Isaiah 18

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

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

2 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.

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

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 watch quietly from where I live, quiet as heat haze in sunlight, quiet as a mistcloud 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, after the flower is gone and becomes an unripe grape, he prunes the vine with a knife to take out the shoots and 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 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.

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 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.

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.