Isaiah 18:4-6

Common English Bible

⁴ The Lord said to me:
    I will quietly watch from my own place,
    like the shimmering heat of sunshine,
    like a cloud’s shade in the harvest heat.
⁵ Before the harvest, when the bloom is finished, when the blossom is becoming
a ripening fruit,
    God will cut the shoots with a pruning knife,
    and lop off the spreading branches.
⁶     They will all be left to the mountain birds
        and to the beasts of the land.
    The birds will eat them in summer,
    all the beasts of the land in winter.