18:1  WOE TO the land whirring with wings which is beyond the rivers of Cush {or} Ethiopia,

18:2  That sends ambassadors by the Nile, even in vessels of papyrus upon the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and polished, to a people terrible from their beginning [feared and dreaded near and far], a nation strong and victorious, whose land the rivers divide!

18:3  All you inhabitants of the world, you who dwell on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains--look! When a trumpet is blown--hear!

18:4  For thus the Lord has said to me: I will be still and I will look on from My dwelling place, like clear {and} glowing heat in sunshine, like a fine cloud of mist in the heat of harvest.

18:5  For before the harvest, when the blossom is over and the flower becomes a ripening grape, He will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches He will remove and cut away.

18:6  They [the dead bodies of the slain warriors] shall be left together to the ravenous birds of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth; and the ravenous birds will summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth will winter upon them.

18:7  At that time shall a present be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people tall and polished, from a people terrible from their beginning {and} feared {and} dreaded near and far, a nation strong and victorious, whose land the rivers {or} great channels divide--to the place [of worship] of the Name of the Lord of hosts, to Mount Zion [in Jerusalem].