Online Bible in Modern English The Book of the Twelve Nahum
An oracle about Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
The Righteous Wrath of God against Nineveh *Outline Headers are added as a study aid only, and should not be considered as part of the actual Biblical text
Yahweh
Yahweh is God’s proper Name, sometimes rendered “LORD” is a
jealous God
The Hebrew word rendered “God” is “Elohim”
and avenges.
Yahweh avenges and is full of wrath.
Yahweh takes
vengeance on his adversaries,
and he maintains wrath against his
enemies.
Yahweh is slow to anger, and great in power,
and will by no
means leave the guilty unpunished.
Yahweh has his way in the
whirlwind and in the storm,
and the clouds are the dust of his
feet.
He rebukes the sea, and makes it dry,
and dries up all the
rivers.
Bashan languishes, and Carmel;
and the flower of Lebanon
languishes.
The mountains quake before him,
and the hills melt away.
The
earth trembles at his presence,
yes, the world, and all who
dwell in it.
Who can stand before his indignation?
Who can endure the
fierceness of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
and
the rocks are broken apart by him.
Yahweh is good,
a stronghold in the day of trouble;
and he knows
those who take refuge in him.
But with an overflowing flood,
he will make a full end of her
place,
and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
What do you plot against Yahweh?
He will make a full end.
Affliction won’t rise up the second time.
For entangled like thorns,
and drunken as with their drink,
they
are consumed utterly like dry stubble.
There is one gone forth out of you,
who devises evil against
Yahweh,
who counsels wickedness.
Thus says Yahweh:
“Though they be in full strength, and likewise
many,
even so they will be cut down,
and he shall pass away.
Though I have afflicted you,
I will afflict you no more.
Now will I break his yoke from off you,
and will burst your
bonds apart.”
Yahweh has commanded concerning you:
“No more descendants will
bear your name.
Out of the house of your gods,
will I cut off
the engraved image and the molten image.
I will make your grave,
for you are vile.”
Behold, on the mountains
the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace!
Keep your feasts, Judah!
Perform your vows,
for the wicked one will no more pass through you.
He is utterly
cut off.
Prophetic Vision of Nineveh’s Destruction
He who scatters has come up against you.
Keep the
fortress! Watch the way!
Strengthen your waist! Fortify your
power mightily!
For Yahweh restores the excellency of Jacob,
as the excellency
of Israel;
for the destroyers have destroyed them,
and ruined
their vine branches.
The shield of his mighty men is made red.
The valiant men are in
scarlet.
The chariots flash with steel in the day of his
preparation,
and the pine spears are brandished.
The chariots rage in the streets.
They rush back and forth in
the broad ways.
Their appearance is like torches.
hey run like
the lightnings.
He summons his picked troops.
They stumble on their way.
They
dash to its wall,
and the protective shield is put in place.
The gates of the rivers are opened,
and the palace is dissolved.
It is decreed:
she is uncovered, she is carried away;
and her
handmaids moan as with the voice of doves,
beating on their
breasts.
But Nineveh has been from of old like a pool of water,
yet they
flee away.
“Stop! Stop!” they cry,
but no one looks back.
Take the spoil of silver.
Take the spoil of gold,
for there is
no end of the store,
the glory of all goodly furniture.
She is empty, void, and waste.
The heart melts, the knees knock
together,
their bodies and faces have grown pale.
Where is the den of the lions,
and the feeding place of the
young lions,
where the lion and the lioness walked, the lion’s
cubs,
and no one made them afraid?
The lion tore in pieces enough for his cubs,
and strangled for
his lionesses,
and filled his caves with the kill,
and his dens
with prey.
“Behold, I am against you,”
says Yahweh of Armies,
“and I will
burn her chariots in the smoke,
and the sword will devour your
young lions;
and I will cut off your prey from the earth,
and
the voice of your messengers will no longer be heard.”
The Imminent Fall of Nineveh
Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery.
The prey doesn’t depart.
The noise of the whip,
the noise of the rattling of wheels,
prancing horses, and bounding chariots,
the horseman mounting,
and the flashing sword, the glittering
spear,
and a multitude of slain
and a great heap of corpses,
and there is no end of the bodies.
They stumble on their bodies,
because of the multitude of the prostitution of the alluring
prostitute,
the mistress of witchcraft,
who sells nations
through her prostitution,
and families through her witchcraft.
“Behold, I am against you,”
says Yahweh of Armies,
“and I will
lift your skirts over your face.
I will show the nations your
nakedness,
and the kingdoms your shame.
I will throw abominable filth on you,
and make you vile,
and
will set you a spectacle.
It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from
you,
and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’
Where will I seek comforters for you?”
Are you better than No-Amonor, Thebes,
who was
situated among the rivers,
who had the waters around her;
whose
rampart was the sea,
and her wall was of the sea?
Cush and Egypt were her boundless strength.
Put and Libya were
her helpers.
Yet was she carried away.
She went into captivity.
Her young
children also were dashed in pieces
at the head of all the
streets,
and they cast lots for her honorable men,
and all her
great men were bound in chains.
You also will be drunken.
You will be hidden.
You also will seek
a stronghold because of the enemy.
All your fortresses will be like fig trees
with the first-ripe
figs:
if they are shaken,
they fall into the mouth of the eater.
Behold, your troops in your midst are women.
The gates of your
land
are set wide open to your enemies.
The fire has devoured
your bars.
Draw water for the siege.
Strengthen your fortresses.
Go into
the clay,
and tread the mortar.
Make the brick kiln strong.
There 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.
You have increased your merchants
more than the stars of the
skies.
The grasshopper strips, and flees away.
Your guards are like the locusts,
and your officials like the
swarms of locusts,
which settle on the walls on a cold day,
but
when the sun appears, they flee away,
and their place is not
known where they are.
Your shepherds slumber,
O king of Assyria.
Your nobles lie down.
Your people are scattered on the mountains,
and there is no one
to gather them.
There is no healing your wound,
for your injury is fatal.
All
who hear the report of you
clap their hands over you;
for who
hasn’t felt your endless cruelty?