Isaiah 18

1 Woe to the land of whirring wings, along the rivers of Cush,

Woe to the land, that winged cymbal, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,

2 which sends couriers by sea, in papyrus vessels on the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people widely feared, to a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers.

which sends ambassadors by sea and in vessels of papyrus above the waters. Go forth, O swift Angels, to a nation which has been convulsed and torn apart, to a terrible people, after whom there is no other, to a nation apprehensive and downtrodden, whose land the rivers have spoiled.

3 All you people of the world and dwellers of the earth, when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it; when a ram’s horn sounds, you will hear it.

All inhabitants of the world, you who dwell upon the earth: when the sign will have been elevated on the mountains, you will see, and you will hear the blast of the trumpet.

4 For this is what the LORD has told me: “I will quietly look on from My dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

For the Lord says this to me: I will be quiet, and I will consider in my place, as the light at midday is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of the harvest.

5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is gone and the flower becomes a ripening grape, He will cut off the shoots with a pruning knife and remove and discard the branches.

For before the harvest, all was flourishing. And it will spring forth with an untimely completion, and its little branches will be pruned with a curved blade. And what is left over will be cut away and shaken off.

6 They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey, and to the beasts of the land. The birds will feed on them in summer, and all the wild animals in winter.

And together they will be abandoned to the birds of the mountains and to the wild beasts of the earth. And the birds will be continuously on them in the summer, and all the wild beasts of the earth will winter over them.

7 At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD of Hosts— from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people widely feared, from a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers— to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD of Hosts.

In that time, a gift will be carried to the Lord of hosts, from a people divided and torn apart, from a terrible people, after whom there has been no other, from an apprehensive nation, apprehensive and downtrodden, whose land the rivers have ruined, and it will be carried to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, to mount Zion.