"Hear this, you elders! Listen, all of you residents of the land! Has there ever been anything like this during your lifetime, or even when your ancestors were alive?

Indeed, a nation has invaded my land it is strong and its population is too large to count with teeth like a lion and fangs like a lioness.

"Grieve like a virgin, who, dressed in her mourner's clothes, cries out in memory of the man she was going to marry.

Oh, no! For the Day of the LORD approaches, and like destruction from the Almighty, it will come!

A day of doom and gloom, a day of clouds and shadows like the dawn spreads out to cover the mountains a people strong and robust. Never has there been anything like it, neither will anything follow to compare with it, even through the lifetime of generation upon generation."

"A fire blazes in their presence, and behind them a conflagration rages. Before they come, the land is like the garden in Eden; after they leave, there is only a barren wasteland. Indeed, nothing escapes them.

As to their form, they're like horses; and like chariot horses, how they can run!

They leap like the rumbling of chariots echoing from mountain tops, like the roar of wild fire that devours the chaff, as an army firmly established in battle array.

They run like elite soldiers, climbing ramparts like men trained for war. Each man advances in proper order, never breaking rank.

They swarm through the city, running upon its ramparts. Climbing atop the houses, they enter through windows like a thief."