The speedy doom of the Assyrians

Their sudden destruction

12 Ha!

The uproar of peoples many!

They roar like the roar of the sea:

the thunder of mighty nations,

they thunder as ocean thunders.

13 But the Lord will rebuke them,

and far they will flee, pursued

like chaff on the hills before wind,

or like dust in the face of the hurricane.

14 At even-tide, lo! Terror:

ere morning they are gone.

Such is the fate of those who despoil us,

the lot of those who plunder us.

Isaiah’s answer to the Ethiopian ambassadors

18 Ah, land of the buzzing of wings

beyond the rivers of Cush,

2 that despatches ambassadors over the sea

in vessels of reed on the face of the waters.

‘Depart, you messengers fleet,

to your tall and bronze-skinned people,

whose land is divided by rivers –

your nation strong and victorious,

dreaded both near and far.

3 All you who inhabit the world,

and dwell upon the earth:

when a signal is raised, beware,

and hark, when the trumpet is blown.

4 For thus says the Lord to me,

’From my place I watch untroubled,

still as shimmering heat in sunshine,

or dew-clouds in time of harvest.’

5 For before the harvest, when blossom is over,

and the berry becomes a ripening grape,

he will lop off the branches with pruning-hooks,

he will server the tendrils and cast them away.

6 They will all be left to the beasts of the land,

to the ravenous birds that haunt the mountains;

all summer the ravenous birds will devour them,

all winter the beasts of the land will consume them.’

7 At that time will a gift of homage be brought to the Lord of Hosts from that tall and bronze-skinned people, whose land is divided by rivers – that nation strong and victorious, dreaded near and far – to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts.