1 Woe to the land shadowed with buzzing wings,
Which is beyond the rivers of [a]Ethiopia,
Even in vessels of reed on the waters, saying,
“Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth of skin,
To a people terrible from their beginning onward,
A nation powerful and treading down,
Whose land the rivers divide.”
When he lifts up a banner on the mountains, you see it;
And when he blows a trumpet, you hear it.
“I will take My rest,
And I will [b]look from My dwelling place
Like clear heat in sunshine,
Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
And the sour grape is ripening in the flower,
He will both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks
And take away and cut down the branches.
And for the beasts of the earth;
The birds of prey will summer on them,
And all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.
[c]From a people tall and smooth of skin,
And from a people terrible from their beginning onward,
A nation powerful and treading down,
Whose land the rivers divide —
To the place of the name of the Lord of hosts,
To Mount Zion.