1. Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers that write perverseness;
2. to turn aside the needy from justice, and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
3. And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?
4. They shall only bow down under the prisoners, and shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
5. Ho Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, the staff in whose hand is mine indignation!
6. I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
7. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few.
8. For he saith, Are not my princes all of them kings?
9. Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus?
10. As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria;
11. shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?
12. Wherefore it shall come to pass, that, when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.