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¹ Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and booty--no end to the plunder!² The crack of whip, and rumble of wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot!³ Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end--they stumble over the bodies!⁴ And all for the countless harlotries of the harlot, graceful and of deadly charms, who betrays nations with her harlotries, and peoples with her charms.⁵ Behold, 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.⁶ I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt, and make you a gazingstock.⁷ And all who look on you will shrink from you and say, Wasted is Nin'eveh; who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for her?

⁸ Are you better than Thebes that sat by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart a sea, and water her wall?⁹ Ethiopia was her strength, Egypt too, and that without limit; Put and the Libyans were her helpers.¹⁰ Yet she was carried away, she went into captivity; her little ones were dashed in pieces at the head of every street; for her honored men lots were cast, and all her great men were bound in chains.¹¹ You also will be drunken, you will be dazed; you will seek a refuge from the enemy.¹² All your fortresses are like fig trees with first-ripe figs--if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater.¹³ Behold, your troops are women in your midst. The gates of your land are wide open to your foes; fire has devoured your bars.¹⁴ Draw water for the siege, strengthen your forts; go into the clay, tread the mortar, take hold of the brick mold!¹⁵ There will the fire devour you, the sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the locust. Multiply yourselves like the locust, multiply like the grasshopper!¹⁶ You increased your merchants more than the stars of the heavens. The locust spreads its wings and flies away.¹⁷ Your princes are like grasshoppers, your scribes like clouds of locusts settling on the fences in a day of cold--when the sun rises, they fly away; no one knows where they are.¹⁸ Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria; your nobles slumber. Your people are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them.¹⁹ There is no assuaging your hurt, your wound is grievous. All who hear the news of you clap their hands over you. For upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?