But this is a people robbed and looted. all of them trapped in holes, hidden away in prisons. They have become a prey with no one to deliver them, and plunder, with none to say, “Give them back!”
that sends ambassadors by sea, in papyrus vessels upon the water. Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth-skinned, to a people feared far and wide, a nation powerful and oppressive, whose land the rivers divide.
And it shall come to pass: whoever flees from the sound of panic will fall in the pit, and whoever climbs up out of the pit will be caught in the trap. For the windows of heaven are opened and the foundations of the earth shake.
Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that King Sennacherib of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them.
“I stirred Cyrus up in righteousness and I will level all his roads. He will build My city and set My exiles free, with no price or bribe,” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.
Their roaring will be like a lion. They will growl like young lions— yes, they will roar, seize their prey and carry it away safely— and there will be none to rescue.
Then I will put it into the hand of your tormentors, who said to you, ‘Lie down, so we may walk over you.’ You have made your back like the ground and like a street for passersby.
Israel is a scattered flock— lions have driven them away. First, Assyria’s king devoured him. This last one who broke his bones was King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
Now it came to pass on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month of the thirty-seventh year of the captivity of Judah’s King Jehoiachin, that King Evil-merodach of Babylon, in the first year of his reign, lifted up the head of Judah’s King Jehoiachin, and released him out of prison.