Isaiah 18

1 Terrible things will happen to [you people] of Ethiopia! In your land there are many sailboats at the upper part of the Nile River.

Tragedy is coming to the land of whirring wings that lies along the rivers of Ethiopia,

2 Your rulers send ambassadors that sail [quickly] down the river in papyrus boats. You messengers to Ethiopia, go quickly! Go [up the river] to people who are tall and who have smooth skin. People everywhere are afraid of those people, because they conquer and destroy [other nations]; they live in a land that is divided by branches of one large river.

They send messengers downriver in papyrus boats. Swift messengers, go and take a message to a tall and smooth-skinned people, to a people feared by everyone, to a very powerful nation of conquerors, whose land is washed away by rivers.

3 [You messengers] must tell people everywhere, to people everywhere, “Look when I lift up my battle flag on top of the mountain, and listen when I blow the ram’s horn [to signal that the battle is about to begin].”

All you people of the world, everyone who lives on earth—you will see when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will hear when a trumpet sounds.

4 [Listen] because Yahweh has told me this: “I will watch quietly from where I live. I will watch as quietly as [SIM] the heat waves shimmer as they rises on a hot summer day, as quietly as the dew forms [on the ground] during harvest time.”

For this is what the Lord has told me: I will watch quietly from where I live, quiet as heat haze in sunlight, quiet as a mistcloud in the heat of harvest.

5 But [even] before the army of Ethiopia starts to attack, while their plans are [slowly forming] like [SIM] grapes that are ripening, Yahweh will [get rid of them like a farmer who] [MET] cuts off the new shoots of the grapevines with his shears, and prunes the branches that have become very long.

For before the harvest, after the flower is gone and becomes an unripe grape, he prunes the vine with a knife to take out the shoots and branches.

6 All [the soldiers in the army of Ethiopia] will be killed, and their corpses will lie in the fields for vultures to eat their flesh in the (summer/hot season). Then wild animals will [chew on their bones] all during the (winter/cold season).

They will all be left as carrion for the birds of prey of the mountains, and for the wild animals. The birds will eat them in summer, and all the wild animals in winter.

7 At that time, the people of that land that is divided by the branches of that one big river will take gifts to Yahweh in Jerusalem. Those tall people who have smooth/dark skin, whom people everywhere are afraid of, because they conquer and destroy many countries, will take gifts to Jerusalem, the city where the Commander of the armies of angels lives.

At that time a gift will be brought to the Lord Almighty from a tall and smooth-skinned people, from a people feared by everyone, from a very powerful nation of conquerors, whose land is washed away by rivers. It will be brought to Mount Zion, the place identified with the Lord Almighty.