[10:5] The Lord said, “Assyria! I use Assyria like a club to punish those with whom I am angry.
[10:6] I sent Assyria to attack a godless nation, people who have made me angry. I sent them to loot and steal and trample the people like dirt in the streets.”
[10:7] But the Assyrian emperor has his own violent plans in mind. He is determined to destroy many nations.
[10:8] He boasts, “Every one of my commanders is a king!
[10:9] I conquered the cities of Calno and Carchemish, the cities of Hamath and Arpad. I conquered Samaria and Damascus.
[10:10] I reached out to punish those kingdoms that worship idols, idols more numerous than those of Jerusalem and Samaria.
[10:11] I have destroyed Samaria and all its idols, and I will do the same to Jerusalem and the images that are worshiped there.”
[10:12] But the Lord says, “When I finish what I am doing on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, I will punish the emperor of Assyria for all his boasting and all his pride.”
[10:13] The emperor of Assyria boasts, “I have done it all myself. I am strong and wise and clever. I wiped out the boundaries between nations and took the supplies they had stored. Like a bull I have trampled the people who live there.
[10:14] The nations of the world were like a bird's nest, and I gathered their wealth as easily as gathering eggs. Not a wing fluttered to scare me off; no beak opened to scream at me!”
[10:15] But the Lord says, “Can an ax claim to be greater than the one who uses it? Is a saw more important than the one who saws with it? A club doesn't lift up a person; a person lifts up a club.”
[10:16] The Lord Almighty is going to send disease to punish those who are now well-fed. In their bodies there will be a fire that burns and burns.
[10:17] God, the light of Israel, will become a fire. Israel's holy God will become a flame, which in a single day will burn up everything, even the thorns and thistles.
[10:18] The rich forests and farmlands will be totally destroyed, in the same way that a fatal sickness destroys someone.
[10:19] There will be so few trees left that even a child will be able to count them.