Isaiah 18

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

Woe to the land, that winged cymbal, which is 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.

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 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.

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 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 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 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.

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 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 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 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, 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.