Nahum Chapter 3
Showing all 19 verses for Nahum Chapter 3.
The People's Bible is written by people, for the people. Each verse below shows:
"Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not; "
"Disaster is coming for this city soaked in bloodshed - full of lies and theft, endlessly stealing and never stopping."
This is what actually earns serious consequences - not an occasional mistake, but a settled pattern of harming people and taking what isn't yours, kept up over years without any change of course. If that's not your life, you have nothing to fear from this kind of warning; if it is, it's not too late to change direction.
"The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots. "
"The sound of the whip cracking, wheels rattling, horses charging, chariots bouncing along."
Consequences, once they've been earned over time, tend to arrive suddenly and all at once, even though the choices that led there built up slowly. That's worth remembering while there's still time to change course.
"The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses: "
"Cavalry raise their gleaming swords and spears; countless people lie dead, so many bodies that survivors trip over the corpses."
I don't ask you to look away from how ugly real harm actually is, whether you're the one it's happening to or the one who caused it further down the line. Facing the true weight of violence honestly - rather than a sanitised version of it - is part of taking seriously why it matters to choose differently.
"Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts. "
"All this is because of the countless deceptions of this alluring, manipulative city - like a seductive con artist who sells out nations through her charm, and enslaves families through her tricks."
Manipulating someone's trust to use them is one of the most corrosive things a person can do, because it turns their good faith into the very tool used against them. If you've ever been on the receiving end of that, know it's named here as a real wrong, not something you imagined or overreacted to.
"Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame. "
"'I am against you,' declares the LORD of hosts, 'and I will lift your skirts over your face and show the nations your nakedness, and every kingdom your shame.'"
Whatever you're doing that depends on other people not finding out has a shelf life. I'd rather you live a life you don't need to hide, because eventually, in one way or another, what's true tends to come into the light.
"And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock. "
"God will throw filth on her, make her disgusting, and put her on display for everyone to gawk at."
Whatever spectacle you make of other people's downfall or humiliation has a way of finding its way back around. Choose, instead, to be someone who lifts people up rather than puts them on display for others to mock.
"And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee? "
"Everyone who sees her will run away in horror, saying, 'Nineveh is wrecked!' - and no one will mourn her; there's no one left to comfort her."
How people respond when hard times finally reach you often reflects how you treated people when you had power over them. I'd rather you spend your strength building genuine goodwill with others now, while you have the chance, than discover too late that no one is left who wants to stand with you.
"Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea? "
"Are you any better than Thebes, the great Egyptian city that sat surrounded by the waters of the Nile, protected as if the river itself were its wall?"
Whatever you've used to bring other people down can, in the right circumstances, be turned into the very lesson that should have humbled you first. Learn from what you've done to others rather than assuming you're the exception to it.
"Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers. "
"Ethiopia and Egypt were her endless source of strength, and Put and Libya were her allies too."
Surrounding yourself with allies and resources is not the same as being safe from the consequences of how you've lived. Real security comes from something more durable than numbers on your side.
"Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains. "
"Yet Thebes was carried off into captivity. Her young children were smashed to death in the streets, her leaders were divided up by casting lots like a lottery, and all her important men were bound in chains."
The suffering described here is real and it should unsettle you - I don't want you numb to violence just because it happened long ago or to people far away. What I want you to take from it is the seriousness of choosing, in your own life, never to be the one causing this kind of devastation to another human being.
"Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy. "
"You too, Nineveh, will become like someone drunk - staggering, hiding, desperately searching for strength against the enemy."
It's worth asking honestly, before a crisis ever hits, whether the strength you're relying on is real or just habitual confidence that's never actually been tested. Better to find that out gently now than in the middle of a genuine emergency.
"All thy strong holds shall be like fig trees with the firstripe figs: if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater. "
"All your fortresses are like fig trees loaded with ripe, early figs - just give them a shake and the fruit drops straight into the eater's mouth."
There's a real difference between looking strong and being strong. I'd rather you spend your energy on what actually holds up under pressure - honest character, real relationships - than on an impressive-looking front that gives way at the first real shake.
"Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars. "
"Look - your fighting men have become like women (that is, unable to fight, in the terms that culture used for weakness); the gates of your land stand wide open to your enemies, and fire will burn up the bars that used to lock them shut."
Strength that only exists to dominate others eventually meets a situation it can't dominate its way out of. True strength includes the humility to know your limits, rather than a bravado that collapses the moment it's actually tested.
"Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln. "
"Go ahead - draw water for the siege, reinforce your fortresses, get into the clay and tread the mortar, fire up the brick kiln."
No amount of frantic activity can substitute for dealing with the actual, underlying issue. If the real problem is how you've treated other people over years, no amount of last-minute effort in other areas of life will patch that over.
"There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm: make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts. "
"Even so, fire will consume you there, and the sword will finish you off - devouring you like a swarm of locusts. Multiply yourselves as much as you like, like locusts or caterpillars - it still won't save you."
Trying to out-number or out-scale a problem you should actually be addressing head-on rarely works. Some things need to be faced honestly rather than simply outgrown or overwhelmed by sheer size.
"Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth, and fleeth away. "
"You've multiplied your merchants until they outnumber the stars in the sky - but like a locust swarm, they'll strip everything bare and then simply fly away."
Wealth built on taking from others rather than genuinely creating value with them tends not to last, no matter how large it grows. What you build honestly, together with people rather than off the back of them, is what actually stays.
"Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are. "
"Your officials are like locusts and your commanders like great grasshoppers, which settle in the hedges on a cold day - but the moment the sun comes up, they fly off, and no one knows where they've gone."
Real leadership, real friendship, real love - all of it is tested by whether it's still there when things get hard, not just when everything's comfortable. Be the kind of person who stays.
"Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them. "
"Your leaders are asleep, king of Assyria - your nobles lie dead in the dust, your people are scattered across the mountains, and there is no one left to gather them back together."
If you're in any position of responsibility for other people - a family, a team, a community - take that seriously, because when leadership fails completely, it's the people underneath who end up scattered and unprotected. Lead in a way that people are still glad to be gathered under, especially when things get hard.
"There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually? "
"There's no cure for your wound - it's fatal. Everyone who hears the news will clap their hands in relief, because there isn't a single nation that hasn't suffered continually under your cruelty."
I don't take pleasure in anyone's downfall for its own sake - what I want, always, is for people to change before it comes to this. But I also won't pretend that sustained, deliberate cruelty towards others doesn't matter, or tell the people who suffered under it that their pain wasn't real. If you've caused this kind of lasting harm, there's still time to turn around while you're reading this. And if you've been on the receiving end of it, know that it was seen, it mattered, and it does not go on forever.