7. Yet that is not what Assyria intends, nor is that what he is thinking about. Rather his heart is to destroy, and to cut down nations—only a few!
8. For he says: “Aren’t all my princes kings?
9. Isn’t Calno like Carchemish? Isn’t Hamath like Arpad? Isn’t Samaria like Damascus?
10. As my hand has reached the kingdoms of the idols—with more graven images than Jerusalem and Samaria—
11. as I’ve done to Samaria and her idols, won’t I also do to Jerusalem and her idols?”
12. Therefore it will come to pass, when Adonai finishes all His work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, “I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria, and the glorying of his haughty eyes.”
13. For he said: “By the strength of my own hand I’ve done it, and my own wisdom, for I am shrewd! I abolished the borders of peoples, and plundered their treasures. As a mighty one I cast down inhabitants.
14. My hand found the riches of the peoples as a nest—like gathering forsaken eggs, I have gathered the entire earth. Not a wing fluttered, not a beak opened or chirped!”
15. Should the axe boast against the One who chops with it? Should the saw magnify itself against the One who wields it? It would be like a rod waving the One who lifts it, or like a staff hoisting up the One who is not wood!
16. Therefore will the Lord Adonai-Tzva’ot, send leanness among his fat ones. Under its glory He will kindle a burning like a blazing fire.
17. So the light of Israel will become a fire, and its Holy One a flame. He will burn and consume its thorns and briers in one day.
18. Both the glory of his forest and his fruitful field, he will consume, both soul and body. It will be like a sick man wasting away.
19. The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few, a child could record them.
20. Yet it will come about in that day that the remnant of Israel— those of the house of Jacob who escaped— will never again depend on the one who struck them down, but will depend upon Adonai, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.