Chapter 3

  Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies [and] violence; the prey departeth not.  

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  The crack of the whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the prancing horses, and of the bounding chariots!  

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  The horseman springing up, and the glitter of the sword, and the flash of the spear, and a multitude of slain, and a mass of carcases, and no end of corpses: they stumble over their corpses.  

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  -- Because of the multitude of the fornications of the well-favoured harlot, mistress of sorceries, that selleth nations through her fornications, and families through her sorceries,  

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  behold, I am against thee, saith Jehovah of hosts; and I will uncover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame.  

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  And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazing stock.  

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  And it shall come to pass, [that] all they that see thee shall flee from thee, and shall say, Nineveh is laid waste! Who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?  

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  Art thou better than No-Amon, that was situate among the rivers, [that had] the waters round about her, whose rampart was the sea, [and] of the sea was her wall?  

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  Ethiopia was her strength, and Egypt, and it was infinite; Phut and the Libyans were her helpers.  

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  She too was carried away, she went into captivity: her infants also were dashed in pieces, at the top of all the streets; and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound with chains.  

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  Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid; thou also shalt seek a refuge from the enemy.  

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  All thy strongholds are [like] fig-trees with the first-ripe figs: if they be shaken, they even fall into the mouth of the eater.  

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  Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are [as] women: the gates of thy land are set wide open unto thine enemies; the fire devoureth thy bars.  

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  Draw thee water for the siege, strengthen thy fortresses; go into the clay, and tread the mortar, make strong the brick-kiln.  

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  There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off; it shall devour thee like the cankerworm. Make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locust.  

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  Thou hast multiplied thy merchants more than the stars of the heavens; the cankerworm spreadeth himself out and flieth away.  

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  Thy chosen men are as the locusts, and thy captains as swarms of grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day: when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.  

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  Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria; thy nobles lie still; thy people are scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them.  

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  There is no healing of thy breach; thy wound is grievous; all that hear the report of thee clap the hands over thee; for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?  

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