¹Woe to those who issue vain decrees,

And the state secretaries who draw up iniquitous edicts,

²In denying the needy a legal process,

In robbing the poor among my people of justice,

With widows being their spoil,

And who plunder orphans.

³What will you do on the day of punishment,

And in the destruction which will come from far away?

To whom will you flee for help,

And where will you leave your honour?

⁴How will one not collapse in imprisonment,

Or what if they fall to join those killed?

Despite all this, his anger will not recede,

And his hand will still be stretched out.

⁵O Assyria, the rod of my anger,

The stick in whose hand is my indignation!

⁶I will send against them a profane nation,

And I will command them to go against the people with whom I am angry,

To take spoil and to seize plunder,

And to make them a trodden down phenomenon

Like the mire of the streets.

⁷However, they will not be conscious of this purpose,

And their heart will not so reason,

For it will just be in their heart

To destroy and cut off

Not a few nations.

⁸For he will say,

“Are not my officials a collection of kings?

⁹Is Calno not like Carchemish?

Or is Hamath not like Arpad?

Or is Samaria not like Damascus?

¹⁰When my hand finds idolatrous kingdoms,

And their carved images,

Surpassing those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

¹¹Will I not do to Jerusalem and its images

What I did to Samaria and its idols?”

¹²And it will come to pass, when the Lord^* has carried out all his work in Mount Zion and Jerusalem, that I will inflict punishment for the result of the high-mindedness of the king of Assyria and for the glorying of his haughty eyes. ¹³For he said,

“I acted in the strength of my hand,

And in my own wisdom,

For I am astute,

And I remove national borders,

And I plunder their lucre,

And I overthrow populations,

Like a mighty man.

¹⁴And my hand found the riches of various peoples like a nest.

And as one collects eggs that are abandoned,

So I collected the whole earth,

And there was no-one that fluttered a wing

Or opened his mouth and whispered.”

¹⁵Will the axe vaunt itself over him who hews with it?

Or will the saw make itself greater than him who handles it?

Likewise, can a rod lift the very ones who raise it?

Similarly, can a stick raise him who is not wood?

¹⁶This is why my Lord the Lord of hosts

Will send leanness into his fat places,

And instead of his glory,

There will be burning, as a fire burns.

¹⁷And the light of Israel will become fire,

And its holy one a flame,

And it will blaze and consume

Its briars and its thorns

In one day.

¹⁸And he will lay the glory of his forest and his orchard waste,

Both spiritually and physically,

And it will become like the exhausted state

Of one wasting away.

¹⁹And the remainder of the trees of his forest will be few in number,

And a boy will be able to set them down in writing.

²⁰And it will come to pass on that day

That the remainder of Israel

And the escaped remnant of the house of Jacob

Will no longer rely on the one who struck them,

And they will rely on the Lord

– The holy one of Israel –

In truth.

²¹The remainder will return

– The remainder of Jacob –

To the mighty God.

²⁴Therefore my Lord the Lord of hosts says this:

“My people who live in Zion,

Do not be afraid of Assyria.

They will strike you with a rod,

And lift their stick up against you,

In the way Egypt did,

²⁵But in a very short time,

The indignation will be concluded,

As will my anger,

At the time of their destruction.”

²⁶And the Lord of hosts will stir up a scourge over them,

Like the attack in Midian at the rock of Oreb.

And as his rod was on the sea,

So he will raise it,

In the same way as in Egypt.

²⁷And it will come to pass on that day

That his burden will be removed from your shoulder,

And his yoke from your neck.

And the yoke will be destroyed in front of the anointing oil.

²⁸He has come to Aiath,

He has crossed over to Migron;

He has deposited his equipment in Michmas.

²⁹They have crossed the pass;

They have taken up quarters in Geba.

Ramah is trembling;

Gibeah of Saul has fled.

³⁰Shout out, O daughter of Gallim,

Listen, O Laish,

O poor Anathoth.

³¹Madmenah has moved away;

The inhabitants of Gebim have secured their effects.

³²On the very day when he stands in Nob,

He will shake his fist

At the mountain of the daughter of Zion

– The hill of Jerusalem.

³³Behold, the Lord, the Lord of hosts,

Will cut off a bough with terror,

And those of high stature will be cut down,

And the haughty will be humbled.

³⁴And he will cut down the thickets of the forest with iron,

And Lebanon will be felled by a mighty one.

Reference(s) in Chapter 10: v.22 ↔ Romans 9:27, Romans 9:28 ● v.23 ↔ Romans 9:28.