Isaiah, 18

1. Disaster! Land of the whirring locust beyond the rivers of Cush,

2. who send ambassadors by sea, in little reed-boats across the waters! Go, swift messengers to a nation tall and bronzed, to a people feared far and near, a mighty and masterful nation whose country is criss-crossed with rivers.

3. All you who inhabit the world, you who people the earth, when the signal is hoisted on the mountains, you will see, when the ram's-horn is sounded, you will hear.

4. For this is what Yahweh has told me, 'I shall sit here quietly looking down, like the burning heat in the daytime, like a dewy mist in the heat of harvest.'

5. For, before the harvest, once the flowering is over and blossom turns into ripening grape, the branches will be cut off with pruning knives, and the shoots taken off, cut away.

6. All has been abandoned to the mountain birds of prey and the wild animals: the birds of prey will summer on them, and all the wild animals winter on them.

7. Then, an offering will be brought to Yahweh Sabaoth on behalf of a people tall and bronzed, on behalf of a people feared far and near, on behalf of a mighty and masterful nation whose country is criss-crossed with rivers: to the place where the name of Yahweh Sabaoth resides, Mount Zion.