Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia; 2that sends ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of papyrus on the waters, saying, “Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide!” 3All you inhabitants of the world, and you dwellers on the earth, when an ensign is lifted up on the mountains, look; and when the trumpet is blown, listen.
4For thus has YAHWEH1 said to me, “I will be still, and I will see in 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 over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks, and the spreading branches will he take away and cut down. 6They shall be left together to the ravenous birds of the mountains, and to the animals of the earth; and the ravenous birds shall summer on them, and all the animals of the earth shall winter on them. 7In that time shall a present be brought to YAHWEH All-Powerful from a people tall and smooth, even from a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the Name of YAHWEH All-Powerful, Al-Quds.2
- 18:4 YAHWEH, the name God revealed to Prophet Musa in the Taurat, Exodus 3:15 – God said moreover to Musa, “You shall tell Bani-Israel this, ‘YAHWEH, the God of your fathers, the God of Ibrahim, the God of Ishaq, and the God of Yaqub, has sent me to you.’ This is my Name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered to all generations.” ↩︎
- 18:7 Al-Quds, meaning “the Holy (City).” The Hebrew text reads Zion, a synonym for Jerusalem. It originally referred to Mount Zion, one of the hills of Jerusalem. ↩︎