Nahum 1 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

The weight of Nineveh. The book of what Nahum of Elkosh saw.

Yahweh is a God who guards what belongs to him, and he pays back. Yahweh pays back, and his anger runs hot. Yahweh pays back the ones who stand against him, and he stores up his fury for his enemies.

Yahweh is slow to anger and enormous in strength, and he will not let the guilty walk free. His road runs through the whirlwind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust his feet kick up.

He shouts the sea down and it dries; he empties every river out. Bashan withers and Carmel withers, and the flowers of Lebanon go brown.

Mountains shake in front of him and the hills come apart. The ground heaves up when he comes, the world and everyone living on it.

Who can stand in front of that fury? Who holds his ground in the heat of that anger? His rage pours out like fire and the rock splits open where he walks.

Yahweh is good, a high place to stand on the day the trouble comes. He knows the ones who take shelter in him.

With a flood that sweeps straight through he will finish off the ground she stands on, and he will drive his enemies into the dark.

What are you plotting against Yahweh? He is the one bringing it to an end. The trouble will not stand up a second time.

Tangled together like thorn bushes, soaked through like men deep in their drink, they burn off like dry stubble, all of them.

Out of you came the man who schemed harm against Yahweh, the adviser with nothing good in him.

This is what Yahweh says: However solid their ranks, however many of them, they will be cut down and gone. I put you through pain, Judah, and I will not put you through it again.

Now I will break his bar off your neck and tear the ropes off you.

About you, Assyria, Yahweh has given the order: nothing of your name gets planted again. Out of the house of your gods I will cut away the carved image and the poured metal one. I am digging your grave, because you weigh nothing.

Look at the mountains: the feet of a runner carrying good news, calling out that it is over. Keep your festivals, Judah. Pay what you promised. The worthless one will never march through you again. He is cut off, all of him.