Isaiah 18

1Ah, land of whirring wings, which lies beyond the rivers of Cush.

2which sends envoys by the sea in rush vessels upon the waters, “Go, swift messengers, to a nation stretched and shaven, to a people dreaded from their origins onward, a nation measured line by line and trampled, whose rivers despoil its land!”

3All who inhabit the world and dwell on the earth, look when a banner rises on the mountains, and listen when the trumpet sounds.

4For thus Yahweh said to me, "I will be quiet and at rest, and I will watch from my dwelling place like clear heat in the sunlight, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest."

5For before the harvest, when the blossom is complete and the ripening sour grape becomes a flower, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks and remove and cut down the spreading branches.

6They will be abandoned together to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth; the birds of prey will summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth will winter upon them.

7At that time tribute will be brought to Yahweh of hosts from a tall and shaven people, from a dreaded people from their outset onward, a nation measured line by line and trampled, whose rivers carve up its land, to the place of the name of Yahweh of hosts, Mount Zion.