The destruction of Ethiopia

1Terrible things will happen to you people of Ethiopia! In your land there are many sailboats at the upper part of the Nile River.

2Your rulers send ambassadors that sail quickly down the river in papyrus boats.
You messengers to Ethiopia, go quickly!
Go up the river to people who are tall and who have smooth skin.
People everywhere are afraid of those people, because they conquer and destroy other nations;
they live in a land that is divided by branches of one large river.

3You messengers must tell people everywhere, to people everywhere, “Look when I lift up my battle flag on top of the mountain,
and listen when I blow the ram’s horn to signal that the battle is about to begin.”

4Listen because Yahweh has told me this:
“I will watch quietly from where I live. I will watch as quietly as [SIM] the heat waves shimmer as they rises on a hot summer day,
as quietly as the dew forms on the ground during harvest time.”

5But even before the army of Ethiopia starts to attack, while their plans are slowly forming like [SIM] grapes that are ripening, Yahweh will get rid of them like a farmer who [MET] cuts off the new shoots of the grapevines with his shears, and prunes the branches that have become very long.

6All the soldiers in the army of Ethiopia will be killed, and their corpses will lie in the fields for vultures to eat their flesh in the ◄summer/hot season►. Then wild animals will chew on their bones all during the ◄winter/cold season►.

7At that time, the people of that land that is divided by the branches of that one big river will take gifts to Yahweh in Jerusalem. Those tall people who have smooth/dark skin, whom people everywhere are afraid of, because they conquer and destroy many countries, will take gifts to Jerusalem, the city where the Commander of the armies of angels lives.