15 There will the fire devour you,

the sword will cut you off.

It will devour you like the locust.

Multiply yourselves like the locust,

multiply like the grasshopper!

16 You increased your merchants

more than the stars of the heavens.

The locust spreads its wings and flies away.

17 Your princes are like grasshoppers,

your scribes* like clouds of locusts

settling on the fences

in a day of cold—

when the sun rises, they fly away;

no one knows where they are.