3:1  Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and booty--no end to the plunder!

3:2  The crack of whip, and rumble of wheel, galloping horse and bounding chariot!

3:3  Horsemen charging, flashing sword and glittering spear, hosts of slain, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end--they stumble over the bodies!

3:4  And all for the countless harlotries of the harlot, graceful and of deadly charms, who betrays nations with her harlotries, and peoples with her charms.

3:5  Behold, I am against you, says the LORD of hosts, and will lift up your skirts over your face; and I will let nations look on your nakedness and kingdoms on your shame.

3:6  I will throw filth at you and treat you with contempt, and make you a gazingstock.

3:7  And all who look on you will shrink from you and say, Wasted is Nin'eveh; who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for her?

3:8  Are you better than Thebes that sat by the Nile, with water around her, her rampart a sea, and water her wall?

3:9  Ethiopia was her strength, Egypt too, and that without limit; Put and the Libyans were her helpers.

3:10  Yet she was carried away, she went into captivity; her little ones 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.

3:11  You also will be drunken, you will be dazed; you will seek a refuge from the enemy.

3:12  All your fortresses are like fig trees with first-ripe figs--if shaken they fall into the mouth of the eater.

3:13  Behold, your troops are women in your midst. The gates of your land are wide open to your foes; fire has devoured your bars.

3:14  Draw water for the siege, strengthen your forts; go into the clay, tread the mortar, take hold of the brick mold!

3:15  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!

3:16  You increased your merchants more than the stars of the heavens. The locust spreads its wings and flies away.

3:17  Your princes are like grasshoppers, your scribes 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.

3:18  Your shepherds are asleep, O king of Assyria; your nobles slumber. Your people are scattered on the mountains with none to gather them.

3:19  There is no assuaging your hurt, your wound is grievous. All who hear the news of you clap their hands