¹⁶ Your ·traders [merchants] are more than the stars in the sky,
    but like locusts they ·strip the land [or shed their skin] and then fly away.
¹⁷ Your guards are like locusts.
    Your officers are like swarms of locusts
    that ·hang [settle; encamp] on the walls on a cold day.
When the sun comes up, they fly away,
    and no one knows where they have gone.
¹⁸ King of Assyria, your ·rulers [^Lshepherds] are asleep;
    your ·important men [nobles; officers] lie down ·to rest [or dead].
Your people have been scattered on the mountains [^Clike sheep],
    and there is no one to ·bring them back [gather them].