Proclamation Against Ethiopia

18 Woe ato the land shadowed with buzzing wings,

Which is beyond the rivers of 1Ethiopia,

2 Which sends ambassadors by sea,

Even in vessels of reed on the waters, saying,

“Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth of skin,

To a people terrible from their beginning onward,

A nation powerful and treading down,

Whose land the rivers divide.”

3 All inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth:

bWhen he lifts up a banner on the mountains, you see it;

And when he blows a trumpet, you hear it.

4 For so the Lord said to me,

“I will take My rest,

And I will 2look from My dwelling place

Like clear heat in sunshine,

Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

5 For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect

And the sour grape is ripening in the flower,

He will both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks

And take away and cut down the branches.

6 They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey

And for the beasts of the earth;

The birds of prey will summer on them,

And all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

7 In that time ca present will be brought to the Lord of hosts

3From a people tall and smooth of skin,

And from a people terrible from their beginning onward,

A nation powerful and treading down,

Whose land the rivers divide—

To the place of the name of the Lord of hosts,

To Mount Zion.