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Isaiah 18
New King James Version

### Proclamation Against Ethiopia

18 Woe (A)to the land shadowed with buzzing wings,
Which is beyond the rivers of [a]Ethiopia,
2 Which sends ambassadors by sea,
Even in vessels of reed on the waters, saying,
“Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth of skin,
To a people terrible from their beginning onward,
A nation powerful and treading down,
Whose land the rivers divide.”

3 All inhabitants of the world and dwellers on the earth:
(B)When he lifts up a banner on the mountains, you see it;
And when he blows a trumpet, you hear it.
4 For so the Lord said to me,
“I will take My rest,
And I will [b]look from My dwelling place
Like clear heat in sunshine,
Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
5 For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect
And the sour grape is ripening in the flower,
He will both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks
And take away and cut down the branches.
6 They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey
And for the beasts of the earth;
The birds of prey will summer on them,
And all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

7 In that time (C)a present will be brought to the Lord of hosts
[c]From a people tall and smooth of skin,
And from a people terrible from their beginning onward,
A nation powerful and treading down,
Whose land the rivers divide—
To the place of the name of the Lord of hosts,
To Mount Zion.

#### Footnotes

1. Isaiah 18:1 Heb. Cush
2. Isaiah 18:4 watch
3. Isaiah 18:7 So with DSS, LXX, Vg.; MT omits From; Tg. To

#### Cross references

1. Isaiah 18:1 : 2 Kin. 19:9; Is. 20:4, 5; Ezek. 30:4, 5, 9; Zeph. 2:12; 3:10
2. Isaiah 18:3 : Is. 5:26
3. Isaiah 18:7 : Ps. 68:31; 72:10; Is. 16:1; Zeph. 3:10; Mal. 1:11; Acts 8:27–38

New King James Version (NKJV)

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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