Jeremiah 50:18

¹²Therefore it will happen that when the Lord has performed his whole work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the willful proud heart of the king of Assyria, and the insolence of his arrogant looks.

³⁶Then the LORD’s angel went out and struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. ³⁷So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, went away, returned to Nineveh, and stayed there. ³⁸As he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place.

¹A revelation about Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. ²The LORD ^[+] is a jealous God ^[+] and avenges. The LORD avenges and is full of wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he maintains wrath against his enemies. ³The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. The LORD has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

³Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with beautiful branches, and with a forest-like shade, of high stature; and its top was among the thick boughs. ⁴The waters nourished it. The deep made it to grow. Its rivers ran all around its plantation. It sent out its channels to all the trees of the field. ⁵Therefore its stature was exalted above all the trees of the field; and its boughs were multiplied. Its branches became long by reason of many waters, when it spread them out. ⁶All the birds of the sky made their nests in its boughs. Under its branches, all the animals of the field gave birth to their young. All great nations lived under its shadow. ⁷Thus it was beautiful in its greatness, in the length of its branches; for its root was by many waters. ⁸The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it. The cypress trees were not like its branches. The pine trees were not like its branches; nor was any tree in the garden of God like it in its beauty. ⁹I made it beautiful by the multitude of its branches, so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied it.’

¹⁰“Therefore thus said the Lord GOD: ‘Because he is exalted in stature, and he has set his top among the thick branches, and his heart is lifted up in his height, ¹¹I will deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations. He will surely deal with him. I have driven him out for his wickedness. ¹²Foreigners, the tyrants of the nations, have cut him off and have left him. His branches have fallen on the mountains and in all the valleys, and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the land. All the peoples of the earth have gone down from his shadow and have left him. ¹³All the birds of the sky will dwell on his ruin, and all the animals of the field will be on his branches, ¹⁴to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves in their stature, and don’t set their top among the thick boughs. Their mighty ones don’t stand up on their height, even all who drink water; for they are all delivered to death, to the lower parts of the earth, among the children of men, with those who go down to the pit.’

¹⁵“The Lord GOD says: ‘In the day when he went down to Sheol,^[+] I caused a mourning. I covered the deep for him, and I restrained its rivers. The great waters were stopped. I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. ¹⁶I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Sheol^[+] with those who descend into the pit. All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth. ¹⁷They also went down into Sheol with him to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were his arm, who lived under his shadow in the middle of the nations.

¹³He will stretch out his hand against the north, destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, as dry as the wilderness. ¹⁴Herds will lie down in the middle of her, all kinds of animals. Both the pelican and the porcupine will lodge in its capitals. Their calls will echo through the windows. Desolation will be in the thresholds, for he has laid bare the cedar beams. ¹⁵This is the joyous city that lived carelessly, that said in her heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.” How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in! Everyone who passes by her will hiss and shake their fists.