Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers, the Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: and his mind is against Babylon to destroy it, because it is the vengeance of the Lord, the vengeance of his temple.
I have raised up one from the north: and he shall come from the rising of the sun. He shall call upon my name: and he shall make princes to be as dirt, and as the potter treading clay.
A grievous vision is told me: He that is unfaithful dealeth unfaithfully; and he that is a spoiler, spoileth. Go up, O Elam, besiege, O Mede: I have made all the mourning thereof to cease.
For, behold, I raise up and will bring against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the land of the north: and they shall be prepared against her, and from thence she shall be taken. Their arrows, like those of a mighty man, a destroyer, shall not return in vain.
And in the ninth year of Osee, the king of the Assyrians took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria. And he placed them in Hala and Habor by the river of Gozan, in the cities of the Medes.
For a nation is come up against her out of the north, which shall make her land desolate. And there shall be none to dwell therein, from man even to beast: yea, they are removed and gone away.
They shall take the bow and the shield: they are cruel and unmerciful. Their voice shall roar like the sea and they shall ride upon horses, like a man prepared for battle: against thee, O daughter of Babylon.