Dual Panel1Woe betide those who enact unjust laws and draft oppressive edicts,
2depriving the poor of justice, robbing the weakest of my people of their rights, plundering the widow and despoiling the fatherless!
3What will you do when called to account, when devastation from afar confronts you? To whom will you flee for help, and where will you leave your children
4so that they do not cower among the prisoners or fall among the slain? For all this his anger has not abated; his hand still threatens.
5The Assyrian! He is the rod I wield in my anger, the staff in the hand of my wrath.
6I send him against a godless nation, I bid him march against a people who rouse my fury, to pillage and plunder at will, to trample them down like mud in the street.
7But this man's purpose is lawless, and lawless are the plans in his mind; for his thought is only to destroy and to wipe out nation after nation.
8“Are not my commanders all kings?” he boasts.
9“See how Calno has suffered the fate of Carchemish. Is not Hamath like Arpad, Samaria like Damascus?
10Before now I have overcome kingdoms full of idols, with more images than have Jerusalem and Samaria,
11and now, what I did to Samaria and her worthless gods, I shall do also to Jerusalem and her idols.”
12When the Lord has finished all that he means to do against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will punish the king of Assyria for the words which spring from his arrogance and for his high and haughty mien,
13because he said: By my own might I have done it, and in my own far-seeing wisdom I have swept aside the frontiers of nations and plundered their treasures; like a bull I have trampled on their inhabitants.
14My hand has come on the wealth of nations as on a nest, and, as one gathers eggs that have been abandoned, so have I taken every land; not a wing fluttered, not a beak gaped, no cheep was heard.
15Will the axe set itself up against the hewer, or the saw claim mastery over the sawyer, as if a stick were to brandish him who raises it, or a wooden staff to wield one who is not wood?
16Therefore the Lord, the LORD of Hosts, will inflict a wasting disease on the king's frame, on his sturdy frame from head to toe, and in his body a fever like fire will rage.
17The Light of Israel will become a fire and its Holy One a flame, which in one day will burn up and consume his thorns and his briars;
18his splendid forest and meadow will be destroyed as suddenly as someone falling in a fit;
19what remain of the trees in his forest will be so few that a child might record them.
20On that day the remnant of Israel, the survivors of Jacob, will lean no more on him who scourged them; without wavering they will lean on the LORD, the Holy One of Israel.
21A remnant will return, a remnant of Jacob, to God their strength.
22Israel, your people may be many as the sands of the sea, but only a remnant will return. The instrument of final destruction will overflow with justice,
23for the Lord, the LORD of Hosts, will bring final destruction on the whole land.
24Therefore these are the words of the Lord, the LORD of Hosts: My people, you dwellers in Zion, do not be afraid of the Assyrians, though they beat you with their rod and lift their staff against you as the Egyptians did;
25for in a very short time my wrath will be over and my anger will be finally spent.
26Then the LORD of Hosts will brandish his scourge at them as he did when he struck Midian at the Rock of Oreb; he will lift his staff against the Euphrates as he did against Egypt.
27On that day the burden they laid on your shoulder will be removed and their yoke will be broken from off your neck.
28An invader from Rimmon has reached Aiath, has passed through Migron, and left his baggage train at Michmash;
29he has passed through Maabarah and camped for the night at Geba. Ramah is terrified, Gibeah of Saul is in flight.
30Bath-gallim, raise a shrill cry. Hear it, Laish. Answer her, Anathoth.
31Madmenah retreats; the people of Gebim seek cover.
32This day he will be at Nob; he gives the signal to advance against the mount of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.
33The Lord, the LORD of Hosts, will shatter the trees with a crash, the tallest will be hewn down, the lofty laid low,
34the thickets of the forest will be felled with the axe, and Lebanon with its noble trees will fall.