The Prophet Nahum

⭑ Unlocked Dynamic Bible :: World English Bible Catholic ⭑

- Chapter 2 -

You people of Nineveh, your enemies are coming to attack you. So place guards on the tops of the walls around the city! Guard the roads into the city! Get ready to fight! Gather your troops together!

Even though your soldiers have destroyed the descendants of Jacob, Yahweh will cause other nations to honor them again. Invaders from your country have ruined Israel as enemies would uproot a vineyard, but Israel will prosper again.

The shields of the enemy soldiers who are coming to attack you will shine red as the sun shines on them, and they will wear bright red uniforms. The metal of their chariot wheels will flash when they line up before the battle, and their soldiers will lift up their cypress spear and wave them.

Their chariots dash through the streets of Nineveh and rush furiously through the plazas. Going as quickly as lightning, they look like flaming torches.

An officer gives a command to his officials, and they come to him so quickly that they stumble. They run up the city wall to attack it, and they set up a large wooden shield above the soldiers to protect them.

The enemy soldiers will force open the city gates on the rivers; the palace will collapse.

The queen will have her clothes stripped off her by enemy soldiers, and her slave girls will moan like doves and beat their breasts to show that they are very sad.

The people will rush from Nineveh like water rushes from a broken dam. The officials will shout, “Stop! Stop!” but the people will not even look back as they run away.

The enemy attackers say to each other, “Seize the silver! Grab the gold! There is a huge amount of very valuable things in the city, more valuable things than anyone can count!”

Soon everything valuable in the city will be seized or ruined. People will be trembling, with the result that they will not be able to fight. Their faces will all become pale with fear.

After that happens, people will say, “What happened to that great city of Nineveh? It was like a den full of young lions, where the male and female lions lived and fed the young ones, where they were afraid of nothing.

The soldiers in Nineveh were like lions that killed or strangled other animals and brought the meat to their dens.”

Yahweh, Commander of the angel armies, says to the people of Nineveh, “I am your enemy; I will cause your chariots to burn in fire and go up in smoke. Your young men will be killed with swords. I will make all the valuable things you stole from other nations disappear. Your messengers will never again take messages to other nations, demanding that their armies surrender to them.”

He who dashes in pieces has come up against you. Keep the fortress! Watch the way! Strengthen your waist! Fortify your power mightily!

For the LORD restores the excellency of Jacob as the excellency of Israel, for the destroyers have destroyed them and ruined their vine branches.

The shield of his mighty men is made red. The valiant men are in scarlet. The chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation, and the pine spears are brandished.

The chariots rage in the streets. They rush back and forth in the wide ways. Their appearance is like torches. They run like the lightnings.

He summons his picked troops. They stumble on their way. They dash to its wall, and the protective shield is put in place.

The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved.

It is decreed: she is uncovered, she is carried away; and her servants moan as with the voice of doves, beating on their breasts.

But Nineveh has been from of old like a pool of water, yet they flee away. “Stop! Stop!” they cry, but no one looks back.

Take the plunder of silver. Take the plunder of gold, for there is no end of treasure, an abundance of every precious thing.

She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.

Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion and the lioness walked with the lion’s cubs, and no one made them afraid?

The lion tore in pieces enough for his cubs, and strangled prey for his lionesses, and filled his caves with the kill and his dens with prey.

“Behold, I am against you,” says the LORD of Armies, “and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions; and I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers will no longer be heard.”