Hey, Ashshur, my angry club –
and the mace in their hand is my condemnation.
Against an impious nation I send it;
I order it against a people towards which I am wrathful,
To seize spoil and to take plunder,
and to make it into something trampled, like mud in the streets.
But it doesn’t picture it this way;
its mind doesn’t think this way.
Because in its mind is to annihilate,
to cut off nations not a few.
Because it says, ‘My officers are kings, altogether, aren’t they?
Kalno’s like Karkemish, isn’t it, or Hamat like Arpad,
or Shomron like Dammeseq.
As my hand found the non-entity kingdoms
(and their images were more than Shomron and Yerushalaim) –
As I did to Shomron and to its non-entities,
so I will do to Yerushalaim and to its idols, won’t I?’
But when the Lord finishes all his action
against Mount Tsiyyon and against Yerushalaim:
‘I will attend to the fruit of the king of Ashshur’s big-headedness
and to the lofty splendour of his eyes.
Because he said, “By the energy of my hand I’ve acted,
by my smartness, because I have understanding.
I’ve removed peoples’ borders, I’ve plundered their treasures,
as a champion I’ve subdued inhabitants.
My hand found, as in a nest, the resources of peoples.
Like one gathering abandoned eggs,
I myself gathered the entire earth.
There was not one flapping a wing,
or opening its mouth and chirping.”’
Does the axe glorify itself over the one who chops with it,
or the saw magnify itself over the one who wields it,
As if the club wields the one who lifts it up,
as if the mace lifted up the one who is not made of wood?
Therefore the Lord Yahweh of Armies
will send off a wasting disease against his beefy ones.
Beneath its splendour it will burn,
with a burning like the burning of fire.
Yisra’el’s light will become fire,
its sacred one a flame.
It will burn up and consume its thorn and its thistle,
in one day.
The splendour of its forest and its farmland
it will finish off, soul and body.
It will be like the fading away of a sick person;
the remainder of the trees in its forest will be so few,
a boy could write them down.
But on that day,
no more will the remainder of Yisra’el,
The escape group from Ya’aqob’s household,
lean on the one that struck them down.
They will lean on Yahweh,
Yisra’el’s sacred one, in truth.
The remainder will turn back, the remainder of Ya’aqob, to God,
the God who is a strong man.
Though your people, Yisra’el, were like the sand of the sea,
It will be a remainder of it that will turn back;
a finishing is determined, overwhelming faithfulness.
Because a finish, a thing determined –
the Lord Yahweh of Armies is going to do it,
within the entire country.
Goldingay, John; Goldingay, The Bible for Everyone . SPCK. Kindle Edition.
Grant, Lord,
that we may hold to you without parting,
worship you without wearying,
serve you without failing;
faithfully seek you,
happily find you,
and forever possess you,
the only God,blessed now and for ever.
Amen
St Anselm