1 HE WHO dashes in pieces [that is, the king of Medo-Babylon] is come up before your face [Nineveh]. Keep the fortress and ramparts manned, watch the road, gird your loins, collect and fortify all your strength and power mightily.
2 For the Lord restores the excellency of Jacob as the excellency of [ancient] Israel, for plunderers have plundered them and emptied them out and [outrageously] destroyed their vine branches. [Isa. 10:12.]
3 The shields of the mighty men [of Media and Babylon] are [dyed] red; the valiant men are [clothed] in dyed scarlet. The chariots blaze with fire of steel on the day of his preparation [for battle], and the officers' horses prance like a cypress forest [reeling in the wind].
4 The chariots rage in confusion in the streets; they run to and fro [in wild terror] in the broad ways. They flash with steel [making them appear like torches]; they rush [in various directions] like forked lightnings.
5 [The Assyrian leader] remembers and summons his bravest men; they stumble in their march. They hasten to the city's wall, and their movable defense shelter is prepared and set up.
6 The gates or dams of the rivers [surrounding and guarding Nineveh] are opened and the [imperial] palace [of sun-dried brick] is dissolved [by the torrents] and is in dismay.