< Isaiah 18 >
1 Ho, land shadowed [with] wings, That [is] beyond the rivers of Cush,
Woe to the land, the winged cymbal, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,
2 That is sending by sea ambassadors, Even with implements of reed on the face of the waters, — Go, ye light messengers, Unto a nation drawn out and peeled, Unto a people fearful from its beginning and onwards, A nation meeting out by line, and treading down, Whose land floods have spoiled.
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.
3 All ye inhabitants of the world, And ye dwellers of earth, At the lifting up of an ensign on hills ye look, And at the blowing of a trumpet ye hear.
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.
4 For thus said Jehovah unto 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 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.
5 For before harvest, when the flower is perfect, And the blossom is producing unripe fruit, Then hath [one] cut the sprigs with pruning hooks, And the branches he hath turned aside, cut down.
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.
6 They are left together to the ravenous fowl of the mountains, And to the beast of the earth, And summered on them hath the ravenous fowl, And every beast of the earth wintereth on them.
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.
7 At that time brought is a present to Jehovah of Hosts, A nation drawn out and peeled. Even of a people fearful from the beginning hitherto, A nation meting out by line, and treading down, Whose land floods have spoiled, Unto the place of the name of Jehovah of Hosts — mount Zion!'
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.