Nahum 2 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

The one who breaks nations apart has come up against your face. Guard the wall. Watch the road. Tighten your belt. Gather every bit of strength you have.

Yahweh is bringing back the pride of Jacob, the pride of Israel, after men stripped them bare and cut their vines to the stump.

The shields of his fighters are stained red, his soldiers are dressed in scarlet. The metal on the chariots throws fire on the day they are lined up, and the cypress spears are shaken loose.

The chariots go mad in the streets, they tear back and forth across the squares. They look like burning torches. They run past like lightning.

He calls up his officers. They trip over each other coming. They run for her wall, and the shield for the battering ram is set in place.

The river gates are thrown open and the palace comes apart.

It is decided: she is stripped and carried off, and her slave women are led away moaning like doves, beating their fists on their chests.

Nineveh is a pool with the water running out of it, and her people are running with it. Someone shouts, "Stand! Stand!" and nobody turns around.

Take the silver! Take the gold! There is no bottom to the store, no end to the treasure heaped up in her.

Emptied out, hollowed out, wrecked. Hearts melt, knees knock together, every stomach turns, and the colour goes out of every face.

Where is the lions' den now, the feeding ground of the young lions, where the lion walked with the lioness and the cub and nothing came near to frighten them?

The lion killed enough for his cubs, broke the necks of the kill for his lionesses, filled his holes with meat and his dens with torn bodies.

I am coming for you, says Yahweh who commands armies. I will burn your chariots down to smoke, and the sword will eat your young lions. I will cut your prey off the face of the earth, and the voice of your envoys will never be heard again.