into the clay; tread the mortar; take hold of the brick mold!
  • 15. There will the fire devour you; the sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the locust. Multiply yourselves like the locust; multiply like the grasshopper!
  • 16. You increased your merchants more than the stars of the heavens. The locust spreads its wings and flies away.
  • 17. Your princes are like grasshoppers, your scribes like clouds of locusts settling on the fences in a day of cold-- when the sun rises, they fly away; no one knows where they are.
  • 18. Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria; your nobles slumber. Your people are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them.
  • 19. There is no easing your hurt; your wound is grievous. All who hear the news about you clap their hands over you. For upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?
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