Isaiah 18

¹ Country of whirring wings beyond the rivers of Cush,

² who send ambassadors by sea, in papyrus skiffs over the waters. Go, swift messengers to a people tall and bronzed, to a nation always feared, a people mighty and masterful, in the country criss-crossed with rivers.

³ All you who inhabit the world, you who people the earth, the signal is being hoisted on the mountains, look! The horn is being sounded, listen!

⁴ For thus Yahweh speaks to me: From where I am I gaze, untroubled, like the clear heat produced by light, like a dewy mist in the heat of harvest.

⁵ For, before the vintage, once the flowering is over and blossom turns into ripening grape, the tendrils are cut back with a pruning knife, the shoots taken off, cut away.

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

⁷ At that time, offerings will be brought to Yahweh Sabaoth on behalf of the tall and bronzed nation, on behalf of the nation always feared, on behalf of the mighty and masterful people in the country criss-crossed with rivers, to the place where the name of Yahweh Sabaoth dwells, on Mount Zion.