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Ruin Imminent and Inevitable

Ah! City of bloodshed,

utterly deceitful, full of booty—

no end to the plunder!

The crack of whip and rumble of wheel,

galloping horse and bounding chariot!

Horsemen charging,

flashing sword and glittering spear,

piles of dead,

heaps of corpses,

dead bodies without end—

they stumble over the bodies!

Because of the countless debaucheries of the prostitute,

gracefully alluring, mistress of sorcery,

who enslaves nations through her debaucheries,

and peoples through her sorcery,

I am against you,

says the L ord of hosts,

and will lift up your skirts over your face;

and I will let nations look on your nakedness

and kingdoms on your shame.

I will throw filth at you

and treat you with contempt,

and make you a spectacle.

Then all who see you will shrink from you and say,

“Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan her?”

Where shall I seek comforters for you?

Are you better than Thebes

that sat by the Nile,

with water around her,

her rampart a sea,

water her wall?

Ethiopia was her strength,

Egypt too, and that without limit;

Put and the Libyans were her helpers.

Yet she became an exile,

she went into captivity;

even her infants were dashed in pieces

at the head of every street;

lots were cast for her nobles,

all her dignitaries were bound in fetters.

You also will be drunken,

you will go into hiding;

you will seek

a refuge from the enemy.

All your fortresses are like fig trees

with first-ripe figs—

if shaken they fall

into the mouth of the eater.

Look at your troops:

they are women in your midst.

The gates of your land

are wide open to your foes;

fire has devoured the bars of your gates.

Draw water for the siege,

strengthen your forts;

trample the clay,

tread the mortar,

take hold of the brick mold!

There the fire will devour you,

the sword will cut you off.

It will devour you like the locust.

Multiply yourselves like the locust,

multiply like the grasshopper!

You increased your merchants

more than the stars of the heavens.

The locust sheds its skin and flies away.

Your guards are like grasshoppers,

your scribes like swarms of locusts

settling on the fences

on a cold day—

when the sun rises, they fly away;

no one knows where they have gone.

Your shepherds are asleep,

O king of Assyria;

your nobles slumber.

Your people are scattered on the mountains

with no one to gather them.

There is no assuaging your hurt,

your wound is mortal.

All who hear the news about you

clap their hands over you.

For who has ever escaped

your endless cruelty?

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.

Yet, he says, she departed into captivity a captive; that is, the inhabitants of Alexandria have been banished, and the city become as it were captive, for its inhabitants were driven here and there. Dashed, he says, have been their little ones at the head of every street The Prophet means, that so great a power as that of Alexandria did not prevent the conquerors to exercise towards her the most barbarous cruelty; for it was a savage act to dash little children against stones, who ought on account of their tender age, to have been spared. There was indeed no reason for raging against them, for they could not have been deemed enemies. But yet the Prophet says that Alexandria had been thus treated; and he said this, that Nineveh might not trust in her strength, and thus perversely despise God’s judgment, which he now denounced on it. He adds, They cast lots on her princess and bound were her great men with fetters In saying that lots were cast, he refers to an ancient custom; for when there was any dispute respecting a captive, the lot was cast: as for instance, when two had taken one man, to prevent contention, it was by lot determined who was to be his master. So then he says that lots were cast on their princes. This usually happened to the common people and to the lowest slaves; but the Prophet says that the conquerors spared not even the princes. They were therefore treated as the lowest class; and though they were great princes, they were led into captivity and bound with chains, in the same manner with the meanest and the lowest of the people. They were not treated according to their rank; and there was no differences between the chief men and the most degraded of the humbler classes; for even the very princes were so brought down, that their lot differed not from that of the wretched; for as common people are usually treated with contempt, so were the chiefs of Alexandria treated by their enemies.