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God Will Punish Ethiopia

18 (A)Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia[a] there is a land where the sound of wings is heard. From that land ambassadors come down the Nile in boats made of reeds. Go back home, swift messengers! Take a message back to your land divided by rivers, to your strong and powerful nation, to your tall and smooth-skinned people, who are feared all over the world.

Listen, everyone who lives on earth! Look for a signal flag to be raised on the mountaintops! Listen for the blowing of the bugle!

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 18:1 Hebrew Cush(ites): Cush is the ancient name of the extensive territory south of the First Cataract of the Nile River. This region was called Ethiopia in Graeco-Roman times, and included within its borders most of modern Sudan and some of present-day Ethiopia (Abyssinia).

A Prophecy Against Cush

18 Woe(A) to the land of whirring wings[a]
    along the rivers of Cush,[b](B)
which sends envoys(C) by sea
    in papyrus(D) boats over the water.

Go, swift messengers,
to a people tall and smooth-skinned,(E)
    to a people feared far and wide,
an aggressive(F) nation of strange speech,
    whose land is divided by rivers.(G)

All you people of the world,(H)
    you who live on the earth,
when a banner(I) is raised on the mountains,
    you will see it,
and when a trumpet(J) sounds,
    you will hear it.

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 18:1 Or of locusts
  2. Isaiah 18:1 That is, the upper Nile region