1A destroyer has risen in front of your face; guard the ramparts, keep watch on the road, brace yourselves, marshall all your strength.
2For ADONAI is restoring the pride of Ya'akov, along with the pride of Isra'el; because plunderers have plundered them and ravaged their vines.
3The shields of [Ninveh's] warriors are [dyed] red; the soldiers are wearing scarlet. The steel of the chariots flashes like fire as they prepare for battle. The cypress [spears] are poisoned.
4The chariots rush madly about in the streets, jostling each other in the open places; their appearance is like torches, they run here and there like lightning.
5[The king of Ninveh] assigns his officers; they stumble as they march; they hurry to its wall and set up shields to protect the battering ram.
6The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace melts away.
7Its mistress is stripped and carried away; her handmaids moan, they sound like doves, as they beat their breasts.
8Ninveh is like a pool whose water ebbs away. "Stop! Stop!" But none of it goes back.
9Plunder the silver! Plunder the gold! There is no end to the treasure, weighed down with precious things.
10She is void, vacant; she is made bare. Hearts are melting, knees are knocking; every stomach is churning, every face is drained of color.
11What has become of the lion's den, the cave where the young lions fed, where lion and lioness walked with their cubs, and no one made them afraid?
12The lion would tear up food for his cubs and strangle prey for his lionesses; he used to fill his caves with prey, his lairs with torn flesh.
13"I am against you," says ADONAI-Tzva'ot. "Her chariots I will send up in smoke, the sword will consume your lion cubs, I will destroy your prey from the earth, and your envoys' voices will be heard no more."