⁵ Behold, I am against you,
    declares the Lord of hosts,
    and will lift up your skirts over your face;
and I will make nations look at your nakedness
    and kingdoms at your shame.
⁶ I will throw filth at you
    and treat you with contempt
    and make you a spectacle.
⁷ And all who look at you will shrink from you and say,
“Wasted is Nineveh; who will grieve for her?”
    Where shall I seek comforters for you?

⁸ Are you better than Thebes^[a]
    that sat by the Nile,
with water around her,
    her rampart a sea,
    and water her wall?
⁹ Cush was her strength;
    Egypt too, and that without limit;
    Put and the Libyans were her^[b] helpers.

¹⁰ Yet she became an exile;
    she went into captivity;
her infants were dashed in pieces
    at the head of every street;
for her honored men lots were cast,
    and all her great men were bound in chains.
¹¹ You also will be drunken;
    you will go into hiding;
you will seek a refuge from the enemy.
¹² All your fortresses are like fig trees
    with first-ripe figs—
if shaken they fall
    into the mouth of the eater.
¹³ Behold, your troops
    are women in your midst.
The gates of your land
    are wide open to your enemies;
    fire has devoured your bars.

¹⁴ Draw water for the siege;
    strengthen your forts;
go into the clay;
    tread the mortar;
    take hold of the brick mold!
¹⁵ There will the fire devour you;
    the sword will cut you off.
    It will devour you like the locust.
Multiply yourselves like the locust;
    multiply like the grasshopper!
¹⁶ You increased your merchants
    more than the stars of the heavens.
    The locust spreads its wings and flies away.

¹⁷ Your princes are like grasshoppers,
    your scribes^[c] like clouds of locusts
settling on the fences
    in a day of cold—
when the sun rises, they fly away;
    no one knows where they are.

¹⁸ Your shepherds are asleep,
    O king of Assyria;
    your nobles slumber.
Your people are scattered on the mountains
    with none to gather them.
¹⁹ There is no easing your hurt;
    your wound is grievous.
All who hear the news about you
    clap their hands over you.
For upon whom has not come
    your unceasing evil?