In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria, and took Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.
A severe vision is declared to me; the treacherous deals treacherously, and the plunderer plunderers. Go up, O Elam: besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease.
I have raised up one from the north, and he shall come: from the rising of the sun shall he call upon my name: and he shall come upon princes as one walks upon mortar, and as the potter treads clay.
For out of the north there comes up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they shall go, they shall depart, both man and beast.
They shall hold the bow and the lance: they are cruel, and will not show mercy: their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, every one put in formation, like a man to the battle, against you, O daughter of Babylon.
For, lo, I will raise and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country: and they shall set themselves in formation against her; from there she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of a mighty expert man; none shall return in vain.
Make bright the arrows; gather the shields: the LORD has raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: for his plan is against Babylon, to destroy it; because it is the vengeance of the LORD, vengeance for his temple.