1: A crusher has come up before your face: keep a good look-out, let the way be watched, make yourself strong, let your power be greatly increased. 2: For the Lord will make good the vine of Jacob, as well as the vine of Israel: for the wasters have made them waste and sent destruction on the branches of their vine. 3: The body-covers of his fighting men have been made red, the men of war are clothed in bright red: the war-carriages are like flames of fire in the day when he gets ready, the horses are shaking. 4: The war-carriages are rushing through the streets, pushing against one another in the wide ways, looking like burning lights, running like thunder-flames. 5: He takes the record of his great men: they go falling on their way; they go quickly to the wall, the cover is made ready. 6: The river doorways are forced open, and the king's house is flowing away. 7: And the queen is uncovered, she is taken away and her servant-girls are weeping like the sound of doves, hammering on their breasts. 8: But Nineveh is like a pool of water whose waters are flowing away; Keep your place, they say; but no one is turning back. 9: Take silver, take gold; for there is no end to the store; take for yourselves a weight of things to be desired. 10: Everything has been taken from her, all is gone, she has nothing more: the heart is turned to water, the knees are shaking, all are twisted in pain, and colour has gone from all faces. 11: Where is the lions' hole, the place where the young lions got their food, where the lion and the she-lion were walking with their young, without cause for fear? 12: Food enough for his young and for his she-lions was pulled down by the lion; his hole was full of flesh and his resting-place stored with meat. 13: See, I am against you, says the Lord of armies, and I will have your war-carriages burned in the smoke, and your young lions will be food for the sword: you will no longer get your food by force on the earth, and the voice of your she-lions will be stopped for ever.
