¹⁶ You have increased your merchants more than the stars of heaven;
    like the locust they will shed their skin and fly away.
¹⁷ Your officials are like locusts;
    your commanders are like a swarm of locusts.
They encamp on the walls on a cold day;
    when the sun rises, they fly away—
        no one knows where they have gone.

¹⁸ Your shepherds are sleeping, O king of Assyria!
    Your nobles slumber.
Your people are scattered on the mountains;
    no one can gather them.