17. Your courtiers are like locusts,your officials are like a swarm of locusts!They encamp in the walls on a cold day,yet when the sun rises, they fly away; and no one knows where they are.
18. Your shepherds are sleeping, O king of Assyria!Your officers are slumbering!Your people are scattered like sheep on the mountainsand there is no one to regather them!
19. Your destruction is like an incurable wound;your demise is like a fatal injury!All who hear what has happened to you will clap their hands for joy,for no one ever escaped your endless cruelty!