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1. Woe to those enacting crooked statutes and writing oppressive laws

2. to keep the poor from getting a fair trial and to deprive the needy among my people of justice, so that widows can be their spoil and they can plunder the fatherless.

3. What will you do on the day of punishment when devastation comes from far away? Who will you run to for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

4. There will be nothing to do except crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain. In all this, his anger has not turned away, and his hand is still raised to strike.

5. Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger — the staff in their hands is my wrath.

6. I will send him against a godless nation; I will command him to go against a people destined for my rage, to take spoils, to plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.

7. But this is not what he intends; this is not what he plans. It is his intent to destroy and to cut off many nations.

8. For he says, “Aren’t all my commanders kings?

9. Isn’t Calno like Carchemish? Isn’t Hamath like Arpad? Isn’t Samaria like Damascus?

10. As my hand seized the kingdoms of worthless images, kingdoms whose idols exceeded those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

11. and as I did to Samaria and its worthless images will I not also do to Jerusalem and its idols?”

12. But when the Lord finishes all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for his arrogant acts and the proud look in his eyes.”

13. For he said: I have done this by my own strength and wisdom, for I am clever. I abolished the borders of nations and plundered their treasures; like a mighty warrior, I subjugated the inhabitants.

14. My hand has reached out, as if into a nest, to seize the wealth of the nations. Like one gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered the whole earth. No wing fluttered; no beak opened or chirped.

15. Does an ax exalt itself above the one who chops with it? Does a saw magnify itself above the one who saws with it? It would be like a rod waving the ones who lift it! It would be like a staff lifting the one who isn’t wood!

16. Therefore the Lord God of Armies will inflict an emaciating disease on the well-fed of Assyria, and he will kindle a burning fire under its glory.

17. Israel’s Light will become a fire, and its Holy One, a flame. In one day it will burn and consume Assyria’s thorns and thistles.

18. He will completely destroy the glory of its forests and orchards as a sickness consumes a person.

19. The remaining trees of its forest will be so few in number that a child could count them.

20. On that day the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no longer depend on the one who struck them, but they will faithfully depend on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

21. The remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God.

22. Israel, even if your people were as numerous as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will return. Destruction has been decreed; justice overflows.

23. For throughout the land the Lord God of Armies is carrying out a destruction that was decreed.

24. Therefore, the Lord God of Armies says this: “My people who dwell in Zion, do not fear Assyria, though they strike you with a rod and raise their staff over you as the Egyptians did.

25. In just a little while my wrath will be spent and my anger will turn to their destruction.”

26. And the Lord of Armies will brandish a whip against him as he did when he struck Midian at the rock of Oreb; and he will raise his staff over the sea as he did in Egypt.

27. On that day his burden will fall from your shoulders, and his yoke from your neck. The yoke will be broken because your neck will be too large.

28. Assyria has come to Aiath and has gone through Migron, storing their equipment at Michmash.

29. They crossed over at the ford, saying, “We will spend the night at Geba.” The people of Ramah are trembling; those at Gibeah of Saul have fled.

30. Cry aloud, daughter of Gallim! Listen, Laishah! Anathoth is miserable.

31. Madmenah has fled. The inhabitants of Gebim have sought refuge.

32. Today the Assyrians will stand at Nob, shaking their fists at the mountain of Daughter Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.

33. Look, the Lord God of Armies will chop off the branches with terrifying power, and the tall trees will be cut down, the high trees felled.

34. He is clearing the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon with its majesty will fall.