A Message to Ethiopia

1Ho, land shadowed with wings, That is beyond the rivers of Cush,

2That is sending by sea ambassadors, Even with implements of reed on the face of the waters, -- Go, ye light messengers, Unto a nation drawn out and peeled, Unto a people fearful from its beginning and onwards, A nation meeting out by line, and treading down, Whose land floods have spoiled.

3All ye inhabitants of the world, And ye dwellers of earth, At the lifting up of an ensign on hills ye look, And at the blowing of a trumpet ye hear.

4For thus said Jehovah unto me, 'I rest, and I look on My settled place, As a clear heat on an herb. As a thick cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.

5For before harvest, when the flower is perfect, And the blossom is producing unripe fruit, Then hath one cut the sprigs with pruning hooks, And the branches he hath turned aside, cut down.

6They are left together to the ravenous fowl of the mountains, And to the beast of the earth, And summered on them hath the ravenous fowl, And every beast of the earth wintereth on them.

7At that time brought is a present to Jehovah of Hosts, A nation drawn out and peeled. Even of a people fearful from the beginning hitherto, A nation meting out by line, and treading down, Whose land floods have spoiled, Unto the place of the name of Jehovah of Hosts -- mount Zion!'