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Isaiah 18:2-6
The Message
Isaiah 18:2-6
The Message
People Mighty and Merciless
18 1-2 Doom to the land of flies and mosquitoes
beyond the Ethiopian rivers,
Shipping emissaries all over the world,
down rivers and across seas.
Go, swift messengers,
go to this people tall and handsome,
This people held in respect everywhere,
this people mighty and merciless,
from the land crisscrossed with rivers.
3 Everybody everywhere,
all earth-dwellers:
When you see a flag flying on the mountain, look!
When you hear the trumpet blown, listen!
4-6 For here’s what God told me:
“I’m not going to say anything,
but simply look on from where I live,
Quiet as warmth that comes from the sun,
silent as dew during harvest.”
And then, just before harvest, after the blossom
has turned into a maturing grape,
He’ll step in and prune back the new shoots,
ruthlessly hack off all the growing branches.
He’ll leave them piled on the ground
for birds and animals to feed on—
Fodder for the summering birds,
fodder for the wintering animals.
Isaiah 18:2-4
New International Version
Isaiah 18:2-4
New International Version
Go, swift messengers,
to a people tall and smooth-skinned,(C)
to a people feared far and wide,
an aggressive(D) nation of strange speech,
whose land is divided by rivers.(E)
3 All you people of the world,(F)
you who live on the earth,
when a banner(G) is raised on the mountains,
you will see it,
and when a trumpet(H) sounds,
you will hear it.
4 This is what the Lord says to me:
“I will remain quiet(I) and will look on from my dwelling place,(J)
like shimmering heat in the sunshine,(K)
like a cloud of dew(L) in the heat of harvest.”
Isaiah 18:2-4
King James Version
Isaiah 18:2-4
King James Version
2 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled!
3 All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye.
4 For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.
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The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
New International Version (NIV) 
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NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.