5
1Behold, I am against you, declares the LORD of hosts, and
2will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will make nations look at
3your nakedness and kingdoms at your shame.
6
I will throw filth at you and
4treat you with contempt and make you
5a spectacle.
7
And all who look at you
6will shrink from you and say, Wasted is
7Nineveh;
8who will grieve for her?
9Where shall I seek comforters for you?
8
10Are you better than
11Thebes that sat
12by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart a sea, and water her wall?
9
13Cush was her strength; Egypt too, and that without limit;
14Put and the
15Libyans were her helpers.
10
16Yet she became an exile; she went into captivity;
17her infants were dashed in pieces at the head of every street; for her honored men
18lots were cast,
19and all her great men were bound in chains.
11
20You also will be drunken; you will go into hiding;
21you will seek a refuge from the enemy.
12
All your fortresses are
22like fig trees with first-ripe figs-- if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater.
13
Behold, your troops
23are women in your midst. The gates of your land are wide open to your enemies; fire has devoured your bars.
14
24Draw water for the siege;
25strengthen your forts; go into the clay; tread the mortar; take hold of the brick mold!
15
There will the fire devour you; the sword will cut you off. It will
26devour you
27like the locust. Multiply yourselves
28like the locust; multiply
29like the grasshopper!
16
You increased
30your merchants more than the stars of the heavens.
31The locust spreads its wings and flies away.
17
Your
32princes are
33like grasshoppers,
34your scribes like clouds of locusts settling on the fences in a day of cold-- when the sun rises, they fly away; no one knows where they are.
18
Your shepherds
35are asleep, O king of Assyria;
36your nobles slumber. Your people
37are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them.
19
There is no easing your hurt;
38your wound is grievous. All who hear the news about you
39clap their hands over you. For
40upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?