Isaiah 18

1. Woe to the land of whirring of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,

2. Which sends ambassadors by the sea, even in ships of papyrus upon the waters, saying, “Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a terrifying people from their beginning onwards; a mighty and conquering nation, whose land the rivers have divided!”

3. All people of the world and dwellers upon the earth, you will see when a banner is lifted up on the peaks. And you will hear when the ram’s horn is blown,

4. For thus the LORD said to me, “I will take My rest, and I will look on from My dwelling place, like a clear heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

5. For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, then He will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches.

6. They shall be left together for the birds of the mountains, and for the beasts of the earth; and the birds shall feed upon them all summer, and all the beasts of the earth all winter.

7. In that time shall a present be brought to the LORD of hosts—from a terrifying, tall and smooth people, and from a people terrible from their beginning, a mighty and conquering nation whose land the rivers have divided—to the place of the name of the LORD of hosts, Mount Zion.