13. For he said: “By the strength of my own hand I’ve done it, and my own wisdom, for I am shrewd! I abolished the borders of peoples, and plundered their treasures. As a mighty one I cast down inhabitants.
14. My hand found the riches of the peoples as a nest—like gathering forsaken eggs, I have gathered the entire earth. Not a wing fluttered, not a beak opened or chirped!”
15. Should the axe boast against the One who chops with it? Should the saw magnify itself against the One who wields it? It would be like a rod waving the One who lifts it, or like a staff hoisting up the One who is not wood!
16. Therefore will the Lord Adonai-Tzva’ot, send leanness among his fat ones. Under its glory He will kindle a burning like a blazing fire.
17. So the light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame. He will burn and consume its thorns and briers in one day.
18. Both the glory of his forest and his fruitful field, he will consume, both soul and body. It will be like a sick man wasting away.
19. The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few, a child could record them.
20. Yet it will come about in that day that the remnant of Israel— those of the house of Jacob who escaped— will never again depend on the one who struck them down, but will depend upon Adonai, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.
21. A remnant will return, even the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God.
22. For though your people, O Israel, be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction has been decreed. Justice overflows.
23. For a complete destruction, as decreed, will Adonai Elohei-Tzva’ot make throughout the whole land.
24. Therefore thus says Adonai Elohei-Tzva’ot: “O My people dwelling in Zion, do not be afraid of Assyria, though he strike you with the war-club, and lift up his rod against you, as Egypt did.
25. “For in a very little while My indignation against you will be spent, and My anger will turn to their destruction.”
26. Adonai-Tzva’ot will stir up against him a scourge, as in the slaughter of Midian at the Rock of Oreb. As His staff was over the sea, so will He lift it up, as He did in Egypt.
27. In that day his burden will be taken off your shoulders, and his yoke off your neck. Indeed, the yoke will be broken because of fatness.
28. He has come to Aiath, and passed through Migron. At Michmas he deposited his supplies.
29. They have crossed over the pass. They have taken up lodging at Geba. Ramah is terrified; Gibeath-shaul has fled.
30. Shriek your cry, daughter of Gallim! Listen, O Laish! O poor Anathoth!
31. Madmenah has fled. The inhabitants of Gebim take cover.
32. This very day he will halt at Nob. He shakes his fist at the mountain of the Daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.