Isaiah 18
A Message to Cush
1 Woe to the land of whirring wings,
along the rivers of Cush,
2 which sends couriers by sea,
in papyrus vessels on the waters.
2 Go, swift messengers,
to a people tall and smooth-skinned,
2 to a people widely feared,
to a powerful nation of strange speech,
2 whose land is divided by rivers.
3 All you people of the world
and dwellers of the earth,
3 when a banner is raised on the mountains,
you will see it;
3 when a ram’s horn sounds,
you will hear it.
4 For this is what the LORD has told me:
“I will quietly look on from My dwelling place,
4 like shimmering heat in the sunshine,
like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is gone
and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
5 He will cut off the shoots with a pruning knife
and remove and discard the branches.
6 They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey,
and to the beasts of the land.
6 The birds will feed on them in summer,
and all the wild animals in winter.
7 At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD of Hosts—
from a people tall and smooth-skinned,
7 from a people widely feared,
from a powerful nation of strange speech,
7 whose land is divided by rivers—
to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD of Hosts.