Isaiah 18

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