Nahum 2

2ND CHAPTER^a

¹The one who will scatter you is coming to attack you. 

Guard your fortress! 

Keep a lookout on the road! 

Prepare for battle! 

Be very courageous! 

²The Lord will restore Jacob’s glory like Israel’s glory, 

although enemies have looted it 

and have destroyed its vines. 

³The shields of his warriors are painted red. 

His soldiers have red uniforms. 

The metal on his chariots flashes fiery red, 

so do the spears when they are waved 

on the day he prepares for battle. 

⁴Chariots are racing madly through the streets, 

rushing this way and that in the city squares. 

They look like torches, like lightning, as they dart about. 

⁵He remembers his best fighting men. 

They stumble over themselves as they march. 

They hurry to Nineveh’s wall. 

The shield has been set up for the battering ram. 

⁶The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace melts away. 

Nineveh’s Treasures Will Be Taken

⁷The Lord has determined: 

“It will be stripped. 

It will be carried away. 

Its young women will be mourning like doves 

as they beat their breasts.” 

⁸Nineveh was like a pool of water from its first day on. 

But now its people are fleeing. 

“Stop! Stop!” 

But no one turns around. 

⁹Steal the silver! Steal the gold! 

There is no end to what is stored here— 

everything a person could ever want. 

¹⁰Nineveh is destroyed, deserted, demolished. 

Hearts are melting. 

Knees are knocking. 

Every stomach becomes upset. 

Every face turns pale. 

Nineveh Will Be Destroyed

¹¹Where is the lions’ den, 

that feeding place for young lions? 

Where are the lion, the lioness, and the lion cub who moved about 

with no one to terrify them? 

¹²The lion tore its prey to pieces to feed its cubs. 

It strangled ⸤the prey⸥ for its mates. 

It used to fill its caves with torn carcasses 

and its dens with torn flesh. 

¹³“I am against you, Nineveh,” declares the Lord of Armies. 

“I will send your chariots up in smoke, 

and a sword will kill your young lions. 

I will remove your prey from the earth, 

and no one will ever hear the voice of your messengers again.”