New Revised Standard NRS
The Message Bible MSG
1 Ah, land of whirring wings beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,
1
Doom to the land of flies and mosquitoes beyond the Ethiopian rivers,
2 sending ambassadors by the Nile 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.
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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.
3 All you inhabitants of the world, you who live on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains, look! When a trumpet is blown, listen!
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Everybody everywhere, all earth-dwellers: When you see a flag flying on the mountain, look! When you hear the trumpet blown, listen!
4 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.
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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."
5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is over and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the shoots with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches he will hew away.
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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.
6 They shall all be left to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the animals of the earth. And the birds of prey will summer on them, and all the animals of the earth will winter on them.
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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.
7 At that time gifts 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.
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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.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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.