Isaiah 18

1Ah, land of whirring wings, which is beyond the rivers of Cush,

2who sends envoys by sea in vessels of papyrus over the waters: “Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth-skinned, to a people feared far and wide, a nation that measures out and tramples down, whose land rivers divide.”

3All you inhabitants of the world, and you dwellers on the earth: when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it; and when a trumpet is blown, you will hear it.

4For this is what Yahweh said to me: “I will remain quiet and look on from my dwelling place, like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

5For before the harvest, when the blossom is finished and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the shoots with pruning knives, and he will remove and lop off the spreading branches.

6They will all be left to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth; and the birds of prey will summer on them, and every beast of the earth will winter on them.

7At that time a gift will be brought to the LORD of Armies from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people feared far and wide, a nation of command upon command and trampling, whose land rivers divide, to the place of the name of the LORD of Armies, Mount Zion.