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Ruin Imminent and Inevitable

3Ah! City of bloodshed,
   utterly deceitful, full of booty—
   no end to the plunder!
² The crack of whip and rumble of wheel,
   galloping horse and bounding chariot!
³ Horsemen charging,
   flashing sword and glittering spear,
piles of dead,
   heaps of corpses,
dead bodies without end—
   they stumble over the bodies!
⁴ Because of the countless debaucheries of the prostitute,
   gracefully alluring, mistress of sorcery,
who enslaves^* nations through her debaucheries,
   and peoples through her sorcery,
⁵ I 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.
⁶ I will throw filth at you
   and treat you with contempt,
   and make you a spectacle.
⁷ Then all who see you will shrink from you and say,
‘Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan 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,
   water her wall?
⁹ Ethiopia^* 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;
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.
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 Look 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.

¹⁴ Draw water for the siege,
   strengthen your forts;
trample the clay,
   tread the mortar,
   take hold of the brick-mould!
¹⁵ There 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!
¹⁶ You increased your merchants
   more than the stars of the heavens.
   The locust sheds its skin and flies away.
¹⁷ Your 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.

¹⁸ Your shepherds are asleep,
   O king of Assyria;
   your nobles slumber.
Your people are scattered on the mountains
   with no one to gather them.
¹⁹ There 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?