章 |
3:1 |
Ah! City of bloodshed, utterly deceitful, full of booty-- no end to the plunder!
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3:2 |
The crack of whip and rumble of wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot!
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3:3 |
Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, piles of dead, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end-- they stumble over the bodies!
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3:4 |
Because of the countless debaucheries of the prostitute, gracefully alluring, mistress of sorcery, who enslaves nations through her debaucheries, and peoples through her sorcery,
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3:5 |
I am against you, says the LORD of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will let nations look on your nakedness and kingdoms on your shame.
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3:6 |
I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt, and make you a spectacle.
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3:7 |
Then all who see you will shrink from you and say, "Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan her?" Where shall I seek comforters for you?
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3:8 |
Are you better than Thebes that sat by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart a sea, water her wall?
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3:9 |
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3:10 |
Yet she became an exile, she went into captivity; even her infants were dashed in pieces at the head of every street; lots were cast for her nobles, all her dignitaries were bound in fetters.
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3:11 |
You also will be drunken, you will go into hiding; you will seek a refuge from the enemy.
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3:12 |
All your fortresses are like fig trees with first-ripe figs-- if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater.
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3:13 |
Look at your troops: they are women in your midst. The gates of your land are wide open to your foes; fire has devoured the bars of your gates.
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3:14 |
Draw water for the siege, strengthen your forts; trample the clay, tread the mortar, take hold of the brick mold!
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3:15 |
There the fire will devour you, the sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the locust. Multiply yourselves like the locust, multiply like the grasshopper!
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3:16 |
You increased your merchants more than the stars of the heavens. The locust sheds its skin and flies away.
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3:17 |
Your guards are like grasshoppers, your scribes like swarms of locusts settling on the fences on a cold day-- when the sun rises, they fly away; no one knows where they have gone.
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3:18 |
Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria; your nobles slumber. Your people are scattered on the mountains with no one to gather them.
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3:19 |
There is no assuaging your hurt, your wound is mortal. All who hear the news about you clap their hands over you. For who has ever escaped your endless cruelty?
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