Isaiah 18

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

Terrible things will happen to [you people] of Ethiopia! In your land there are many sailboats at the upper part of the Nile River.

2 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.

Your rulers send ambassadors that sail [quickly] down the river in papyrus boats. You messengers to Ethiopia, go quickly! Go [up the river] to people who are tall and who have smooth skin. People everywhere are afraid of those people, because they conquer and destroy [other nations]; they live in a land that is divided by branches of one large river.

3 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.

[You messengers] must tell people everywhere, to people everywhere, “Look when I lift up my battle flag on top of the mountain, and listen when I blow the ram’s horn [to signal that the battle is about to begin].”

4 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.

[Listen] because Yahweh has told me this: “I will watch quietly from where I live. I will watch as quietly as [SIM] the heat waves shimmer as they rises on a hot summer day, as quietly as the dew forms [on the ground] during harvest time.”

5 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.

But [even] before the army of Ethiopia starts to attack, while their plans are [slowly forming] like [SIM] grapes that are ripening, Yahweh will [get rid of them like a farmer who] [MET] cuts off the new shoots of the grapevines with his shears, and prunes the branches that have become very long.

6 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.

All [the soldiers in the army of Ethiopia] will be killed, and their corpses will lie in the fields for vultures to eat their flesh in the (summer/hot season). Then wild animals will [chew on their bones] all during the (winter/cold season).

7 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.

At that time, the people of that land that is divided by the branches of that one big river will take gifts to Yahweh in Jerusalem. Those tall people who have smooth/dark skin, whom people everywhere are afraid of, because they conquer and destroy many countries, will take gifts to Jerusalem, the city where the Commander of the armies of angels lives.