Ah! The land of buzzing insect wings beyond the rivers of Cush

sends envoys by sea, in reed vessels on the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth-skinned, to a people feared near and far, a powerful nation with a strange language, whose land is divided by rivers.

All you inhabitants of the world and you who live on the earth, when a banner is raised on the mountains, look! When a trumpet sounds, listen!

For, the LORD said to me: I will quietly look out from My place, like shimmering heat in sunshine, like a rain cloud in harvest heat.

For before the harvest, when the blossoming is over and the blossom becomes a ripening grape, He will cut off the shoots with a pruning knife, and tear away and remove the branches.

They will all be left for the birds of prey on the hills and for the wild animals of the land. The birds will spend the summer on them, and all the animals, the winter on them.

At that time a gift will be brought to the LORD of Hosts from a people tall and smooth-skinned, a people feared near and far, a powerful nation with a strange language, whose land is divided by rivers-- to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the LORD of Hosts.