This is the heavy burden of Nineveh, which Nahum of Elkosh did write, as he saw it.

Whatever [plot] you [Assyrians] devise against the Lord,
He will make a complete end of it;
Affliction [of God’s people by the hand of Assyria] will not occur twice.

For like entangled thorns, and like their drink which is drunk, they will be consumed like fully dry chaff.

Where is the den of the lions (Assyria)
And the feeding place of the young lions,
Where the lion, lioness, and lion’s cub prowled
With nothing to fear?

Woe to that bloodthirsty city, which is all full of lies and robbery, and will not leave off from ravishing.

And that for the great and manifold whoredom of the fair and beautiful harlot: which is a mistress of witchcraft, yea and selleth the people through her whoredom, and the nations through her witchcraft.

Art thou better than the great city of Alexandria: that lay in the waters, and had the waters round about it? Which was strongly fenced and walled with the sea?

All thy strong cities shall be like fig trees with ripe figs: which when a man shaketh, they fall into the mouth of the eater.

Increase your merchants more than the stars of heaven! They are like the young locust which sheds its skin and flies away.

Thy lords are as the grasshoppers, and thy captains as the multitude of grasshoppers: which when they be cold, remain in the hedges: but when the Sun is up, they flee away, and no man can tell where they are become.