Indeed every boot that marches and shakes the earth ¹  and every garment dragged through blood is used as fuel for the fire.

You take olive oil as tribute ¹  to your king, ²  along with many perfumes. ³  You send your messengers to a distant place; you go all the way to Sheol. ⁴ 

Send rams as tribute to the ruler of the land, ¹  from Sela in the desert ²  to the hill of Daughter Zion.

For their oppressive yoke and the club that strikes their shoulders, the cudgel the oppressor uses on them, ¹  you have shattered, as in the day of Midian’s defeat. ² 

They will no longer injure or destroy on my entire royal mountain. ¹  For there will be universal submission to the Lord’s sovereignty, just as the waters completely cover the sea. ² 

There will be a highway leading out of Assyria for the remnant of his people, ¹  just as there was for Israel, when ²  they went up from the land of Egypt.

We were pregnant, we strained, we gave birth, as it were, to wind. ¹  We cannot produce deliverance on the earth; people to populate the world are not born. ² 

For the Lord’s power will make this mountain secure. ¹  Moab will be trampled down where it stands, ²  as a heap of straw is trampled down in ³  a manure pile.

Look, the sovereign Lord comes as a victorious warrior; ¹  his military power establishes his rule. ²  Look, his reward is with him; his prize goes before him. ³ 

No longer will they build a house only to have another live in it, ¹  or plant a vineyard only to have another eat its fruit, ²  for my people will live as long as trees, ³  and my chosen ones will enjoy to the fullest what they have produced. ⁴ 

I have stirred up one out of the north ¹  and he advances, one from the eastern horizon who prays in my name. ²  He steps on ³  rulers as if they were clay, like a potter treading the clay.

Their arrows are sharpened, and all their bows are prepared. ¹  The hooves of their horses are hard as flint, ²  and their chariot wheels are like a windstorm. ³ 

like heat ¹  in a dry land, you humble the boasting foreigners. ²  Just as the shadow of a cloud causes the heat to subside, ³  so he causes the song of tyrants to cease. ⁴ 

They will pass through the land ¹  destitute and starving. Their hunger will make them angry, ²  and they will curse their king and their God ³  as they look upward.

You said, ‘I will rule forever as permanent queen!’ ¹  You did not think about these things; ²  you did not consider how it would turn out. ³ 

It was reported to the family ¹  of David, “Syria has allied with ²  Ephraim.” They and their people were emotionally shaken, just as the trees of the forest shake before the wind. ³ 

Now go, write it ¹  down on a tablet in their presence, ²  inscribe it on a scroll, so that it might be preserved for a future time as an enduring witness. ³ 

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, ¹  your deliverer. I have handed over Egypt as a ransom price, Ethiopia and Seba ²  in place of you.

For Syria’s leader is Damascus, and the leader of Damascus is Rezin. Within sixty-five years Ephraim will no longer exist as a nation. ¹ 

The sovereign Lord has given me the capacity to be his spokesman, ¹  so that I know how to help the weary. ²  He wakes me up every morning; he makes me alert so I can listen attentively as disciples do. ³