Isaiah 18

Chapter 18

Message to Ethiopia

¹Alas, oh land of whirring wings

Which lies beyond the rivers of ^1aCush,

²Which sends envoys by the sea,

Even in ^apapyrus vessels on the surface of the waters.

Go, swift messengers, to a nation ^1btall and smooth,

To a people ^cfeared ²far and wide,

A powerful and oppressive nation

Whose land the rivers divide.

^3aAll you inhabitants of the world and dwellers on earth,

As soon as a standard is raised on the mountains, ^byou will see it,

And as soon as the trumpet is blown, you will hear it.

⁴For thus the Lord has told me,

“I will look ¹from My ^adwelling place quietly

Like dazzling heat in the ^2bsunshine,

Like a cloud of ^cdew in the heat of harvest.”

⁵For ^abefore the harvest, as soon as the bud ¹blossoms

And the flower becomes a ripening grape,

Then He will cut off the sprigs with pruning knives

And remove and cut away the spreading branches.

⁶They will be left together for mountain birds ^aof prey,

And for the beasts of the earth;

And the birds of prey will spend the summer feeding on them,

And all the beasts of the earth will spend harvest time on them.

⁷At that time a gift of homage will be brought to the Lord of hosts

¹From a ^apeople ²tall and smooth,

Even from a people feared ³far and wide,

A powerful and oppressive nation,

Whose land the rivers divide—

To the ^bplace of the name of the Lord of hosts, even Mount Zion.