Nahum 1:1-15

1 * The boding for Nineveh; the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. 2 * Jehovah is a jealous deity and takes revenge;Jehovah takes revenge and is fierce in temper;Jehovah takes revenge on his foesand bears his enemies in mind. 3  Jehovah is patient and powerful,and Jehovah does not acquit an offender.His walk is in gale and tempest,and clouds are the dust of his feet; 4 ** He speaks sternly to the sea and dries it out,and dries off all the rivers;Bashan wilts, and Carmel,and the young leafage of Lebanon stands forlorn. 5 * The mountains quake at him,and the hills surge,And the earth is in commotion before him,the world and all who inhabit it. 6 * Before his hostility who may stand,and who stand up amid the heat of his anger?His choler is like a stream of fire,and the rocks break down before him. 7 * Jehovah is goodfor a citadel in the day of distress; Jehovah knows those who take refuge in him, 8 * and carries them through cloudbursts.He makes a finish of those who stand up against him,and chases his enemies into darkness. 9 ** What do you plan against Jehovah?he is making a finish;distress will not stand up twice; 10 * for even briers matted in a tangle, and soaked as they can be, will be eaten up like stubble fully dry. 11  Out of you came one who planned mischief against Jehovah, who proposed a vicious policy. 12 * Says Jehovah, If waters gush out and rage withal, so do they subside and pass off; I did grind you down, I will not again. 13  And now I will break his yoke-bow off from you and snap your tether. 14 * And Jehovah will give a commission against you: there shall not again be any of your name engendered; out of the house of your gods I will eradicate carving and casting; I will make your grave a dunghill. 15 * There on the mountains are the feet of a messenger of good news, a herald of peace: celebrate your feasts, Judah, pay your vows, for never again shall the reprobates pass through you, they are done with, they are extinct.

Footnotes

Most of the first chapter is a poem whose lines begin with the different letters of the Hebrew alphabet in their proper order. The poem is not complete; it goes as far as verse 8 or 10 and covers the first half of the alphabet. It begins either in verse 2 or in verse 3; if it begins in verse 2, part of verses 2 and 3 is out of place. The words which in Hebrew begin with the successive letters of the alphabet are those which here begin with a heavier letter. [Not actually shown by translator in his copy.]
1:2 See verse 9
1:4-5 Or spoke . . . dried . . . dried . . . wilted . . . stood . . . quaked . . . surged . . . was
1:4 Codd. Bashan stands forlorn (not giving the right letter of the alphabet)
1:5 Var. Mountains (without The)
1:6 Lit. is poured like fire
1:7 Codd. distress, and knows (not giving the right letter of the alphabet)
1:8 Codd. him; with a cloudburst sweeping through he makes Conj. in cloudbursts sweeping through he saves them
1:9 (last six words) Var. he will not take revenge twice for the same thing
1:9-10 Conj. (putting part of verse 2 here) He will not take revenge twice on his foes,for he will do thorough work;what do you plan against Jehovah? 2 Jehovah takes revenge and is fierce in temper;Jehovah takes revenge on his foesand bears his enemies in mind; 10 they are all mowed briars, they will be eaten up like stubble fully dry
1:10-11 Conj. dry stubble. Was it not out of you that one came out who
1:12 Codd. If safe and sound and thus many, thus they are sheared off and he will pass; and I will grind you down, I will not again
1:14 Codd. I will render your grave because you are paltry
1:15 Var. through you, they are totally extinct.