An oracle about Cush, a land of whirring wings. God quietly watches, and will cut off the shoots before the harvest, and then gifts will be brought to the LORD at Mount Zion.
1 Woe to the land shadowing with wings , which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia :
2 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea , even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters , saying, Go , ye swift messengers , to a nation scattered and peeled , to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto ; a nation meted out and trodden down , whose land the rivers have spoiled !
3 All ye inhabitants of the world , and dwellers on the earth , see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains ; and when he bloweth a trumpet , hear ye.
4 For so the LORD said unto me, I will take my rest , and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs , and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest .
5 For afore the harvest , when the bud is perfect , and the sour grape is ripening in the flower , he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks , and take away and cut down the branches .
6 They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains , and to the beasts of the earth : and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.
7 In that time shall the present be brought unto the LORD of hosts of a people scattered and peeled , and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto ; a nation meted out and trodden under foot , whose land the rivers have spoiled , to the place of the name of the LORD of hosts , the mount Zion .