3. Lawmakers, you will have to explain what you have done. What will you do then? Your destruction is coming from a faraway country. Where will you run for help? Your money and your riches will not help you.
4. You will have to bow down like a prisoner. You will fall down like a dead man, but that will not help you. God will still be angry and ready to punish you.
5. The Lord says, “I will use Assyria like a stick. In my anger I will use Assyria to punish Israel.
6. I will send Assyria to fight against the people who do evil. I am angry with them, and I will command Assyria to fight against them. Assyria will defeat them and take their wealth. Israel will be like dirt for Assyria to walk on in the streets.
7. “But Assyria does not understand that I will use him. He does not think of himself as my tool. He only wants to destroy other people. He only plans to destroy many nations.
8. Assyria says to himself, ‘All of my officers are like kings!
9. The city of Calno is no better than the city of Carchemish. Arpad is like Hamath, and Samaria is like Damascus.
10. I defeated those evil kingdoms and now I control them. The idols those people worship are better than the idols of Jerusalem and Samaria.
11. I defeated Samaria and her gods. I will also defeat Jerusalem and the idols her people have made.’”
12. When the Lord finishes doing what he planned to Jerusalem and Mount Zion, he will punish Assyria. The king of Assyria is very proud. His pride made him do many bad things, so God will punish him.
13. The king of Assyria said, “I am very wise. By my own wisdom and power I have done many great things. I have defeated many nations. I have taken their wealth and their people as slaves. I am a very powerful man.
14. With my own hands I have taken the riches of all these people—like someone taking eggs from a bird’s nest. A bird often leaves its nest and eggs, and there is nothing to protect the nest. There is no bird to chirp and fight with its wings and beak, so anyone can come take the eggs. And there is no one to stop me from taking all the people on earth.”