Nahum 2
1INTO thy presence came up panting one who is delivered from affliction. Watch the way; strengthen thy loins; act manfully with all thy might,
2since the Lord hath averted contumely from Jacob, as He did [avert] reproach from Israel; since emptiers have emptied them out and destroyed their branches—
3the instruments of their tyranny—from among men, their mighty men insulting with fire. In the day of His preparation the reins of their chariots, and the horsemen will be disordered in their ranks;
4and the chariots will jostle together and be entangled with one another in the streets. The appearance of them is like flaming torches and like streamy lightning.
5Their grandees will recollect and flee by day; but they shall be weak in their march. While they shall be hasting to her walls, and preparing their out guards;
6the gates of the cities are opened, and the palaces are fallen.
7And the empress herself is exposed to view; even she herself is gone up, and her maids are led along, cooing plaintively like doves in their hearts.
8As for Ninive, her waters are like a standing pool. They who fled away made no halt, nor was there one who looked back.
9They plundered the silver; they plundered the gold; but of her furniture there was no end; every one is loaded with her precious utensils.
10What quaking and driving! what groans and heart breaking! what feebleness of knees and pangs in every loin! what blackness, like that of a pot, on the countenance of all!
11where is the habitation of the lions, and the feeding places of the young lions? Where had the old lions gone, that a young lion entered and there was none to scare him?
12The old lion had seized enough for his whelps, and had strangled for his lionesses, and had filled his hole with prey, and his den with ravin:
13behold I am against thee saith the Lord Almighty, and I will burn out thy multitude with smoke; and a sword shall devour thy lions: and I will cut off thy prey from the earth; and of thy deeds nothing more shall be heard.