5. The Lord said, “Assyria! I use Assyria like a club to punish those with whom I am angry.
6. I sent Assyria to attack a godless nation, people who have made me angry. I sent them to loot and steal and trample on the people like dirt in the streets.”
7. But the Assyrian emperor has his own violent plans in mind. He is determined to destroy many nations.
8. He boasts, “Every one of my commanders is a king!
9. I conquered the cities of Calno and Carchemish, the cities of Hamath and Arpad. I conquered Samaria and Damascus.
10. I stretched out my hand to punish those kingdoms that worship idols, idols more numerous than those of Jerusalem and Samaria.
11. I have destroyed Samaria and all its idols, and I will do the same to Jerusalem and the images that are worshipped there.”
12. But the Lord says, “When I finish what I am doing on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will punish the emperor of Assyria for all his boasting and all his pride.”
13. The emperor of Assyria boasts, “I have done it all myself. I am strong and wise and clever. I wiped out the boundaries between nations and took the supplies they had stored. Like a bull I have trampled on the people who live there.
14. The nations of the world were like a bird's nest, and I gathered their wealth as easily as gathering eggs. Not a wing fluttered to scare me off; no beak opened to scream at me!”
15. But the Lord says, “Can an axe claim to be greater than the man who uses it? Is a saw more important than the man who saws with it? A club doesn't lift up a man; a man lifts up a club.”
16. The Lord Almighty is going to send disease to punish those who are now well fed. In their bodies there will be a fire that burns and burns.
17. God, the light of Israel, will become a fire. Israel's holy God will become a flame, which in a single day will burn up everything, even the thorns and thistles.
18. The rich forests and farmlands will be totally destroyed, in the same way that a fatal sickness destroys a person.
19. There will be so few trees left that even a child will be able to count them.
20. A time is coming when the people of Israel who have survived will no longer rely on the nation that almost destroyed them. They will truly put their trust in the Lord, Israel's holy God.
21. A few of the people of Israel will come back to their mighty God.