Lament like a virgin girded in sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

Ah! For the day! For the day of Yahweh is near. It will come like destruction from Shaddai.

A day of darkness and gloom, a day of cloud and thick darkness, like the dawn spreads on the mountains, a great and strong army! There has been nothing like it from old, and after it nothing will be again {for generations to come}.

{Before them} a fire devours, and behind them a flame burns. Like the garden of Eden is the land {before them}, and after them [it is like] a desolate desert, and nothing can escape them.

Like [the] appearance of horses is their appearance, and like horsemen they run;

like [the] sound of chariots on the tops of the mountains, they leap about; like [the] sound of a flame of fire devouring stubble; like a strong army arranged in rows [for] battle.

They run like mighty warriors, they scale the wall like men of war; each goes on its own way, and they do not swerve [from] their paths.

In the city they rush forth; on the walls they run. Into the houses they climb up; through the windows they enter like thief.