Nahum

¹ Post guards, lay in supplies. Get yourselves together, get ready for the big battle.

² the Pride of Israel. Israel's lived through hard times. He's been to hell and back.

³ the soldiers splendid in battle dress, Chariots burnished and glistening, ready to charge, A spiked forest of brandished spears, lethal on the horizon.

⁴ They fill the public squares, Flaming like torches in the sun, like lightning darting and flashing.

⁵ but they stagger and stumble. They run to the ramparts to stem the tide, but it's too late.

⁶ The palace is demolished.

⁷ Nineveh stripped, Nineveh doomed, Maids and slaves moaning like doves, beating their breasts.

⁸ from which they've pulled the plug. Cries go up, "Do something! Do something!" but it's too late. Nineveh's soon empty—nothing.

⁹ Plunder the gold! A bonanza of plunder! Take everything you want!"

¹⁰ Hearts sink, knees fold, stomachs retch, faces blanch.

¹¹ and fierce Assyrian lion And all those cute Assyrian cubs? To the lion and lioness Cozy with their cubs, fierce and fearless?

¹² with fresh kills for lioness and cubs, The lion lair heaped with bloody meat, blood and bones for the royal lion feast?

¹³ says God-of-the-Angel-Armies. "I'll torch your chariots. They'll go up in smoke. 'Lion Country' will be strewn with carcasses. The war business is over—you're out of work: You'll have no more wars to report, No more victories to announce. You're out of war work forever."