12. After the Lord has used the king of Assyria to accomplish his purposes on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, he will turn against the king of Assyria and punish him—for he is proud and arrogant.
13. He boasts, “By my own powerful arm I have done this.With my own shrewd wisdom I planned it.I have broken down the defenses of nationsand carried off their treasures.I have knocked down their kings like a bull.
14. I have robbed their nests of richesand gathered up kingdoms as a farmer gathers eggs.No one can even flap a wing against meor utter a peep of protest.”
15. But can the ax boast greater power than the person who uses it?Is the saw greater than the person who saws?Can a rod strike unless a hand moves it?Can a wooden cane walk by itself?
16. Therefore, the Lord, the lord of Heaven’s Armies,will send a plague among Assyria’s proud troops,and a flaming fire will consume its glory.
17. The lord, the Light of Israel, will be a fire;the Holy One will be a flame.He will devour the thorns and briers with fire,burning up the enemy in a single night.
18. The lord will consume Assyria’s glorylike a fire consumes a forest in a fruitful land;it will waste away like sick people in a plague.
19. Of all that glorious forest, only a few trees will survive—so few that a child could count them!
20. In that day the remnant left in Israel,the survivors in the house of Jacob,will no longer depend on allieswho seek to destroy them.But they will faithfully trust the lord,the Holy One of Israel.
21. A remnant will return;yes, the remnant of Jacob will return to the Mighty God.
22. But though the people of Israel are as numerousas the sand of the seashore,only a remnant of them will return.The lord has rightly decided to destroy his people.