Ethiopia Will Be Punished
1 Downstream from Ethiopia
lies the country of Egypt,
swarming with insects.
2 Egypt sends messengers
up the Nile River
on ships made of reeds.
Send them fast to Ethiopia,
whose people are tall
and have smooth skin.
Their land is divided by rivers;
they are strong and brutal,
feared all over the world.
3 Everyone on this earth,
listen with care!
A signal will be given
on the mountains,
and you will hear a trumpet.
4 The Lord said to me,
“I will calmly look down
from my home above—
as calmly as the sun at noon
or clouds in the heat
of harvest season.”
5 Before the blossoms
can turn into grapes,
God will cut off the sprouts
and hack off the branches.
6 Ethiopians will be food
for mountain vultures
during the summer
and for wild animals
during the winter.
7 Those Ethiopians are tall and their skin is smooth. They are feared all over the world, because they are strong and brutal. But at that time they will come from their land divided by rivers, and they will bring gifts to the Lord All-Powerful, who is worshiped on Mount Zion.
1 Oh, the lande shadowing with winges, which is beyond the riuers of Ethiopia, 2 Sending ambassadours by the Sea, euen in vessels of reedes vpon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation that is scattered abroade, and spoyled, vnto a terrible people from their beginning euen hitherto: a nation by litle and litle, euen troden vnder foote, whose land the floods haue spoyled. 3 Al ye the inhabitants of ye world and dwellers in the earth, shall see when he setteth vp a signe in the mountaines, and when he bloweth the trumpet, ye shall heare. 4 For so the Lord saide vnto me, I will rest and beholde in my tabernacle, as the heate drying vp the rayne, and as a cloude of dewe in the heate of haruest. 5 For afore the haruest when the floure is finished, and the fruite is riping in the floure, then he shall cut downe the branches with hookes, and shall take away, and cut off the boughes: 6 They shall be left together vnto the foules of the mountaines, and to the beastes of the earth: for the foule shall sommer vpon it, and euery beast of the earth shall winter vpon it. 7 At that time shall a present be brought vnto the Lord of hostes, (a people that is scattered abroade, and spoyled, and of a terrible people from their beginning hitherto, a nation, by litle and litle euen troden vnder foote, whose land the riuers haue spoyled) to the place of the Name of the Lord of hostes, euen the mount Zion.