1. “Woe to those making unrighteous laws, and writers who have prescribed toil,
2. to keep the needy back from right-ruling, and to take what is right from the poor of My people, that widows become their prey, and orphans their plunder.
3. “What shall you do in the day of visitation, and in the ruin which comes from afar? To whom would you run for help? And where would you leave your wealth?
4. “Without Me they shall bow down among the prisoners, and fall among the slain.” With all this His displeasure has not turned back, and His hand is still stretched out.
5. “Woe to Ashshur, the rod of My displeasure and the staff in whose hand is My displeasure.
6. “Against a defiled nation I send him, and against the people of My wrath I command him to seize the spoil, to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mud of the streets.
7. “But he does not intend so, nor does his heart think so, for it is in his heart to destroy, and cut off not a few nations.
8. “For he says, ‘Are not my princes sovereigns?
9. ‘Is not Kalno like Karkemish? Is not Ḥamath like Arpaḏ? Is not Shomeron like Damascus?
10. ‘As my hand has found the reigns of the idols, whose carved images excelled those of Yerushalayim and Shomeron,
11. as I have done to Shomeron and her idols, do I not do also to Yerushalayim and her idols?’
12. “And it shall be, when יהוה has performed all His work on Mount Tsiyon and on Yerushalayim, that I shall punish the fruit of the greatness of the heart of the sovereign of Ashshur, and the boasting of his haughty looks.
13. “For he has said, ‘By the power of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I have been clever. And I remove the boundaries of the people, and have robbed their treasuries. And I put down the inhabitants like a strong one.
14. ‘And my hand finds the riches of the people like a nest. And I have gathered all the earth like forsaken eggs are gathered. And there was no one who moved his wing, nor opened his mouth with even a peep.’ ”