1-4. Doom to you who legislate evil,who make laws that make victims—Laws that make misery for the poor,that rob my destitute people of dignity,Exploiting defenseless widows,taking advantage of homeless children.What will you have to say on Judgment Day,when Doomsday arrives out of the blue?Who will you get to help you?What good will your money do you?A sorry sight you’ll be then, huddled with the prisoners,or just some corpses stacked in the street.Even after all this, God is still angry,his fist still raised, ready to hit them again.
5-11. “Doom to Assyria, weapon of my anger.My wrath is a cudgel in his hands!I send him against a godless nation,against the people I’m angry with.I command him to strip them clean, rob them blind,and then push their faces in the mud and leave them.But Assyria has another agenda;he has something else in mind.He’s out to destroy utterly,to stamp out as many nations as he can.Assyria says, ‘Aren’t my commanders all kings?Can’t they do whatever they like?Didn’t I destroy Calno as well as Carchemish?Hamath as well as Arpad? Level Samaria as I did Damascus?I’ve eliminated kingdoms full of godsfar more impressive than anything in Jerusalem and Samaria.So what’s to keep me from destroying Jerusalemin the same way I destroyed Samaria and all her god-idols?’”
12-13. When the Master has finished dealing with Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he’ll say, “Now it’s Assyria’s turn. I’ll punish the bragging arrogance of the king of Assyria, his high and mighty posturing, the way he goes around saying,
13-14. “‘I’ve done all this by myself.I know more than anyone.I’ve wiped out the boundaries of whole countries.I’ve walked in and taken anything I wanted.I charged in like a bulland toppled their kings from their thrones.I reached out my hand and took all that they treasuredas easily as a boy taking a bird’s eggs from a nest.Like a farmer gathering eggs from the henhouse,I gathered the world in my basket,And no one so much as fluttered a wingor squawked or even chirped.’”
15-19. Does an ax take over from the one who swings it?Does a saw act more important than the sawyer?As if a shovel did its shoveling by using a ditch digger!As if a hammer used the carpenter to pound nails!Therefore the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,will send a debilitating disease on his robust Assyrian fighters.Under the canopy of God’s bright glorya fierce fire will break out.Israel’s Light will burst into a conflagration.The Holy will explode into a firestorm,And in one day burn to cindersevery last Assyrian thornbush.God will destroy the splendid trees and lush gardens.The Assyrian body and soul will waste away to nothinglike a disease-ridden invalid.A child could count what’s left of the treeson the fingers of his two hands.