Nahum 3

The final chapter pronounces woe on “the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder,” and describes the horror of her fall — heaps of corpses, charging cavalry, flashing swords. The reason for judgment is named: Nineveh’s endless cruelty and her “harlotries” and “sorceries” by which she seduced and enslaved the nations. Nahum reminds her of Thebes (No-amon) in Egypt, a mighty city that also fell despite its defenses, and warns that Nineveh will fare no better — her fortresses are like ripe figs that fall at a shake, her troops like women, her merchants and officials scattered like locusts that vanish in the sun. The book ends with a fitting epitaph for a tyrant: “There is no easing your hurt... All who hear the news about you clap their hands over you. For upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?”