Nahum 2

The Message

Israel’s Been to Hell and Back

2 The juggernaut’s coming!
Post guards, lay in supplies.
Get yourselves together,
get ready for the big battle.

* * *

²God has restored the Pride of Jacob,
the Pride of Israel.
Israel’s lived through hard times.
He’s been to hell and back.

^3-12Weapons flash in the sun,
    the soldiers splendid in battle dress,
Chariots burnished and glistening,
    ready to charge,
A spiked forest of brandished spears,
    lethal on the horizon.
The chariots pour into the streets.
    They fill the public squares,
Flaming like torches in the sun,
    like lightning darting and flashing.
The Assyrian king rallies his men,
    but they stagger and stumble.
They run to the ramparts
    to stem the tide, but it’s too late.
Soldiers pour through the gates.
    The palace is demolished.
Soon it’s all over:
    Nineveh stripped, Nineveh doomed,
Maids and slaves moaning like doves,
    beating their breasts.
Nineveh is a tub
    from which they’ve pulled the plug.
Cries go up, “Do something! Do something!”
    but it’s too late. Nineveh’s soon empty—nothing.
Other cries come: “Plunder the silver!
    Plunder the gold!
A bonanza of plunder!
    Take everything you want!”
Doom! Damnation! Desolation!
    Hearts sink,
    knees fold,
    stomachs retch,
    faces blanch.
So, what happened to the famous
    and fierce Assyrian lion
And all those cute Assyrian cubs?
    To the lion and lioness
Cozy with their cubs,
    fierce and fearless?
To the lion who always returned from the hunt
    with fresh kills for lioness and cubs,
The lion lair heaped with bloody meat,
    blood and bones for the royal lion feast?

* * *

¹³“Assyria, I’m your enemy,”
    says God-of-the-Angel-Armies.
“I’ll torch your chariots. They’ll go up in smoke.
    ‘Lion Country’ will be strewn with carcasses.
The war business is over—you’re out of work:
    You’ll have no more wars to report,
No more victories to announce.
    You’re out of war work forever.”