5 Look at the nations, and see!

Be astonished! Be astounded!

For a work is being done in your days

that you would not believe if you were told.

6 For I am rousing the Chaldeans,

that fierce and impetuous nation,

who march through the breadth of the earth

to seize dwellings not their own.

7 Dread and fearsome are they;

their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.

8 Their horses are swifter than leopards,

more menacing than wolves at dusk;

their horses charge.

Their horsemen come from far away;

they fly like an eagle swift to devour.

9 They all come for violence,

with faces pressinga forward;

they gather captives like sand.

10 At kings they scoff,

and of rulers they make sport.

They laugh at every fortress,

and heap up earth to take it.

11 Then they sweep by like the wind;

they transgress and become guilty;

their own might is their god!

12 Are you not from of old,

O Lord my God, my Holy One?

Youb shall not die.

O Lord, you have marked them for judgment;

and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment.