Add parallel Print Page Options

14 Draw water for the siege,[a]
    strengthen your fortresses;
Go down into the mud
    and tread the clay,
    take hold of the brick mold!
15 There the fire will consume you,
    the sword will cut you down;
    it will consume you like the grasshoppers.

Multiply like the grasshoppers,
    multiply like the locusts!(A)
16 You have made your traders[b] more numerous
    than the stars of the heavens;
    like grasshoppers that shed their skins and fly away.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 3:14 An ironic exhortation to prepare the city for a futile defense. Go down…brick mold: make bricks for the city walls.
  2. 3:16 Traders: agents of the economic exploitation that sustained and enriched the Assyrian empire.

14 Draw water for the siege,(A)
    strengthen your defenses!(B)
Work the clay,
    tread the mortar,
    repair the brickwork!
15 There the fire(C) will consume you;
    the sword(D) will cut you down—
    they will devour you like a swarm of locusts.
Multiply like grasshoppers,
    multiply like locusts!(E)
16 You have increased the number of your merchants
    till they are more numerous than the stars in the sky,
but like locusts(F) they strip the land
    and then fly away.

Read full chapter