The Message Bible MSG
English Standard Version ESV
1 Doom to the land of flies and mosquitoes beyond the Ethiopian rivers,
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Ah, land of whirring wings that is beyond the rivers of Cush,
2 Shipping emissaries all over the world, down rivers and across seas. Go, swift messengers, go to this people tall and handsome, This people held in respect everywhere, this people mighty and merciless, from the land crisscrossed with rivers.
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which sends ambassadors by the sea, in vessels of papyrus on the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation, tall and smooth, to a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide.
3 Everybody everywhere, all earth-dwellers: When you see a flag flying on the mountain, look! When you hear the trumpet blown, listen!
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All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains, look! When a trumpet is blown, hear!
4 For here's what God told me: "I'm not going to say anything, but simply look on from where I live, Quiet as warmth that comes from the sun, silent as dew during harvest."
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For thus the LORD said to me: "I will quietly look from my dwelling like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest."
5 And then, just before harvest, after the blossom has turned into a maturing grape, He'll step in and prune back the new shoots, ruthlessly hack off all the growing branches.
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For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away.
6 He'll leave them piled on the ground for birds and animals to feed on - Fodder for the summering birds, fodder for the wintering animals.
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They shall all of them be left to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth. And the birds of prey will summer on them, and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.
7 Then tribute will be brought to God-of-the-Angel-Armies, brought from this people tall and handsome, This people once held in respect everywhere, this people once mighty and merciless, From the land crisscrossed with rivers, to Mount Zion, God's place.
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At that time tribute will be brought to the LORD of hosts from a people tall and smooth, from a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide,to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the LORD of hosts.
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.
The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.