Isaiah 18:1–7

Proclamation Against Ethiopia

18Woe ^ato the land shadowed with buzzing wings,

Which is beyond the rivers of ¹Ethiopia,

²Which 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.”

³All 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.

⁴For 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.”

⁵For 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.

⁶They 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.

⁷In 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.