Isaiah 18

New King James Version

Proclamation Against Ethiopia

18 Woe ^(A)to the land shadowed with buzzing wings,
Which is beyond the rivers of ^[a]Ethiopia,
²Which sends ambassadors by sea,
Even in vessels of reed on the waters, saying,
“Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth of skin,
To a people terrible from their beginning onward,
A nation powerful and treading down,
Whose land the rivers divide.”

³All inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth:
^(B)When he lifts up a banner on the mountains, you see it;
And when he blows a trumpet, you hear it.
⁴For so the Lord said to me,
“I will take My rest,
And I will ^[b]look from My dwelling place
Like clear heat in sunshine,
Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
⁵For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect
And the sour grape is ripening in the flower,
He will both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks
And take away and cut down the branches.
⁶They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey
And for the beasts of the earth;
The birds of prey will summer on them,
And all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

⁷In that time ^(C)a present will be brought to the Lord of hosts
^[c]From a people tall and smooth of skin,
And from a people terrible from their beginning onward,
A nation powerful and treading down,
Whose land the rivers divide—
To the place of the name of the Lord of hosts,
To Mount Zion.