1Woe to the city of blood! All of it is a lie, filled with plunder, the prey is not lacking.

2The sound of a whip and the sound of rattling wheels, of galloping horses, of jolting chariots,

3mounted horsemen with bright sword and glittering spear, and many wounded, and a mass of dead bodies, and no end of corpses, they stumble over the corpses –

4because of the many whorings of the well-favoured whore, the mistress of sorceries, who sells nations by her whorings, and clans by her sorceries.

5“See, I am against you,” declares יהוה of hosts, “and shall lift up your skirts over your face, and shall show nations your nakedness, and reigns your shame.

6“And I shall cast abominations upon you, and treat you as foolish, and make a spectacle of you.

7“And it shall be that all who see you flee from you, and say, ‘Ninewĕh is laid waste! Who does mourn for her?’ Where do I seek comforters for you?”

8Are you better than No Amon, who dwelt by the Nile-streams, with waters around her, whose rampart was like the sea, whose wall was like the sea?

9Kush and Mitsrayim were her strength, even unlimited. Put and Luḇim were your helpers.

10Yet she was exiled, she went into captivity. At the head of every street her young children were dashed to pieces. Lots were cast for her esteemed men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

11You too are to become drunk, you are to go into hiding. You too are to seek refuge from the enemy.

12All your strongholds are fig trees with ripened figs, when shaken they shall fall into the mouth of the eater.

13See, your people in your midst are women! The gates of your land shall be opened wide to your enemies. Fire shall consume your gate bars.

14Draw for yourself water for the siege! Strengthen your defences! Go into the clay and tread the mortar, lay hold of the brick mould!

15There a fire shall consume you, a sword cut you off, eat you up like a locust. Make yourself many like the locust, make yourself many like the swarming locust!

16You have increased your merchants more than the stars of the heavens. The locust shall strip off and fly away.

17Your officials are like the locusts, and your marshals are like the great grasshoppers, which settle in the hedges on a cold day – when the sun rises they flee away, and the place where they are is unknown.

18Your shepherds have slumbered, O sovereign of Ashshur, your nobles lie down to rest. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and no one gathers them.

19Your injury has no healing, your wound is grievous. All who hear news of you shall clap their hands over you. For over whom did your evil not pass continually?