3:1 Ah! The bloody city, all lies, Full of plunder, whose looting never stops!
3:2 The crack of the whip, the rumbling of wheels; Horses galloping, chariots bounding,
3:3 Cavalry charging, the flash of the sword, the gleam of the spear; A multitude of slain, a mass of corpses, Endless bodies to stumble upon!
3:4 For the many debaucheries of the prostitute, a charming mistress of witchcraft, Who enslaved nations with her prostitution, and peoples by her witchcraft:
3:5 I now come against you— oracle of the Lord of hosts— and I will lift your skirt above your face; I will show your nakedness to the nations, to the kingdoms your shame!
3:6 I will cast filth upon you, disgrace you and make you a spectacle;
3:7 Until everyone who sees you runs from you saying, “Nineveh is destroyed; who can pity her? Where can I find any to console you?”
3:8 Are you better than No-amon that was set among the Nile’s canals, Surrounded by waters, with the river for her rampart and water for her wall?
3:9 Ethiopia was her strength, and Egypt without end; Put and the Libyans were her allies.
3:10 Yet even she became an exile, and went into captivity; Even her little ones were dashed to pieces at the corner of every street; For her nobles they cast lots, and all her great ones were put into chains.
3:11 You, too, will drink of this; you will be overcome; You, too, will seek a refuge from the foe.
3:12 But all your fortresses are fig trees, bearing early figs; When shaken, they fall into the devourer’s mouth.
3:13 Indeed your troops are women in your midst; To your foes are open wide the gates of your land, fire has consumed their bars.
3:14 Draw water for the siege, strengthen your fortresses; Go down into the mud and tread the clay, take hold of the brick mold!
3:15 There the fire will consume you, the sword will cut you down; it will consume you like the grasshoppers. Multiply like the grasshoppers, multiply like the locusts!
3:16 You have made your traders more numerous than the stars of the heavens; like grasshoppers that shed their skins and fly away.
3:17 Your sentries are like locusts, and your scribes like locust swarms Gathered on the rubble fences on a cold day! Yet when the sun rises, they vanish, and no one knows where they have gone.
3:18 Your shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria, your nobles have gone to rest; Your people are scattered upon the mountains, with none to gather them.
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