Woe to Tyrants

1Woe to those decreeing decrees of iniquity

and writers writing perverseness,

2to turn aside justness from the poor,

and to tear away justice from the lowly of My people,

that widows may be their prey,

and fatherless their plunder!

3And what will you⁺ do in the day of reckoning,

and at the desolation that comes from afar?

Upon whom will you⁺ flee for help,

and where will you⁺ leave your⁺ wealth?

4Nothing remains but to kneel down among the prisoners,

and among the slain they will fall.

In all this, His anger is not turned back

and His hand is still stretched out.

Judgment on Assyria

5Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger,

and the staff that is in their hand is My rage.

6I will send him against a godless nation

and I will order him against the people of My wrath,

to plunder the plunder and to prey on the prey,

and to set them for trampling like the clay of the streets.

7And he does not consider it so,

and his heart does not reckon it so,

for to destroy is in his heart,

and to cut off nations—not a few.

8For he says: “Are not my princes all kings?

9Or is not Calno like Carchemish?

Or is not Hamath like Arpad?

Is not Samaria like Damascus?

10As my hand has reached to the kingdoms of the idols

and their graven images above those of Jerusalem and Samaria—

11is it not that as I have done to Samaria and her idols,

thus I will do to Jerusalem and her idols?’”

12And it will come to pass, when YHWH has cut off all his work against Mount Zion and against Jerusalem: “I will reckon with the fruit of the magnitude of the heart of the king of Assyria and with the splendor of the loftiness of his eyes. 13For he says,

‘By the power of my hand I have done this,

and by my own wisdom, for I have understanding;

and I have removed the boundaries of the peoples,

and their treasuries I have plundered;

and I have brought down like a mighty one those sitting!

14And my hand has found the riches of the peoples

as a nest;

and as a gathering of forsaken eggs

I have gathered all the earth;

and there has not been one flapping a wing

or opening its mouth and chirping.’”

15Will the ax glorify itself over the one hewing with it?

Or will the saw exalt itself over one waving it—

waving it as a rod of the one raising it,

lifting it up as a staff not of wood!

16Therefore the Lord YHWH of Hosts

will send among his fat ones leanness,

and in place of his glory He will kindle a burning

like the burning of fire.

17And the Light of Israel will be for a fire,

and his Holy One for a flame,

and it will burn and devour his thorn and his brier

in one day.

18And the glory of his forest and his orchard

He will finish off from soul to flesh,

and he will become

like the melting away of one being sick.

19And the remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few

that a child could count them!

A Remnant will Return

20And it will come to be in that day that the remnant of Israel

and the survivor of the house of Jacob,

will not continue anymore to lean

on the one striking it.

And he will lean truly on YHWH,

the Holy One of Israel.

21A remnant will return, a remnant of Jacob,†

to the Mighty God.

22For though your people O Israel, should be as the sand of the sea,

only a remnant will return of it.†

The destruction is decreed,

overflowing with righteousness.

23For the full end is decreed,

that the Lord YHWH of Hosts

will make in the midst of all the land.†

24Therefore thus says the Lord YHWH of Hosts:

“You should not fear, O My people,

dwelling in Zion, the Assyrian!

With a rod he will strike you,

and his staff he will lift up against you

in the way of Egypt.

25For in just a very little while,

My rage will come to an end,

and My anger will be upon their destruction.”

26And YHWH of Hosts will stir up against him a whip,

like the striking of Midian at the rock of Oreb;

and as His rod was over the sea, so will He lift it up in the manner

of Egypt.

27And in that day and it will come to pass that his burden will turned aside from your shoulder

and his yoke from your neck

and the yoke will be destroyed

from the face of fatness,†

28he has come to Ayyah,

he has passed over Migron;

at Michmash he attends to his vessels.

29They have passed over at the ford;

Geba was a lodging-place for them.

Ramah has trembled,

Gibeah of Saul has fled.

30Cry aloud with your voice, O daughter of Gallim!

Pay attention, O Laish,

O poor Anathoth!

31Madmenah has fled,

those dwelling in Gebim have taken refuge.

32Yet today he will remain at Nob;

he will wave his fist at the mountain of the daughter of Zion,

the hill of Jerusalem.

33Behold, the Lord YHWH of Hosts

will lop off the bough with a crash;

and those being high of stature will be cut down,

and the high ones will be brought low.

34And He will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron,

and Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.