1WOE TO the land whirring with wings which is beyond the rivers of Cush or Ethiopia,
2That sends ambassadors by the Nile, even in vessels of papyrus upon the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and polished, to a people terrible from their beginning [feared and dreaded near and far], a nation strong and victorious, whose land the rivers divide!
3All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains--look! When a trumpet is blown--hear!
4For thus the Lord has said to me: I will be still and I will look on from My dwelling place, like clear and glowing heat in sunshine, like a fine cloud of mist in the heat of harvest.
5For before the harvest, when the blossom is over and the flower becomes a ripening grape, He will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches He will remove and cut away.
6They [the dead bodies of the slain warriors] shall be left together to the ravenous birds of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth; and the ravenous birds will summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth will winter upon them.
7At that time shall a present be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people tall and polished, from a people terrible from their beginning and feared and dreaded near and far, a nation strong and victorious, whose land the rivers or great channels divide--to the place [of worship] of the Name of the Lord of hosts, to Mount Zion [in Jerusalem]. [Deut. 12:5; II Chron. 32:23; Isa. 16:1; 45:14; Zeph. 3:10.]