Isaiah 18

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

Tragedy is coming to the land of whirring wings that lies along the rivers of Ethiopia,

2 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, and in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters. Go, ye swift angels, to a nation rent and torn in pieces: to a terrible people, after which there is no other: to a nation expecting and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled.

They send messengers downriver in papyrus boats. Swift messengers, go and take a message to a tall and smooth-skinned people, to a people feared by everyone, to a very powerful nation of conquerors, whose land is washed away by rivers.

3 All ye inhabitants of the world, who dwell on the earth, when the sign shall be lifted up on the mountains, you shall see, and you shall hear the sound of the trumpet.

All you people of the world, everyone who lives on earth—you will see when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will hear when a trumpet sounds.

4 For thus saith the Lord to me: I will take my rest, and consider in my place, as the noon light is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest.

For this is what the Lord has told me: I will watch quietly from where I live, quiet as heat haze in sunlight, quiet as a mistcloud in the heat of harvest.

5 For before the harvest it was all flourishing, and it shall bud without perfect ripeness, and the sprigs thereof shall be cut off with pruning hooks: and what is left shall be cut away and shaken out.

For before the harvest, after the flower is gone and becomes an unripe grape, he prunes the vine with a knife to take out the shoots and branches.

6 And they shall be left together to the birds of the mountains, and the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall be upon them all the summer, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.

They will all be left as carrion for the birds of prey of the mountains, and for the wild animals. The birds will eat them in summer, and all the wild animals in winter.

7 At that time shall a present be brought to the Lord of hosts, from a people rent and torn in pieces: from a terrible people, after which there hath been no other: from a nation expecting, expecting and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, to mount Sion.

At that time a gift will be brought to the Lord Almighty from a tall and smooth-skinned people, from a people feared by everyone, from a very powerful nation of conquerors, whose land is washed away by rivers. It will be brought to Mount Zion, the place identified with the Lord Almighty.