Nahum 2:1

⁹Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war! Stir up the mighty men. Let all the warriors draw near. Let them come up. ¹⁰Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’ ¹¹Hurry and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves together.” Cause your mighty ones to come down there, LORD.

⁸But if you will go, take action, and be strong for the battle. God will overthrow you before the enemy; for God has power to help, and to overthrow.”

²⁰“You are my battle ax and weapons of war. With you I will break the nations into pieces. With you I will destroy kingdoms. ²¹With you I will break in pieces the horse and his rider. ²²With you I will break in pieces the chariot and him who rides therein. With you I will break in pieces man and woman. With you I will break in pieces the old man and the youth. With you I will break in pieces the young man and the virgin. ²³With you I will break in pieces the shepherd and his flock. With you I will break in pieces the farmer and his yoke. With you I will break in pieces governors and deputies.

¹¹“Make the arrows sharp! Hold the shields firmly! The LORD has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it; for it is the vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance of his temple. ¹²Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon! Make the watch strong! Set the watchmen, and prepare the ambushes; for the LORD has both purposed and done that which he spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.

²³How the hammer of the whole earth is cut apart and broken! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations!

³“Prepare the buckler and shield, and draw near to battle! ⁴Harness the horses, and get up, you horsemen, and stand up with your helmets. Polish the spears, put on the coats of mail. ⁵Why have I seen it? They are dismayed and are turned backward. Their mighty ones are beaten down, have fled in haste, and don’t look back. Terror is on every side,” says the LORD. ⁶“Don’t let the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape. In the north by the river Euphrates they have stumbled and fallen. ⁷“Who is this who rises up like the Nile, like rivers whose waters surge? ⁸Egypt rises up like the Nile, like rivers whose waters surge. He says, ‘I will rise up. I will cover the earth. I will destroy cities and its inhabitants.’ ⁹Go up, you horses! Rage, you chariots! Let the mighty men go out: Cush and Put, who handle the shield; and the Ludim, who handle and bend the bow. ¹⁰For that day is of the Lord, GOD of Armies, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge himself of his adversaries. The sword will devour and be satiated, and will drink its fill of their blood; for the Lord, GOD ^[+] of Armies, has a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.

⁶who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that no one restrained.

¹⁴Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong. ¹⁵There the fire will devour you. The sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the grasshopper. Multiply like grasshoppers. Multiply like the locust.

⁹behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says the LORD, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.