| English Standard Version | New Living Translation |
| 1The scatterer has come up against you. Man the ramparts; watch the road; dress for battle; collect all your strength. | 1 Your enemy is coming to crush you, Nineveh. Man the ramparts! Watch the roads! Prepare your defenses! Call out your forces! |
| 2For the LORD is restoring the majesty of Jacob as the majesty of Israel, for plunderers have plundered them and ruined their branches. | 2Even though the destroyer has destroyed Judah, the LORD will restore its honor. Israel’s vine has been stripped of branches, but he will restore its splendor. |
| 3The shield of his mighty men is red; his soldiers are clothed in scarlet. The chariots come with flashing metal on the day he musters them; the cypress spears are brandished. | 3Shields flash red in the sunlight! See the scarlet uniforms of the valiant troops! Watch as their glittering chariots move into position, with a forest of spears waving above them. |
| 4The chariots race madly through the streets; they rush to and fro through the squares; they gleam like torches; they dart like lightning. | 4The chariots race recklessly along the streets and rush wildly through the squares. They flash like firelight and move as swiftly as lightning. |
| 5He remembers his officers; they stumble as they go, they hasten to the wall; the siege tower is set up. | 5The king shouts to his officers; they stumble in their haste, rushing to the walls to set up their defenses. |
| 6The river gates are opened; the palace melts away; | 6The river gates have been torn open! The palace is about to collapse! |
| 7its mistress is stripped; she is carried off, her slave girls lamenting, moaning like doves and beating their breasts. | 7Nineveh’s exile has been decreed, and all the servant girls mourn its capture. They moan like doves and beat their breasts in sorrow. |
| 8Nineveh is like a pool whose waters run away. “Halt! Halt!” they cry, but none turns back. | 8Nineveh is like a leaking water reservoir! The people are slipping away. “Stop, stop!” someone shouts, but no one even looks back. |
| 9Plunder the silver, plunder the gold! There is no end of the treasure or of the wealth of all precious things. | 9Loot the silver! Plunder the gold! There’s no end to Nineveh’s treasures— its vast, uncounted wealth. |
| 10Desolate! Desolation and ruin! Hearts melt and knees tremble; anguish is in all loins; all faces grow pale! | 10Soon the city is plundered, empty, and ruined. Hearts melt and knees shake. The people stand aghast, their faces pale and trembling. |
| 11Where is the lions’ den, the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion and lioness went, where his cubs were, with none to disturb? | 11Where now is that great Nineveh, that den filled with young lions? It was a place where people—like lions and their cubs— walked freely and without fear. |
| 12The lion tore enough for his cubs and strangled prey for his lionesses; he filled his caves with prey and his dens with torn flesh. | 12The lion tore up meat for his cubs and strangled prey for his mate. He filled his den with prey, his caverns with his plunder. |
| 13Behold, I am against you, declares the LORD of hosts, and I will burn your chariots in smoke, and the sword shall devour your young lions. I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers shall no longer be heard. | 13“I am your enemy!” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. “Your chariots will soon go up in smoke. Your young men will be killed in battle. Never again will you plunder conquered nations. The voices of your proud messengers will be heard no more.” |
| ESV Text Edition: 2016. The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. The ESV® text has been reproduced in cooperation with and by permission of Good News Publishers. Unauthorized reproduction of this publication is prohibited. All rights reserved. | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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