A woe to the Ethiopians, who fed Israel with vain hopes, their future conversion.

¹ Woe to the land, that winged cymbal, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,

² which sends ambassadors by sea and in vessels of papyrus above the waters. Go forth, O swift Angels, to a nation which has been convulsed and torn apart, to a terrible people, after whom there is no other, to a nation apprehensive and downtrodden, whose land the rivers have spoiled.¹²

1. 18:2In this context, ‘expectantem’ has a negative connotation, so it refers to apprehension rather than hopeful expectation.(Conte)
2. 18:2Angels: Or messengers.(Challoner)

³ All inhabitants of the world, you who dwell upon the earth: when the sign will have been elevated on the mountains, you will see, and you will hear the blast of the trumpet.

⁴ For the Lord says this to me: I will be quiet, and I will consider in my place, as the light at midday is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of the harvest.

⁵ For before the harvest, all was flourishing. And it will spring forth with an untimely completion, and its little branches will be pruned with a curved blade. And what is left over will be cut away and shaken off.

⁶ And together they will be abandoned to the birds of the mountains and to the wild beasts of the earth. And the birds will be continuously on them in the summer, and all the wild beasts of the earth will winter over them.

⁷ In that time, a gift will be carried to the Lord of hosts, from a people divided and torn apart, from a terrible people, after whom there has been no other, from an apprehensive nation, apprehensive and downtrodden, whose land the rivers have ruined, and it will be carried to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, to mount Zion.