Isaiah 18

1 Woe to the land of the rustling of wings, which is along the rivers of Cush;

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

2 who send ambassadors by the sea, in vessels of papyrus on the waters. Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people feared far and near, a nation strong and trampling down, whose land the rivers divide.

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.

3 All you inhabitants of the world and you who live on the earth, when a signal is lifted up on the mountains, look; and when the trumpet is blown, listen.

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.

4 This is what Yahweh said to me, “I will quietly observe from my home, like the simmering heat in sunshine, like a cloud of mist in the heat of harvest.

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.

5 Before the harvest, when the blossoming is over, and the flower is ripening into a grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and he will cut down and take away the spreading branches.

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;

6 They will be left together for the birds of the mountains and for the animals of the earth. The birds will summer on them, and all the animals of the earth will winter on them.”

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.

7 At that time tribute will be brought to Yahweh of hosts from a people tall and smooth, from a people feared far and near, a nation strong and trampling down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of Yahweh of hosts, to Mount Zion.

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.