| Berean Study Bible | New Living Translation |
| 1Woe to the land of whirring wings, along the rivers of Cush, | 1Listen, Ethiopia —land of fluttering sails that lies at the headwaters of the Nile, |
| 2which sends couriers by sea, in papyrus vessels on the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people widely feared, to a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers. | 2that sends ambassadors in swift boats down the river. Go, swift messengers! Take a message to a tall, smooth-skinned people, who are feared far and wide for their conquests and destruction, and whose land is divided by rivers. |
| 3All you people of the world and dwellers of the earth, when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it; when a ram’s horn sounds, you will hear it. | 3All you people of the world, everyone who lives on the earth— when I raise my battle flag on the mountain, look! When I blow the ram’s horn, listen! |
| 4For this is what the LORD has told me: “I will quietly look on from My dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” | 4For the LORD has told me this: “I will watch quietly from my dwelling place— as quietly as the heat rises on a summer day, or as the morning dew forms during the harvest.” |
| 5For before the harvest, when the blossom is gone and the flower becomes a ripening grape, He will cut off the shoots with a pruning knife and remove and discard the branches. | 5Even before you begin your attack, while your plans are ripening like grapes, the LORD will cut off your new growth with pruning shears. He will snip off and discard your spreading branches. |
| 6They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey, and to the beasts of the land. The birds will feed on them in summer, and all the wild animals in winter. | 6Your mighty army will be left dead in the fields for the mountain vultures and wild animals. The vultures will tear at the corpses all summer. The wild animals will gnaw at the bones all winter. |
| 7At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD of Hosts—from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people widely feared, from a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers—to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD of Hosts. | 7At that time the LORD of Heaven’s Armies will receive gifts from this land divided by rivers, from this tall, smooth-skinned people, who are feared far and wide for their conquests and destruction. They will bring the gifts to Jerusalem, where the LORD of Heaven’s Armies dwells. |
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