NRSV Nahum 3 Chapter
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3:1
Ah! City of bloodshed, utterly deceitful, full of booty-- no end to the plunder!
3:2
The crack of whip and rumble of wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot!
3:3
Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, piles of dead, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end-- they stumble over the bodies!
3:4
Because of the countless debaucheries of the prostitute, gracefully alluring, mistress of sorcery, who enslaves nations through her debaucheries, and peoples through her sorcery,
3:5
I am against you, says the LORD 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.
3:6
I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt, and make you a spectacle.
3:7
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?
3:8
Are you better than Thebes that sat by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart a sea, water her wall?
3:9
3:10
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.
3:11
You also will be drunken, you will go into hiding; you will seek a refuge from the enemy.
3:12
All your fortresses are like fig trees with first-ripe figs-- if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater.
3:13
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.
3:14
Draw water for the siege, strengthen your forts; trample the clay, tread the mortar, take hold of the brick mold!
3:15
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!
3:16
You increased your merchants more than the stars of the heavens. The locust sheds its skin and flies away.
3:17
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.
3:18
Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria; your nobles slumber. Your people are scattered on the mountains with no one to gather them.
3:19
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?