CHAPTER 3
1 Woe to the city of bloods, all of leasing, full of rending; raven shall not go away from thee.
2 Voice of scourge, and voice of rush of wheel, and of horse making noise, and of [a] four-horsed cart burning,
3 and of knight going up, and of shining sword, and glistening spear, and of [the] slain multitude, and of grievous falling, neither there is end of carrions. And they shall fall together in their bodies,
4 for the multitude of [the] fornications of the whore fair and pleasant, and having witchcrafts; which sold folks in her fornications, and meines in her enchantments, either sorceries.
5 Lo! I to thee, saith the Lord God of hosts; and I shall show thy shameful things in thy face; and I shall show to folks thy nakedness, and to realms thine evil fame, either shame.
6 And I shall cast out on thee thine abominations, and I shall punish thee with despites, and I shall put thee into ensample.
7 And it shall be, each man that shall see thee, shall leap away from thee, and shall say, Nineveh is destroyed. Who shall move head on thee? whereof shall I seek to thee a comforter?
8 Whether thou art better than Alexandria of peoples, that dwelleth in or by the floods? Waters be in compass thereof, whose riches is the sea, waters be[the] walls thereof.
9 Ethiopia is[the] strength thereof, and Egypt, and there is none end; Africa and Libya were in help thereof.
10 But and it in transmigration, or passing over, is led into captivity; the little children thereof be hurtled down in the head of all ways. And on the noble men thereof they cast lot, and all great men thereof be set together in gyves, either fetters.
11 And thou therefore shalt be drunken, and shalt be despised, and thou shalt seek help because of the enemy.
12 All thy strengths or strongholds be as a fig tree, with his figs unripe; if they shall be shaken, they shall fall into the mouth of the eater.
13 Lo! thy people be women in the middle of thee; the gates of thy land shall be showed to opening to thine enemies; fire shall devour thine hinges.
14 Draw up to thee water for asieging, build thy strongholds; enter in[to] fen, and tread, thou undergoing hold a tilestone.
15 There fire shall eat thee, thou shalt perish by sword, it shall devour thee, as bruchus doeth; be thou gathered together as a bruchus, be thou multiplied as a locust.
16 Thou madest thy merchants more than be stars of heaven; a bruchus is spread abroad, and fly away.
17 Thy keepers be as locusts, and thy little children be as locusts of locusts, which sit together in hedges in the day of cold; the sun is risen, and they fled away, and the place of them is not known, where they were.
18 Thy shepherds nap, thou king of Assur, thy princes shall be buried; thy people oft was hid in hills, and there is not that shall gather.
19 Thy sorrow is not privy, thy wound is worst; all men that heard thine hearing pressed together hand on thee, for on whom passed not thy malice evermore?