Væ terræ cymbalo alarum, quæ est trans flumina Æthiopiæ,

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

Woe to the land that has the whirring of wings for its music, there beyond the Ethiop rivers!

qui mittit in mare legatos, et in vasis papyri super aquas. Ite, angeli veloces, ad gentem convulsam et dilaceratam; ad populum terribilem, post quem non est alius; ad gentem exspectantem et conculcatam, cujus diripuerunt flumina terram ejus.

That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, and in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters. Go, ye swift angels, to a nation rent and torn in pieces: to a terrible people, after which there is no other: to a nation expecting and trodden underfoot, whose land the rivers have spoiled.

In skiffs of papyrus reed she sends her ambassadors to the sea-coast! Ay, speed on your errand, but to a people far away, sundered from you by leagues of travel, dreaded people at the end of the earth, race that bears a tyrant’s yoke, in a land that is all rivers like your own.

Omnes habitatores orbis, qui moramini in terra, cum elevatum fuerit signum in montibus, videbitis, et clangorem tubæ audietis.

All ye inhabitants of the world, who dwell on the earth, when the sign shall be lifted up on the mountains, you shall see, and you shall hear the sound of the trumpet.

All you peoples of the world, all you that dwell on earth, wait till you see the signal raised on the mountains, till you hear the trumpet sound.

Quia hæc dicit Dominus ad me: Quiescam et considerabo in loco meo, sicut meridiana lux clara est, et sicut nubes roris in die messis.

For thus saith the Lord to me: I will take my rest, and consider in my place, as the noon light is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest.

Such warning the Lord has given me: I will keep silent and watch, here in my dwelling-place, as still as the bright sunshine of noon-day, or the haze that comes with the dew in harvest-time.

Ante messem enim totus effloruit, et immatura perfectio germinabit; et præcidentur ramusculi ejus falcibus, et quæ derelicta fuerint abscindentur et excutientur.

For before the harvest it was all flourishing, and it shall bud without perfect ripeness, and the sprigs thereof shall be cut off with pruning hooks: and what is left shall be cut away and shaken out.

What a blossoming was here before the time of harvest, how fully formed the buds that were still ripening! But its boughs shall be cut back with the pruning-knife, its straying tendrils shall be torn off and thrown away.

Et relinquentur simul avibus montium et bestiis terræ; et æstate perpetua erunt super eum volucres, et omnes bestiæ terræ super illum hiemabunt.

And they shall be left together to the birds of the mountains, and the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall be upon them all the summer, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.

All alike will be left a prey to the mountain birds, and the beasts that roam through the land; all through summer the birds will hover about it, and the beasts flock to it in winter.

In tempore illo deferetur munus Domino exercituum a populo divulso et dilacerato, a populo terribili, post quem non fuit alius; a gente exspectante, exspectante et conculcata, cujus diripuerunt flumina terram ejus; ad locum nominis Domini exercituum, montem Sion.

At that time shall a present be brought to the Lord of hosts, from a people rent and torn in pieces: from a terrible people, after which there hath been no other: from a nation expecting, expecting and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, to mount Sion.

And then the people that is sundered far away, dreaded nation at the ends of the earth, land of the tyrant’s yoke, land of the branching rivers, will bring gifts to the Lord of hosts, betaking itself to mount Sion, where the name of the Lord of hosts is worshipped.