1. Doom to those who pronounce wicked decrees,and keep writing harmful laws
2. to deprive the needy of their rightsand to rob the poor among my people of justice;to make widows their loot;to steal from orphans!
3. What will you do on the day of punishmentwhen disaster comes from far away?To whom will you flee for help;where will you stash your wealth?
4. How will you avoid crouching among the prisonersand falling among the slain?Even so, God’s anger hasn’t turned away;God’s hand is still extended.
5. Doom to Assyria, rod of my anger,in whose hand is the staff of my fury!
6. Against a godless nation I send him;against an infuriating peopleI direct him to seize spoil, to steal plunder,and to trample them like mud in the streets.
7. But he has other plans;he schemes in secret;destruction is on his mind,extermination of nation after nation.
8. He says: Aren’t my commanders all kings?
9. Isn’t Calno like Carchemish?Isn’t Hamath like Arpad?Isn’t Samaria like Damascus?
10. Just as I took control of idolatrous kingdomswith more images than Jerusalem and Samaria,
11. just as I did to Samaria and her false gods,won’t I also do this to Jerusalem and her idols?
12. But when the Lord has finished all this work on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, he will punish the Assyrian king’s arrogant actions and the boasting of his haughty eyes.
13. He said, "By my own strength I have achieved it,and by my wisdom, since I’m so clever.I disregarded national boundaries; I raided their treasures;I knocked down their rulers like a bull.
14. My hand found the wealth of the peoplesas if it were in a nest.Just as one gathers abandoned eggs,I have gathered the entire earth;no creature fluttered a wing or opened a mouth to chirp."