Bible in Basic English
"Let your traders be increased more than the stars of heaven:"
— Nahum 3:16, Bible in Basic English
See, the people who are in you are women; the doorways of your land are wide open to your attackers: the locks of your doors have been burned away in the fire.
Get water for the time when you are shut in, make strong your towns: go into the potter's earth, stamping it down with your feet, make strong the brickworks.
There the fire will make you waste; you will be cut off by the sword: make yourself as great in number as the worms, as great in number as the locusts.
Let your traders be increased more than the stars of heaven:
Your crowned ones are like the locusts, and your scribes like the clouds of insects which take cover in the walls on a cold day, but when the sun comes up they go in flight, and are seen no longer in their place.
Sorrow! how are the keepers of your flock sleeping, O king of Assyria! your strong men are at rest; your people are wandering on the mountains, and there is no one to get them together.
Your pain may not be made better; you are wounded to death: all those hearing the news about you will be waving their hands in joy over you: for who has not undergone the weight of your evil-doing again and again?