The salvation of Elohim has come and who can abide therein? Is it not for the sake of His elect, whom you persecute, scold and mock daily?
Nahum
3:1-19
[1] Woe to
the city of blood! All of it is a lie, filled with plunder, the prey is not
lacking.
[2] The
sound of a whip and the sound of rattling wheels, of galloping horses, of
jolting chariots,
[3]
mounted horsemen with bright sword and glittering spear, and many
wounded, and a mass of dead bodies, and no end of corpses, they stumble over
the corpses –
[4]
because of the many whorings of the well-favoured whore, the mistress of
sorceries, who sells nations by her whorings, and clans by her sorceries.
[5] “See,
I am against you,” declares יהוה of hosts, “and
shall lift up your skirts over your face, and shall show nations your
nakedness, and reigns your shame.
[6] “And I shall cast
abominations upon you, and treat you as foolish, and make a spectacle of you.
[7] “And it shall be
that all who see you flee from you, and say, ‘Ninewĕh is laid waste! Who does
mourn for her?’ Where do I seek comforters for you?”
[8] Are you better
than No Amon, who dwelt by the Nile-streams, with waters around her, whose
rampart was like the sea, whose wall was like the sea?
[9] Kush
and Mitsrayim were her strength, even unlimited. Put and Luḇim were your helpers.
[10] Yet she was
exiled, she went into captivity. At the head of every street her young children
were dashed to pieces. Lots were cast for her esteemed men, and all her great
men were bound in chains.
[11] You too are to
become drunk, you are to go into hiding. You too are to seek refuge from the
enemy.
[12] All your
strongholds are fig trees with ripened figs, when shaken they shall fall into
the mouth of the eater.
[13] See, your people
in your midst are women! The gates of your land shall be opened wide to your
enemies. Fire shall consume your gate bars.
[14] Draw for yourself
water for the siege! Strengthen your defences! Go into the clay and tread the
mortar, lay hold of the brick mould!
[15] There a fire
shall consume you, a sword cut you off, eat you up like a locust. Make yourself
many like the locust, make yourself many like the swarming locust!
[16] You have
increased your merchants more than the stars of the heavens. The locust shall
strip off and fly away.
[17] Your officials
are like the locusts, and your marshals are like the great grasshoppers, which
settle in the hedges on a cold day – when the sun rises they flee away, and the
place where they are is unknown.
[18] Your shepherds
have slumbered, O sovereign of Ashshur, your nobles lie down to rest. Your
people are scattered on the mountains, and no one gathers them.
[19] Your injury has
no healing, your wound is grievous. All who hear news of you shall clap their
hands over you. For over whom did your evil not pass continually?
