Isaiah 18:2

with twelve hundred chariots, and sixty thousand horsemen. The people were without number who came with him out of Egypt: the Lubim, the Sukkiim, and the Ethiopians.

Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour.

From there he spies out the prey. His eyes see it afar off.

Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. Yes, they shall roar, and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to deliver.

When the report comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish at the report of Tyre.

I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt.”

Make a ship of gopher wood. You shall make rooms in the ship, and shall seal it inside and outside with pitch.

They said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.

Keilah, Achzib, and Mareshah; nine cities with their villages.

Gath, Mareshah, Ziph,

The children of Israel fled before Judah, and God delivered them into their hand.

Zerah the Ethiopian came out against them with an army of a million troops and three hundred chariots, and he came to Mareshah.

Weren’t the Ethiopians and the Lubim a huge army, with chariots and exceedingly many horsemen? Yet, because you relied on Yahweh, he delivered them into your hand.

Many brought gifts to Yahweh to Jerusalem, and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah; so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from then on.

“Can the papyrus grow up without mire? Can the rushes grow without water?

They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey.

who made the world like a wilderness, and overthrew its cities, who didn’t release his prisoners to their home?”

For Yahweh said to me, “I will be still, and I will see in my dwelling place, like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

In that time, a present will be brought to Yahweh of Armies from a people tall and smooth, even from a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of Yahweh of Armies, Mount Zion.

The land of Judah will become a terror to Egypt. Everyone to whom mention is made of it will be afraid, because of the plans of Yahweh of Armies, which he determines against it.

For thus said the Lord Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, “You will be saved in returning and rest. Your strength will be in quietness and in confidence.” You refused,

Yahweh says: “The labor of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, men of stature, will come over to you, and they will be yours. They will go after you. They shall come over in chains. They will bow down to you. They will make supplication to you: ‘Surely God is in you; and there is no one else. There is no other god.

“Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me. I won’t sit as a widow, neither will I know the loss of children.’

You will say, ‘I will go up to the land of unwalled villages. I will go to those who are at rest, who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,

“I will send a fire on Magog, and on those who dwell securely in the islands. Then they will know that I am Yahweh.

From beyond the rivers of Cush, my worshipers, even the daughter of my dispersed people, will bring my offering.

Behold, seven cattle came up out of the river. They were sleek and fat, and they fed in the marsh grass.

If you are honest men, then let one of your brothers be bound in your prison; but you go, carry grain for the famine of your houses.

When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket for him, and coated it with tar and with pitch. She put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river’s bank.

The fish that are in the river will die and the river will become foul. The Egyptians will loathe to drink water from the river.” ’ ”

Levy a tribute to Yahweh of the men of war who went out to battle: one soul of five hundred; of the persons, of the cattle, of the donkeys, and of the flocks.

The children of Ammon passed over the Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was very distressed.

Then the five men departed and came to Laish and saw the people who were there, how they lived in safety, in the way of the Sidonians, quiet and secure; for there was no one in the land possessing authority, that might put them to shame in anything, and they were far from the Sidonians, and had no dealings with anyone else.

When the men of Israel saw that they were in trouble (for the people were distressed), then the people hid themselves in caves, in thickets, in rocks, in tombs, and in pits.

Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives. In their death, they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles. They were stronger than lions.

I have dug and drunk strange waters, and I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt with the sole of my feet.”

So they hired for themselves thirty-two thousand chariots, and the king of Maacah with his people, who came and encamped near Medeba. The children of Ammon gathered themselves together from their cities, and came to battle.

“They are foam on the surface of the waters. Their portion is cursed in the earth. They don’t turn into the way of the vineyards.

In Yahweh, I take refuge. How can you say to my soul, “Flee as a bird to your mountain”?

“Now consider this, you who forget God, lest I tear you into pieces, and there be no one to deliver.

Because of your temple at Jerusalem, kings shall bring presents to you.

You sweep them away as they sleep. In the morning they sprout like new grass.

to hear the groans of the prisoner; to free those who are condemned to death;

Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust, from before the terror of Yahweh, and from the glory of his majesty.

The peoples will take them, and bring them to their place. The house of Israel will possess them in Yahweh’s land for servants and for handmaids. They will take as captives those whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.

For the waters of Nimrim will be desolate; for the grass has withered away, the tender grass fails, there is no green thing.

Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia;

The rivers will become foul. The streams of Egypt will be diminished and dried up. The reeds and flags will wither away.

Yahweh said, “As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia,

They will be dismayed and confounded, because of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.

It will happen that he who flees from the noise of the fear will fall into the pit; and he who comes up out of the middle of the pit will be taken in the snare; for the windows on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth tremble.

They will be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and will be shut up in the prison; and after many days they will be visited.

You will keep whoever’s mind is steadfast in perfect peace, because he trusts in you.

The burning sand will become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water. Grass with reeds and rushes will be in the habitation of jackals, where they lay.

Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all of the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.

to open the blind eyes, to bring the prisoners out of the dungeon, and those who sit in darkness out of the prison.

But this is a robbed and plundered people. All of them are snared in holes, and they are hidden in prisons. They have become captives, and no one delivers, and a plunder, and no one says, ‘Restore them!’

I will tell the north, ‘Give them up!’ and tell the south, ‘Don’t hold them back! Bring my sons from far away, and my daughters from the ends of the earth—

I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways straight. He shall build my city, and he shall let my exiles go free, not for price nor reward,” says Yahweh of Armies.

Shall the plunder be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captives be delivered?

I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you, who have said to your soul, ‘Bow down, that we may walk over you;’ and you have laid your back as the ground, like a street to those who walk over.”

All you animals of the field, come to devour, all you animals in the forest.

“I will set a sign among them, and I will send those who escape of them to the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to far-away islands, who have not heard my fame, nor have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations.

“Yet I will reverse the captivity of Moab in the latter days,” says Yahweh. Thus far is the judgment of Moab.

The earth trembles at the noise of their fall; there is a cry, the noise which is heard in the Red Sea.

Arise! Go up to a nation that is at ease, that dwells without care,” says Yahweh; “that has neither gates nor bars, that dwells alone.

“Israel is a hunted sheep. The lions have driven him away. First, the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.”

In the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the twenty-fifth day of the month, Evilmerodach king of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and released him from prison.

Then all the princes of the sea will come down from their thrones, and lay aside their robes, and strip off their embroidered garments. They will clothe themselves with trembling. They will sit on the ground, and will tremble every moment, and be astonished at you.

All the inhabitants of the islands are astonished at you, and their kings are horribly afraid. They are troubled in their face.

“ ‘ “In that day messengers will go out from before me in ships to make the careless Ethiopians afraid. There will be anguish on them, as in the day of Egypt; for, behold, it comes.”

Yes, I will make many peoples amazed at you, and their kings will be horribly afraid for you, when I brandish my sword before them. They will tremble at every moment, every man for his own life, in the day of your fall.”

“When this comes to pass—behold, it comes—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.”

The Lord Yahweh has sworn by his holiness that behold, “The days shall come on you that they will take you away with hooks, and the last of you with fish hooks.

Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion; for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs bronze; and you will beat in pieces many peoples: and I will devote their gain to Yahweh, and their substance to the Lord of the whole earth.

They are feared and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves.

You Cushites also, you will be killed by my sword.

This is the joyous city that lived carelessly, that said in her heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.” How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in! Everyone who passes by her will hiss, and shake their fists.

As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant, I have set free your prisoners from the pit in which is no water.

The kings of the earth, the princes, the commanding officers, the rich, the strong, and every slave and free person, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains.