Nahum 3

Revised Geneva Translation

3 O bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery. And its prey never departs:

² the noise of a whip and the noise of the moving of the wheels and the beating of the horses and the leaping of the chariots.

³ The horseman lifts up both the bright sword and the glittering spear. And a multitude is slain, and the dead bodies are many. There is no end of their corpses. They stumble over their corpses,

⁴ because of the multitude of the fornications of the beautiful harlot, who is a mistress of witchcraft and sells the people through her whoredom and the nations through her witchcrafts.

⁵ “Behold, I come upon you,” says the LORD of Hosts, “and will uncover your skirts upon your face, and will show the nations your filthiness, and the kingdoms your shame.

⁶ “And I will cast filth upon you, and make you vile, and will set you as a spectacle.

⁷ “And it shall happen at that time that all those who look upon you shall flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is destroyed! Who will have pity upon her?’ Where shall I seek comforters for you?”

⁸ Are you better than No, who was full of people, which lay in the rivers and had the waters all around it, whose ditch was the sea, and her wall from the sea?

⁹ Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength. And there was no end. Put and Lubim were her helpers.

¹⁰ Yet she was carried away and went into captivity. Also, her young children were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets. And they cast lots for her noble men. And all her mighty men were bound in chains.

¹¹ Also, you shall be drunk. You shall hide yourself and shall seek help because of the enemy.

¹² All your strong cities shall be like fig trees with the first ripe figs. For if they are shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater.

¹³ Behold, your people within you are women. The gates of your land shall be opened to your enemies. The fire shall devour your bars.

¹⁴ Draw water for the siege. Fortify your strongholds. Go into the clay and temper the mortar. Make strong bricks.

¹⁵ There shall the fire devour you. The sword shall cut you off. It shall eat you up like the locusts. You are multiplied like the locusts, multiplied like the swarming locusts.

¹⁶ You have multiplied your merchants above the stars of heaven. The locust plunders and flies away.

¹⁷ Your princes are as the swarming locusts, and your captains as the great grasshoppers which remain in the hedges in the cold time. When the Sun rises, they flee away. And the place where they are is not known.

¹⁸ Your shepherds sleep, O king of Assyria! Your strong men lie down. Your people are scattered upon the mountains. And no man gathers.

¹⁹ There is no healing of your wound. Your plague is grievous. All who hear of you shall clap their hands over you. For upon whom has not your malice passed continually?