A Message to Ethiopia

1Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Cush:

2That sendeth embassadors 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 measured by line and trodden down, whose land the rivers have laid waste.

3All 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.

4For so the LORD said to 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.

5For before 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.

6They shall be left together to 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.

7In that time shall the present be brought to the LORD of hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation measured by line and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the LORD of hosts, the mount Zion.