17 They cried there: ‘Pharaoh king of Egypt is but a noise! He let the opportune time pass.’
18 As I live,” declares the King —whose Name is Adonai-Tzva’ot— “like Tabor among the mountains, or like Carmel by the sea, so surely he will come.”
19 O daughter dwelling in Egypt, get your bags ready for exile! For Noph will become a ruin laid waste, uninhabited.
20 Egypt is a beautiful heifer— but a biting fly is coming— from the north it is coming!
21 Even her mercenaries among her are like stall-fed calves, for they also will turn back— they will flee away together, they will not stand up— for the day of their calamity has come upon them, the time of their visitation.
22 Its sound will hiss like a snake, as they march with an army, and come against her as woodcutters with axes.
23 They cut down her forest” —it is a declaration of Adonai— “though it was impenetrable, for they are worse than the locust —they are without number.