Nahum 2
1 A crusher has come up before your face: keep a good look-out, let the way be watched, make yourself strong, let your power be greatly increased.
A scatterer has come up to your face, Keep the bulwark, watch the way, Strengthen the loins, strengthen power mightily.
2 For the Lord will make good the vine of Jacob, as well as the vine of Israel: for the wasters have made them waste and sent destruction on the branches of their vine.
For YHWH has turned back to the excellence of Jacob, As [to] the excellence of Israel, For emptiers have emptied them out, And they have marred their branches.
3 The body-covers of his fighting men have been made red, the men of war are clothed in bright red: the war-carriages are like flames of fire in the day when he gets ready, the horses are shaking.
The shield of his mighty ones has become red, Men of might [are in] scarlet, With fiery torches [is] the chariot in a day of his preparation, And the firs have been caused to tremble.
4 The war-carriages are rushing through the streets, pushing against one another in the wide ways, looking like burning lights, running like thunder-flames.
In out-places the chariots shine, They go to and fro in broad places, Their appearances [are] like torches, As lightnings they run.
5 He takes the record of his great men: they go falling on their way; they go quickly to the wall, the cover is made ready.
He remembers his majestic ones, They stumble in their goings, They hurry [to] its wall, And the covering is prepared.
6 The river doorways are forced open, and the king's house is flowing away.
Gates of the rivers have been opened, And the palace is dissolved.
7 And the queen is uncovered, she is taken away and her servant-girls are weeping like the sound of doves, hammering on their breasts.
And it is established—she has removed, She has been brought up, And her handmaids are leading as the voice of doves, Tabering on their hearts.
8 But Nineveh is like a pool of water whose waters are flowing away; Keep your place, they say; but no one is turning back.
And Nineveh [is] as a pool of waters, From of old it [is]—and they are fleeing! “Stand, stand”; and none is turning!
9 Take silver, take gold; for there is no end to the store; take for yourselves a weight of things to be desired.
Seize silver, seize gold, And there is no end to the prepared things, [To] the abundance of all desirable vessels.
10 Everything has been taken from her, all is gone, she has nothing more: the heart is turned to water, the knees are shaking, all are twisted in pain, and colour has gone from all faces.
She is empty, indeed, emptiness and waste, And the heart has melted, And the knees have struck together, And great pain [is] in all loins, And the faces of all of them have gathered paleness.
11 Where is the lions' hole, the place where the young lions got their food, where the lion and the she-lion were walking with their young, without cause for fear?
Where [is] the habitation of lionesses? And a feeding-place it [is] for young lions Where a lion has walked, an old lion, A lion’s whelp, and there is none troubling.
12 Food enough for his young and for his she-lions was pulled down by the lion; his hole was full of flesh and his resting-place stored with meat.
The lion is tearing parts [for] his whelps, And is strangling for his lionesses, And he fills his holes [with] prey, And his habitations [with] torn flesh.
13 See, I am against you, says the Lord of armies, and I will have your war-carriages burned in the smoke, and your young lions will be food for the sword: you will no longer get your food by force on the earth, and the voice of your she-lions will be stopped for ever.
“Behold, I [am] against you,” A declaration of YHWH of Hosts, “And I have burned its chariot in smoke, And a sword consumes your young lions, And I have cut off your prey from the land, And the voice of your messengers is not heard anymore!”
