13 Your soldiers are like women, and your country stands defenceless before your enemies. Fire will destroy the bars across your gates.
14 Draw water to prepare for a siege, and strengthen your fortresses! Trample the clay to make bricks, and get the brick moulds ready!
15 No matter what you do, you will still be burnt to death or killed in battle. You will be wiped out like crops eaten up by locusts.You multiplied like locusts!
16 You produced more merchants than there are stars in the sky! But now they are gone, like locusts that spread their wings and fly away.
17 Your officials are like a swarm of locusts that stay in the walls on a cold day. But when the sun comes out, they fly away, and no one knows where they have gone!
18 Emperor of Assyria, your governors are dead, and your noblemen are asleep for ever! Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to bring them home again.
19 There is no remedy for your injuries, and your wounds cannot be healed. All those who hear the news of your destruction clap their hands for joy. Did anyone escape your endless cruelty?