Isaiah 18

1 Behold, land shadowed [with] wings, That [is] beyond the rivers of Cush,

Woe to you, ye wings of the land of ships, beyond the rivers of Ethiopia.

2 That is sending ambassadors by sea, Even with implements of reed on the face of the waters—Go, swift messengers, To a nation drawn out and peeled, To a people fearful from its beginning and onward, A nation meeting out by line, and treading down, Whose land floods have spoiled.

He sends messengers by the sea, and paper letters on the water: for swift messengers shall go to a lofty nation, and to a strange and harsh people. Who is beyond it? a nation not looked for, and trodden down.

3 All you inhabitants of the world, And you dwellers of earth, At the lifting up of an ensign on hills you look, And at the blowing of a horn you hear.

Now all the rivers of the land shall be inhabited as an inhabited country; their land shall be as when a signal is raised from a mountain; it shall be audible as the sound of a trumpet.

4 For thus said YHWH to me: “I rest, and I look on My settled place, As a clear heat on an herb. As a thick cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.

For thus said the Lord to me, There shall be security in my city, as the light of noonday heat, and it shall be as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest.

5 For before harvest, when the flower is perfect, And the blossom is producing unripe fruit, Then [One] has cut the sprigs with pruning hooks, And the branches He has turned aside, cut down.

Before the reaping time, when the flower has been completely formed, and the unripe grape has put forth its flower and blossomed, then shall he take away the little clusters with pruning-hooks, and shall take away the small branches, and cut them off;

6 They are left together to the ravenous bird of the mountains, And to the beast of the earth, And the ravenous bird has summered on them, And every beast of the earth winters on them.

And he shall leave [them] together to the birds of the sky, and to the wild beasts of the earth: and the fowls of the sky shall be gathered upon them, and all the beasts of the land shall come upon him.

7 At that time a present is brought to YHWH of Hosts, A nation drawn out and peeled. Even of a people fearful from the beginning until now, A nation meting out by line, and treading down, Whose land floods have spoiled, To the place of the Name of YHWH of Hosts—Mount Zion!”

In that time shall presents be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people afflicted and peeled, and from a people great from henceforth and for ever; a nation hoping and [yet] trodden down, which is in a part of a river of his land, to the place where is the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount Sion.