Nahum 3:1

Let us mourn with Nahum, and say with him, "Woe to him that buildeth his house on high." Or rather let us mourn for them as Christ mourned for those of old. "Woe to you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation." Let us, I beseech you, not cease thus lamenting, and if it be not unseemly, let us even beat our breasts for the carelessness of our brethren. Let us not weep for him who is already dead, but let us weep for the rapacious man, the grasping, the covetous, the insatiable. Why should we mourn for the dead, in whose case it is impossible henceforth to effect anything? Let us mourn for these who are capable even of change.

(Chapter 3, verses 1 and following) Woe to the city of blood, full of deceit and torn apart. The plunder will not cease. The sound of the whip, the sound of the rattling wheel, the galloping horses and the blazing chariots, the ascending knight and the flashing sword, the gleaming spear and the multitude of the slain, and the weighty destruction. There is no end to the corpses.

Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and injustice. He has called it a city of blood; for those who had reigned in Nineveh were most ready for murder and exceedingly bloodthirsty; and those in it were otherwise warlike, and always eager to make their attacks untamable against whomever they might go. And he says "full of lies," because it was also full of idols, in which falsehood is especially not unproven. For they are falsely named, and the handmade gods steal the glory of divinity, "Silver and gold, according to what is written, the works of men's hands." And the wise Jeremiah somewhere also called it a land of graven images. But "full of lies" might also be understood in another way, with falsehood being understood as villainy and guile and deceit hateful to God, with injustice clearly running alongside. For where there is deceit and guile, there injustice will surely follow. And a city of blood, full of lies and injustice, is also Jerusalem, which killed the Lord. For we remember Christ saying, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her." And he said somewhere through the voice of the prophets, "Woe to them, because they have departed from me; they are miserable, because they have acted impiously against me; I redeemed them, but they have spoken lies against me." For they have spoken against the glory of Christ, at one time saying that he casts out demons by Beelzebul; at another time calling him a winebibber, and in addition to this, a Samaritan, and things much more shameful. For it would be fitting for their foul mouths alone to babble those things which they have dared to say.

Though hv, eu, sometimes means Woe; yet it is put here as though the Prophet would have constrained Nineveh to undergo its punishment, O sanguinary city, then, the whole of it is full of kchs cachesh: the word signifies leanness and the Prophet no doubt joins here together two words, which seem to differ widely, and yet they signify the same thing.

Nineveh had with her cruelties been a terror and destruction to others, and therefore destruction and terror shall be brought upon her. Those that are for overthrowing all that come in their way will, sooner or later, meet with their match.