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The Destruction of the Wicked City

2A 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.)

³ The 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.
⁴ The chariots race madly through the streets,
   they rush to and fro through the squares;
their appearance is like torches,
   they dart like lightning.
⁵ He calls his officers;
   they stumble as they come forward;
they hasten to the wall,
   and the mantelet^* is set up.
⁶ The river gates are opened,
   the palace trembles.
⁷ It is decreed^* that the city^* be exiled,
   its slave women led away,
moaning like doves
   and beating their breasts.
⁸ Nineveh 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!’

¹⁰ Devastation, desolation, and destruction!
   Hearts faint and knees tremble,
all loins quake,
   all faces grow pale!
¹¹ What 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?
¹² The 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.

13 See, I am against you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will burn your^* chariots in smoke, and the sword shall devour your young lions; I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers shall be heard no more.