1. WOE TO the land whirring with wings which is beyond the rivers of Cush or Ethiopia,
2. That sends ambassadors by the Nile, even in vessels of papyrus upon the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and polished, to a people terrible from their beginning [feared and dreaded near and far], a nation strong and victorious, whose land the rivers divide!
3. All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains–look! When a trumpet is blown–hear!
4. For thus the Lord has said to me: I will be still and I will look on from My dwelling place, like clear and glowing heat in sunshine, like a fine cloud of mist in the heat of harvest.
5. For before the harvest, when the blossom is over and the flower becomes a ripening grape, He will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches He will remove and cut away.