Nahum 1

World English Bible 86 include this book

1 A revelation about Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.

2 The LORD is a jealous God and avenges. The LORD avenges and is full of wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he maintains wrath against his enemies.

3 The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. The LORD has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel languish. The flower of Lebanon languishes.

5 The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, yes, the world, and all who dwell in it.

6 Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the fierceness of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken apart by him.

7 The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knows those who take refuge in him.

8 But with an overflowing flood, he will make a full end of her place, and will pursue his enemies into darkness.

9 What do you plot against the LORD? He will make a full end. Affliction won’t rise up the second time.

10 For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble.

11 One has gone out of you who devises evil against the LORD, who counsels wickedness.

12 The LORD says: “Though they are in full strength and likewise many, even so they will be cut down and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more.

13 Now I will break his yoke from off you, and will burst your bonds apart.”

14 The LORD has commanded concerning you: “No more descendants will bear your name. Out of the house of your gods, I will cut off the engraved image and the molten image. I will make your grave, for you are vile.”

15 Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace! Keep your feasts, Judah! Perform your vows, for the wicked one will no more pass through you. He is utterly cut off.

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2 places named in this chapter.

Where this was written

Jerusalem traditional A Judean oracle against Nineveh.

When this was written

The traditions broadly agree on this one.

Broad agreement: 663 BC–612 BC Nahum
After the fall of Thebes, which it mentions, and before the fall of Nineveh, which it foretells.

Elsewhere in the world

Events overlapping the period this book is dated to (663 BC–612 BC).

1200 BC–400 BC Olmec civilisation Mesoamerica
The earliest major Mesoamerican civilisation, known for colossal stone heads and an early calendar.
1200 BC–600 BC Zoroaster teaches in Persia Persia
Founder of Zoroastrianism, whose dating is disputed by as much as six centuries. His teaching on a cosmic struggle between good and evil later touched Jewish and Christian thought.
1070 BC–350 AD The kingdom of Kush Africa
A Nubian power on the upper Nile that ruled Egypt itself as its twenty-fifth dynasty.
750 BC–650 BC Homeric epics take written form Greece
The Iliad and Odyssey were fixed in writing after generations of oral transmission.
745 BC–609 BC Neo-Assyrian empire at its height Mesopotamia
Assyria dominated the Near East, deporting conquered populations as policy, including the northern kingdom of Israel.
620 BC–560 BC Coinage invented in Lydia Anatolia
Stamped electrum coins of guaranteed weight, an idea that spread across the ancient world within a century.
624 BC–546 BC Greek philosophy begins at Miletus Greece
Thales sought natural rather than mythic explanations, the beginning of Greek science.

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