13Behold, your people are women in your midst!
         The gates of your land are opened wide to your enemies;
         Fire consumes your gate bars.

14Draw for yourself water for the siege!
         Strengthen your fortifications!
         Go into the clay and tread the mortar!
         Take hold of the brick mold!

15There fire will consume you,
         The sword will cut you down;
         It will consume you as the locust does.
         Multiply yourself like the creeping locust,
         Multiply yourself like the swarming locust.

16You have increased your traders more than the stars of heaven—
         The creeping locust strips and flies away.

17Your guardsmen are like the swarming locust.
         Your marshals are like hordes of grasshoppers
         Settling in the stone walls on a cold day.
         The sun rises and they flee,
         And the place where they are is not known.

18Your shepherds are sleeping, O king of Assyria;
         Your nobles are lying down.
         Your people are scattered on the mountains
         And there is no one to regather them.

19There is no relief for your breakdown,
         Your wound is incurable.
         All who hear about you
         Will clap their hands over you,
         For on whom has not your evil passed continually?

NASB ©1995