Nahum 3:7–10

¹⁹These two things are come unto thee; who shall be sorry for thee? desolation, and destruction, and the famine, and the sword: by whom shall I comfort thee?

⁵For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go aside to ask how thou doest?

¹⁰Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

⁹We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

¹³What thing shall I take to witness for thee? what thing shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? what shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion? for thy breach is great like the sea: who can heal thee?

³⁴And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.

¹THE burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.

⁹Take ye the spoil of silver, take the spoil of gold: for there is none end of the store and glory out of all the pleasant furniture.

¹⁰She is empty, and void, and waste: and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and much pain is in all loins, and the faces of them all gather blackness.

⁴¹How is Sheshach taken! and how is the praise of the whole earth surprised! how is Babylon become an astonishment among the nations!

⁴²The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

⁴³Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.

¹⁶And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!

¹⁷For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,

¹⁸And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!

¹⁹And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

²Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than these kingdoms? or their border greater than your border?

¹⁴And I will make Pathros desolate, and will set fire in Zoan, and will execute judgments in No.

¹⁵And I will pour my fury upon Sin, the strength of Egypt; and I will cut off the multitude of No.

¹⁶And I will set fire in Egypt: Sin shall have great pain, and No shall be rent asunder, and Noph shall have distresses daily.

²Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?

³¶ Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs.

⁵And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.

⁶And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither.

⁷The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more.

⁸The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.

⁹Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be confounded.

¹⁰And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.

²⁵The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saith; Behold, I will punish the multitude of No, and Pharaoh, and Egypt, with their gods, and their kings; even Pharaoh, and all them that trust in him:

²⁶And I will deliver them into the hand of those that seek their lives, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of his servants: and afterward it shall be inhabited, as in the days of old, saith the Lord.

¹⁰They of Persia and of Lud and of Phut were in thine army, thy men of war: they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness.

⁵Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia, and all the mingled people, and Chub, and the men of the land that is in league, shall fall with them by the sword.

³With twelve hundred chariots, and threescore thousand horsemen: and the people were without number that came with him out of Egypt; the Lubims, the Sukkiims, and the Ethiopians.

⁵Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:

⁶¶ And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.

⁵And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.

⁹Come up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men come forth; the Ethiopians and the Libyans, that handle the shield; and the Lydians, that handle and bend the bow.

⁸¶ The sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, Put, and Canaan.

⁴So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

¹⁶Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.

³And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink.

¹¹In the day that thou stoodest on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots upon Jerusalem, even thou wast as one of them.

¹⁶Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.

¹⁹Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.

¹²And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel: their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword, and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child.

¹³¶ Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border:

⁶¶ Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.

¹HOW is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.

⁸O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

¹⁶There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.

¹⁷An horse is a vain thing for safety: neither shall he deliver any by his great strength.