The Prophet Nahum

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- Chapter 3 -

Terrible things will happen to Nineveh, that city that is full of people who murder, steal and lie. The city is full of people who the soldiers carried away from other countries.

But now listen to the enemy soldiers coming to attack Nineveh; listen to them cracking their whips, and listen to the rattle of their chariot wheels! Listen to their galloping horses and their chariots as they bounce along!

Look at their flashing swords and glittering spears as the horsemen race forward! Many people of Nineveh will be killed; there will be piles of corpses, so many that the attackers will stumble over them.

All that will happen because Nineveh is like a beautiful prostitute who lures men to where they will be ruined; Nineveh is a beautiful city that has attracted people of other nations to come there. The people of Nineveh taught those people of other nations rituals of magic, and caused them to become their slaves.

So Yahweh, Commander of the angel armies, says to the people of Nineveh: “I am your enemy, and I will cause the people in other nations to see you completely humiliated; like women who have committed adultery are humiliated by having their skirts lifted high, with the result that people can see their naked bodies.

I will cause others to throw garbage at you; I will show others that I despise you very much, and I will cause everyone to ridicule you in public.

All those who see you will turn their backs to you and say, ’Nineveh is ruined, but absolutely no one will mourn for it.’ Nineveh, no one will want to comfort you.”

Your city is certainly no safer than the city of Thebes was. Thebes was an important city beside the Nile River; the river was like a wall around her.

The rulers of Ethiopia and Egypt helped Thebes; there was no limit to their power. The governments of the nearby countries of Put and Libya were also allies of Thebes.

Nevertheless, Thebes was captured, and its people were exiled. Their babies were dashed to pieces in the streets of the city. Enemy soldiers cast lots to decide who would get each official in Thebes to become his slave. All the leaders of Thebes were fastened by chains.

You people of Nineveh will similarly become dazed and drunk, and you will search for places to hide to escape from your enemies.

Your enemies will cause the walls around your city to fall down like the first figs that fall right into your mouths when you shake the tree. This is how easily your city will be captured.

Look at your soldiers! They will be like weak women! The gates of your city will be opened wide to allow your enemies to enter them, and then the bars of those gates will be burned.

Store up water now to use when your enemies surround the city! Repair the forts! Dig up clay and trample it to make it soft, and put it into molds to make bricks to repair the walls!

Nevertheless, your enemies will burn your city; they will kill you with their swords; they will kill you as locusts destroy crops. Go ahead and increase your population like swarms of locusts and grasshoppers.

In your city there are now very many merchants; more than stars. But when your city is being destroyed, those merchants will take the valuable things and disappear like locusts that strip the leaves from plants and then fly away.

Your leaders are also like a swarm of locusts that crowd together on the fences on a cold day, and then fly away when the sun comes up, and no one knows where they have gone.

King of Assyria, your officials will all die; your important people will lie down and rest forever. Your people will be scattered over the mountains, and there will be no one to gather them together.

You are like someone who has a wound that cannot be healed; it will be a wound that causes him to die. And all those who hear about what has happened to you will clap their hands joyfully. They will say, “Everyone has suffered because he continually acted very cruelly toward us.”

Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery—no end to the prey.

The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of wheels, prancing horses, and bounding chariots,

the horseman charging, and the flashing sword, the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. They stumble on their bodies

because of the multitude of the prostitution of the alluring prostitute, the mistress of witchcraft, who sells nations through her prostitution, and families through her witchcraft.

“Behold, I am against you,” says the LORD of Armies, “and I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness, and the kingdoms your shame.

I will throw abominable filth on you and make you vile, and will make you a spectacle.

It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?”

Are you better than No-Amon,(a) who was situated among the rivers,(b) who had the waters around her, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea?

Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength. Put and Libya were her helpers.

Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

You also will be drunken. You will be hidden. You also will seek a stronghold because of the enemy.

All your fortresses will be like fig trees with the first-ripe figs. If they are shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater.

Behold, your troops among you are women. The gates of your land are set wide open to your enemies. The fire has devoured your bars.

Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong.

There the fire will devour you. The sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the grasshopper. Multiply like grasshoppers. Multiply like the locust.

You have increased your merchants more than the stars of the skies. The grasshopper strips and flees away.

Your guards are like the locusts, and your officials like the swarms of locusts, which settle on the walls on a cold day, but when the sun appears, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.

Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them.

There is no healing your wound, for your injury is fatal. All who hear the report of you clap their hands over you, for who hasn’t felt your endless cruelty?

Footnotes

(a)3:8 or, Thebes

(b)3:8 or, Nile