1. Woe [to] those decreeing decrees of iniquity, And writers who have prescribed perverseness.
2. To turn aside from judgment the poor, And to take violently away the judgment Of the afflicted of My people, That widows may be their prey, That the fatherless they may spoil.
3. And what do ye at a day of inspection? And at desolation? --from afar it cometh. Near whom do ye flee for help? And where do ye leave your honour?
4. Without Me it hath bowed down In the place of a bound one, And in the place of the slain they fall. With all this not turned back hath His anger, And still His hand is stretched out.
5. Woe [to] Asshur, a rod of Mine anger, And a staff in their hand [is] Mine indignation.
6. Against a profane nation I send him, And concerning a people of My wrath I charge him, To spoil spoil, and to seize prey, And to make it a treading-place as the clay of out places.
7. And he--he thinketh not so, And his heart reckoneth not so, For--to destroy [is] in his heart, And to cut off nations not a few.
8. For he saith, `Are not my princes altogether kings?
9. Is not Calno as Carchemish? Is not Hamath as Arpad? Is not Samaria as Damascus?
10. As my hand hath got to the kingdoms of a worthless thing, and their graven images, [Greater] than Jerusalem and than Samaria,
11. Do I not--as I have done to Samaria, And to her worthless things, So do to Jerusalem and to her grievous things?
12. And it hath come to pass, When the Lord doth fulfil all His work In mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I see concerning the fruit of the greatness Of the heart of the king of Asshur. And concerning the glory of the height of his eyes.
13. For he hath said, `By the power of my hand I have wrought, And by my wisdom, for I have been intelligent, And I remove borders of the peoples, And their chief ones I have spoiled, And I put down as a mighty one the inhabitants,
14. And my hand as to a nest Getteth to the wealth of the peoples, And as a gathering of forsaken eggs All the earth I--I have gathered, And there hath not been one moving wing, Or opening mouth, or whispering.'