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Woe to Tyrants

¹ Woe to those who enact unjust statutes and issue oppressive decrees,² to deprive the poor of fair treatment and withhold justice from the oppressed of My people, to make widows their spoil and plunder the fatherless.³ What will you do on the day of reckoning when devastation comes from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?⁴ Nothing will remain but to crouch among the captives or fall among the slain. Despite all this, His anger is not turned away; His hand is still upraised.

Judgment on Assyria

⁵ Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.⁶ I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.⁷ But this is not what he intends; this is not what he plans. His purpose is to destroy and cut off many nations.⁸ “Are not all my commanders kings?” he says.⁹ “Is not Calno like Carchemish? Is not Hamath like Arpad? Is not Samaria like Damascus?¹⁰ As my hand seized the idolatrous kingdoms, whose images surpassed those of Jerusalem and Samaria,¹¹ and as I have done to Samaria and its idols, will I not also do to Jerusalem and her idols?”¹² So when the Lord has completed all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the fruit of his arrogant heart and the proud look in his eyes.”¹³ For he says: “By the strength of my hand I have done this, and by my wisdom, for I am clever. I have removed the boundaries of nations and plundered their treasures; like a mighty one I subdued their rulers.¹⁴ My hand reached as into a nest to seize the wealth of the nations. Like one gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth. No wing fluttered, no beak opened or chirped.”¹⁵ Does an ax raise itself above the one who swings it? Does a saw boast over him who saws with it? It would be like a staff waving the one who lifts it! It would be like a staff lifting him who is not wood!¹⁶ Therefore the Lord GOD of Hosts will send a wasting disease among Assyria’s stout warriors, and under his pomp will be kindled a fire like a burning flame.¹⁷ And the Light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame. In a single day it will burn and devour Assyria’s thorns and thistles.¹⁸ The splendor of its forests and orchards, both soul and body, it will completely destroy, as a sickness consumes a man.¹⁹ The remaining trees of its forests will be so few that a child could count them.

A Remnant of Israel Shall Return

²⁰ On that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer depend on him who struck them, but they will truly rely on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel.²¹ A remnant will return^(a), a remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God.²² Though your people, O Israel, be like the sand of the sea, only a remnant will return. Destruction has been decreed, overflowing with righteousness.²³ For the Lord GOD of Hosts will carry out the destruction decreed upon the whole land^(a).

²⁴ Therefore, this is what the Lord GOD of Hosts says: “O My people who dwell in Zion, do not fear Assyria, who strikes you with a rod and lifts his staff against you as the Egyptians did.²⁵ For in just a very little while My wrath will be spent and My anger will turn to their destruction.”²⁶ And the LORD of Hosts will brandish a whip against them, as when He struck Midian at the rock of Oreb; He will raise His staff over the sea, as He did in Egypt.²⁷ On that day the burden will be lifted from your shoulders, and the yoke from your neck. The yoke will be broken because of your fatness^(a).²⁸ Assyria has entered Aiath and passed through Migron, storing supplies at Michmash.²⁹ They have crossed at the ford: “We will spend the night at Geba.” Ramah trembles; Gibeah of Saul flees.³⁰ Cry aloud, O daughter of Gallim! Listen, O Laishah! O wretched Anathoth!³¹ Madmenah flees; the people of Gebim take refuge.³² Yet today they will halt at Nob, shaking a fist at the mount of the Daughter of Zion, at the hill of Jerusalem.³³ Behold, the Lord GOD of Hosts will lop off the branches with terrifying power. The tall trees will be cut down, the lofty ones will be felled.³⁴ He will clear the forest thickets with an ax, and Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.