Prophecies addressed to Israel
  robbing the weakest of my people of their rights,
despoiling the widow and plundering the orphan.
   3   What will you do when called to account,
  when ruin from afar confronts you?
  To whom will you flee for help
  and where will you leave your children,
   4   so that they do not cower before the gaoler
    or fall by the executioner's hand?
  For all this his anger has not turned back,
  and his hand is stretched out still.


24    ^note So, as tongues of fire lick up the stubble
  and the heat of the flame dies down,
  their root shall moulder away,
  and their shoots vanish like dust;
for they have spurned the instruction of the Lord of Hosts
and have rejected the word of the Holy One of Israel.
25    ^note So the anger of the Lord is roused against his people,
he has stretched out his hand against them and struck them down;
    the mountains trembled,
  and their corpses lay like offal in the streets.
  For all this his anger has not turned back,
  and his hand is stretched out still.


   5   The Assyrian! He is the rod that I wield in my anger,
  and the staff of my wrath is in his hand. ^note
   6   I send him against a godless nation,
  I bid him march against a people who rouse my wrath,
to spoil and plunder at will
  and trample them down like mud in the streets.
   7   But this man's purpose is lawless,
  lawless are the plans in his mind;
    for his thought is only to destroy
  and to wipe out nation after nation.
8   ‘Are not my officers all kings?’ he says;
   9   ‘see how Calno has suffered the fate of Carchemish.
Is not Hamath like Arpad, and Samaria like Damascus?
10   Before now I have found kingdoms full of idols,
  with more images than Jerusalem and Samaria,
11   and now, what I have done to Samaria and her worthless gods,
I will do also to Jerusalem and her idols.’

Prophecies addressed to Israel

12   When the Lord has finished all that he means to do on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, he ^note will punish the king of Assyria for this fruit of his pride and for his arrogance and vainglory, 13   because he said:

  By my own might I have acted
  and in my own wisdom I have laid my schemes;
  I have removed the frontiers of nations
    and plundered their treasures,
  like a bull I have trampled on their inhabitants.
14   My hand has found its way to the wealth of nations,
  and, as a man takes the eggs from a deserted nest,
  so have I taken every land;
  not a wing fluttered,
  not a beak gaped, no chirp was heard.


   15   Shall the axe set itself up against the hewer,
  or the saw claim mastery over the sawyer,
  as if a stick were to brandish him who wields it,
  or a staff of wood to wield one who is not wood?


16   Therefore the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, will send disease
  on his sturdy frame, from head to toe, ^note
and within his flesh ^note a fever like fire shall burn.
   17   The light of Israel shall become a fire
    and his Holy One a flame,
which in one day shall burn up and consume
    his thorns and his briars;
18   the glory of forest and meadow shall be destroyed
    as when a man falls in a fit;
   19   and the remnant of trees in the forest shall be so few
    that a child may count them one by one.

20   On that day the remnant of Israel, the survivors of Jacob, shall cease to lean on him that proved their destroyer, but shall loyally lean on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

   21   A remnant shall turn again, a remnant of Jacob,
    to God their champion.
22   Your people, Israel, may be many as the sands of the sea,
    but only a remnant shall turn again,
  the instrument of final destruction,
    justice in full flood; ^note

Prophecies addressed to Israel
23   for the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, will bring final destruction
    upon all the earth.

24   Therefore these are the words of the Lord, the Lord of Hosts: My people who live in Zion, you must not be afraid of the Assyrians, though they beat you with their rod and lift their staff against you as the Egyptians did; 25   for soon, very soon, my anger will come to an end, and my wrath will all be spent. ^note 26   Then the Lord of Hosts will brandish his whip over them as he did when he struck Midian at the Rock of Oreb, and will lift his staff against the River as he did against Egypt.

     27   On that day
  the burden they laid on your shoulder shall be removed
  and their yoke shall be broken from your neck.
28   An invader from Rimmon ^note has come to Aiath,
    has passed by Migron,
  and left his baggage-train at Michmash;
     29   he has passed by Maabarah
  and camped for the night at Geba.
Ramah is anxious, Gibeah of Saul is in panic.
   30   Raise a shrill cry, Bath-gallim;
hear it, Laish, and answer her, Anathoth:
31   ‘Madmenah is in flight; take refuge, people of Gebim.’
32   Today he is due to pitch his camp in Nob;
    he gives the signal to advance
  against the mount of the daughter of Zion,
    the hill of Jerusalem.


   33   Look, the Lord, the Lord of Hosts,
  cleaves the trees with a flash of lightning,
the tallest are hewn down, the lofty laid low,
   34   the heart of the forest is felled with the axe,
  and Lebanon with its noble trees has fallen.

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