refer in this text to Alma 39:2
“The Lord said that Israel’s wickedness would cause him to send Assyria, ‘the rod of [his] anger’ (2 Nephi 20:5), against his people ‘to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets’ (v.6). This prophecy was literally fulfilled when Assyria captured the northern kingdom of Israel and took the people captive to Assyria. This prophecy further revealed that when Assyria became lifted up in pride the Lord would ‘punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks’ (v. 12). The Lord made it clear that even though Assyria accomplished his purposes against Israel, they had no reason to be proud. As the ax cannot boast of itself against the one who uses it, so the Assyrians could not think of themselves as being higher than the Lord (see v. 15). Assyria was but an instrument in the hand of the Lord in fulfilling his purposes.” (Book of Mormon 121-122 Student Manual, p. 33)