Like tangled thorn branches [gathered for fuel],
And like those drowned in drunkenness,
The people of Nineveh are consumed [through fire]
Like stubble completely withered and dry [in the day of the Lord’s wrath].

Thus says the Lord,
“Though they are at full strength and likewise many,
Even so, they will be cut off and pass away.
Though I have afflicted you,
I will afflict you no longer.

The shield of his giants glistereth, his men of war are clothed in purple. His chariots are as fire when he maketh him forward, his archers are well decked and trimmed.

The horseman lifts up both the bright sword and the lightning of the spear. And many are slain, and there are a mass of dead bodies, and no end of corpses; they stumble on their dead bodies,

And it will come about that all who see you will go in flight from you and say, Nineveh is made waste: who will be weeping for her? where am I to get comforters for her?

Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are as women: the gates of thy land are set wide open unto thine enemies; the fire devoureth thy bars.

Thy princes are as the locusts, and thy marshals as the swarms of grasshoppers, which encamp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.

Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria; thy nobles are at rest; thy people are scattered upon the mountains, and there is none to gather them.