Esias 18

1 Woe to you, ye wings of the land of ships, beyond the rivers of Ethiopia.

Ho, land shadowed [with] wings, That [is] beyond the rivers of Cush,

2 He sends messengers by the sea, and paper letters on the water: for swift messengers shall go to a lofty nation, and to a strange and harsh people. Who is beyond it? a nation not looked for, and trodden down.

That is sending by sea ambassadors, Even with implements of reed on the face of the waters, — Go, ye light messengers, Unto a nation drawn out and peeled, Unto a people fearful from its beginning and onwards, A nation meeting out by line, and treading down, Whose land floods have spoiled.

3 Now all the rivers of the land shall be inhabited as an inhabited country; their land shall be as when a signal is raised from a mountain; it shall be audible as the sound of a trumpet.

All ye inhabitants of the world, And ye dwellers of earth, At the lifting up of an ensign on hills ye look, And at the blowing of a trumpet ye hear.

4 For thus said the Lord to me, There shall be security in my city, as the light of noonday heat, and it shall be as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest.

For thus said Jehovah unto me, 'I rest, and I look on My settled place, As a clear heat on an herb. As a thick cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.

5 Before the reaping time, when the flower has been completely formed, and the unripe grape has put forth its flower and blossomed, then shall he take away the little clusters with pruning-hooks, and shall take away the small branches, and cut them off;

For before harvest, when the flower is perfect, And the blossom is producing unripe fruit, Then hath [one] cut the sprigs with pruning hooks, And the branches he hath turned aside, cut down.

6 And he shall leave [them] together to the birds of the sky, and to the wild beasts of the earth: and the fowls of the sky shall be gathered upon them, and all the beasts of the land shall come upon him.

They are left together to the ravenous fowl of the mountains, And to the beast of the earth, And summered on them hath the ravenous fowl, And every beast of the earth wintereth on them.

7 In that time shall presents be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people afflicted and peeled, and from a people great from henceforth and for ever; a nation hoping and [yet] trodden down, which is in a part of a river of his land, to the place where is the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount Sion.

At that time brought is a present to Jehovah of Hosts, A nation drawn out and peeled. Even of a people fearful from the beginning hitherto, A nation meting out by line, and treading down, Whose land floods have spoiled, Unto the place of the name of Jehovah of Hosts — mount Zion!'