Isaiah 18
1 Woe to you, ye wings of the land of
ships, beyond the rivers of Ethiopia.
2 aGr. He that sends.He sends messengers by the sea, and paper letters on the water: for swift
messengers shall go to a lofty nation, and to a strange and harsh people. Who
is beyond it? a nation not looked for, and trodden down.
3 Now all the rivers of the land shall
be inhabited as an inhabited country; their land shall be as when a signal is
raised from a mountain; it shall be audible as the sound of a trumpet.
4 For thus said the Lord to me, There
shall be security in my city, as the light of noonday heat, and it shall be as
a cloud of dew in the day of harvest.
5 Before the reaping time, when the
flower has been completely formed, and the unripe grape has put forth its
flower and blossomed, then shall he take away the little clusters with
pruning-hooks, and shall take away the small branches, and cut them off;
6 and he shall leave
them together to the birds of the sky, and to the
wild beasts of the earth: and the fowls of the sky shall be gathered upon
them, and all the beasts of the land shall come upon him.
7 In that time shall presents be
brought to the Lord of hosts from a people afflicted and peeled, and from a
people great from henceforth and for ever; a nation hoping and
yet trodden down, which is in a part of a river of
his land, to the place where is the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount Sion.