2. to deprive the needy from justice, and to rob the poor among my people of their rights, that widows may be their plunder, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
3. What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?
4. They will only bow down under the prisoners, and will fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
5. Alas Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation!
6. I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me will I give him a command to take the plunder and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
7. However he doesn’t mean so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off not a few nations.
8. For he says, “Aren’t all of my princes kings?
9. Isn’t Calno like Carchemish? Isn’t Hamath like Arpad? Isn’t Samaria like Damascus?”
10. As my hand has found the kingdoms of the idols, whose engraved images exceeded those of Jerusalem and of Samaria;
11. shall I not, as I have done to Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?
12. Therefore it will happen that, when the Lord has performed his whole work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the willful proud heart of the king of Assyria, and the insolence of his haughty looks.
13. For he has said, “By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I have understanding: and I have removed the boundaries of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures. Like a valiant man I have brought down their rulers.