Suffering in the Bible: Purpose in Pain

The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed above all livestock, and above every animal of the field. You shall go on your belly and you shall eat dust all the days of your life.

I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”

To the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. You will bear children in pain. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

To Adam he said, “Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and have eaten from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ the ground is cursed for your sake. You will eat from it with much labour all the days of your life.

It will yield thorns and thistles to you; and you will eat the herb of the field.

You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it. For you are dust, and you shall return to dust.”

Now you are cursed because of the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.

From now on, when you till the ground, it won’t yield its strength to you. You will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth.”

Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.

Behold, you have driven me out today from the surface of the ground. I will be hidden from your face, and I will be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth. Whoever finds me will kill me.”

Cain left the LORD’s presence, and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

All flesh died that moved on the earth, including birds, livestock, animals, every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and every man.

All on the dry land, in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, died.

Every living thing was destroyed that was on the surface of the ground, including man, livestock, creeping things, and birds of the sky. They were destroyed from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ship.

The waters flooded the earth one hundred and fifty days.

He said, “Canaan is cursed. He will be a servant of servants to his brothers.”

The LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.

They took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who lived in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.

When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Now terror and great darkness fell on him.

He said to Abram, “Know for sure that your offspring will live as foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years.

The LORD’s angel said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hands.”

The LORD’s angel said to her, “Behold, you are with child, and will bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the LORD has heard your affliction.

He will be like a wild donkey amongst men. His hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. He will live opposed to all of his brothers.”

See now, I have two virgin daughters. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them what seems good to you. Only don’t do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof.”

The thing was very grievous in Abraham’s sight on account of his son.

Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a container of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder; and gave her the child, and sent her away. She departed, and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

The water in the container was spent, and she put the child under one of the shrubs.

She went and sat down opposite him, a good way off, about a bow shot away. For she said, “Don’t let me see the death of the child.” She sat opposite him, and lifted up her voice, and wept.

He said, “Now take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go into the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you of.”

The children struggled together within her. She said, “If it is like this, why do I live?” She went to enquire of the LORD.

Esau said, “Behold, I am about to die. What good is the birthright to me?”

There was a famine in the land, in addition to the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, to Gerar.

The LORD saw that Leah was hated, and he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.

Leah conceived, and bore a son, and she named him Reuben. For she said, “Because the LORD has looked at my affliction; for now my husband will love me.”

She conceived again, and bore a son, and said, “Because the LORD has heard that I am hated, he has therefore given me this son also.” She named him Simeon.

That which was torn of animals, I didn’t bring to you. I bore its loss. Of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night.

This was my situation: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes.

Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the labour of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”

When he saw that he didn’t prevail against him, the man touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was strained as he wrestled.

The sun rose on him as he passed over Peniel, and he limped because of his thigh.

Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her. He took her, lay with her, and humbled her.

On the third day, when they were sore, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword, came upon the unsuspecting city, and killed all the males.

They killed Hamor and Shechem, his son, with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem’s house, and went away.

and all their wealth. They took captive all their little ones and their wives, and took as plunder everything that was in the house.

They travelled from Bethel. There was still some distance to come to Ephrath, and Rachel travailed. She had hard labour.

As her soul was departing (for she died), she named him Benoni, but his father named him Benjamin.

When Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colours that was on him;

and they took him, and threw him into the pit. The pit was empty. There was no water in it.

Midianites who were merchants passed by, and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. The merchants brought Joseph into Egypt.

Reuben returned to the pit, and saw that Joseph wasn’t in the pit; and he tore his clothes.

He recognised it, and said, “It is my son’s tunic. An evil animal has devoured him. Joseph is without doubt torn in pieces.”

Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days.

The Midianites sold him into Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard.

Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the LORD’s sight. So the LORD killed him.

The thing which he did was evil in the LORD’s sight, and he killed him also.

Joseph was brought down to Egypt. Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the hand of the Ishmaelites that had brought him down there.

she called to the men of her house, and spoke to them, saying, “Behold, he has brought a Hebrew in to us to mock us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried with a loud voice.

When he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment by me, and ran outside.”

She spoke to him according to these words, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought to us, came in to me to mock me,

and as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment by me, and ran outside.”

Joseph’s master took him, and put him into the prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were bound, and he was there in custody.

He put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard, into the prison, the place where Joseph was bound.

The captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, and he took care of them. They stayed in prison many days.

They both dreamt a dream, each man his dream, in one night, each man according to the interpretation of his dream, the cup bearer and the baker of the king of Egypt, who were bound in the prison.

For indeed, I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews, and here also I have done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon.”

Within three more days, Pharaoh will lift up your head from off you, and will hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh from off you.”

but he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them.

Behold, seven other cattle came up after them out of the river, ugly and thin, and stood by the other cattle on the brink of the river.

The ugly and thin cattle ate up the seven sleek and fat cattle. So Pharaoh awoke.

Behold, seven heads of grain, thin and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them.

The thin heads of grain swallowed up the seven healthy and full ears. Pharaoh awoke, and behold, it was a dream.

and behold, seven other cattle came up after them, poor and very ugly and thin, such as I never saw in all the land of Egypt for ugliness.

The thin and ugly cattle ate up the first seven fat cattle;

and when they had eaten them up, it couldn’t be known that they had eaten them, but they were still ugly, as at the beginning. So I awoke.

and behold, seven heads of grain, withered, thin, and blasted with the east wind, sprung up after them.

The seven thin and ugly cattle that came up after them are seven years, and also the seven empty heads of grain blasted with the east wind; they will be seven years of famine.

Seven years of famine will arise after them, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt. The famine will consume the land,

and the plenty will not be known in the land by reason of that famine which follows; for it will be very grievous.

The name of the second, he called Ephraim: “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.”

The seven years of famine began to come, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in all lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread.

When all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread, and Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph. What he says to you, do.”

The famine was over all the surface of the earth. Joseph opened all the store houses, and sold to the Egyptians. The famine was severe in the land of Egypt.

All countries came into Egypt, to Joseph, to buy grain, because the famine was severe in all the earth.

The sons of Israel came to buy amongst those who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.

He put them all together into custody for three days.

They said to one another, “We are certainly guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us, and we wouldn’t listen. Therefore this distress has come upon us.”

The famine was severe in the land.

Then they tore their clothes, and each man loaded his donkey, and returned to the city.

One went out from me, and I said, “Surely he is torn in pieces;” and I haven’t seen him since.

If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to Sheol.’

it will happen, when he sees that the boy is no more, that he will die. Your servants will bring down the grey hairs of your servant, our father, with sorrow to Sheol.

For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are yet five years, in which there will be no ploughing and no harvest.

They also said to Pharaoh, “We have come to live as foreigners in the land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks. For the famine is severe in the land of Canaan. Now therefore, please let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.”

Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and evil. They have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.”

There was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine.

When the money was all spent in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph, and said, “Give us bread, for why should we die in your presence? For our money fails.”

When that year was ended, they came to him the second year, and said to him, “We will not hide from my lord how our money is all spent, and the herds of livestock are my lord’s. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands.

Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants to Pharaoh. Give us seed, that we may live, and not die, and that the land won’t be desolate.”

So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for every man of the Egyptians sold his field, because the famine was severe on them, and the land became Pharaoh’s.

After these things, someone said to Joseph, “Behold, your father is sick.” He took with him his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.

The archers have severely grieved him, shot at him, and persecuted him:

Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. They built storage cities for Pharaoh: Pithom and Raamses.

But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out. They started to dread the children of Israel.

The Egyptians ruthlessly made the children of Israel serve,

and they made their lives bitter with hard service in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve.

Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “You shall cast every son who is born into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.”

In those days, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his brothers and saw their burdens. He saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his brothers.

In the course of those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up to God because of the bondage.

The LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

Now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me. Moreover I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and tell them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt.

The king of Egypt said to them, “Why do you, Moses and Aaron, take the people from their work? Get back to your burdens!”

Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the land are now many, and you make them rest from their burdens.”

The same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying,

“You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick, as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves.

You shall require from them the number of the bricks which they made before. You shall not diminish anything of it, for they are idle. Therefore they cry, saying, ‘Let’s go and sacrifice to our God.’

Let heavier work be laid on the men, that they may labour in it. Don’t let them pay any attention to lying words.”

The taskmasters of the people went out with their officers, and they spoke to the people, saying, “This is what Pharaoh says: ‘I will not give you straw.

Go yourselves, get straw where you can find it, for nothing of your work shall be diminished.’”

So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble for straw.

The taskmasters were urgent saying, “Fulfil your work quota daily, as when there was straw!”

The officers of the children of Israel, whom Pharaoh’s taskmasters had set over them, were beaten, and were asked, “Why haven’t you fulfilled your quota both yesterday and today, in making brick as before?”

Then the officers of the children of Israel came and cried to Pharaoh, saying, “Why do you deal this way with your servants?

No straw is given to your servants, and they tell us, ‘Make brick!’ and behold, your servants are beaten; but the fault is in your own people.”

But Pharaoh said, “You are idle! You are idle! Therefore you say, ‘Let’s go and sacrifice to the LORD.’

Go therefore now, and work; for no straw shall be given to you; yet you shall deliver the same number of bricks!”

The officers of the children of Israel saw that they were in trouble when it was said, “You shall not diminish anything from your daily quota of bricks!”

They said to them, “May the LORD look at you and judge, because you have made us a stench to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to kill us!”

Moses returned to the LORD, and said, “Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Why is it that you have sent me?

For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people. You have not rescued your people at all!”

Moreover I have heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered my covenant.

Moses spoke so to the children of Israel, but they didn’t listen to Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.

The fish that are in the river will die and the river will become foul. The Egyptians will loathe to drink water from the river.”’”

The fish that were in the river died. The river became foul. The Egyptians couldn’t drink water from the river. The blood was throughout all the land of Egypt.

All the Egyptians dug around the river for water to drink; for they couldn’t drink the river water.

The river will swarm with frogs, which will go up and come into your house, and into your bedroom, and on your bed, and into the house of your servants, and on your people, and into your ovens, and into your kneading troughs.

The frogs shall come up both on you, and on your people, and on all your servants.”’”

They gathered them together in heaps, and the land stank.

They did so; and Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and struck the dust of the earth, and there were lice on man, and on animal; all the dust of the earth became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.

The magicians tried with their enchantments to produce lice, but they couldn’t. There were lice on man, and on animal.

behold, the LORD’s hand is on your livestock which are in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the herds, and on the flocks with a very grievous pestilence.

It shall become small dust over all the land of Egypt, and shall be boils and blisters breaking out on man and on animal, throughout all the land of Egypt.”

They took ashes of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses sprinkled it up towards the sky; and it became boils and blisters breaking out on man and on animal.

The magicians couldn’t stand before Moses because of the boils; for the boils were on the magicians and on all the Egyptians.

Behold, tomorrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as has not been in Egypt since the day it was founded even until now.

The LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand towards the sky, that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt, on man, and on animal, and on every herb of the field, throughout the land of Egypt.”

Moses stretched out his rod towards the heavens, and the LORD sent thunder and hail; and lightning flashed down to the earth. The LORD rained hail on the land of Egypt.

So there was very severe hail, and lightning mixed with the hail, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.

The hail struck throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and animal; and the hail struck every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the field.

Pray to the LORD; for there has been enough of mighty thunderings and hail. I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer.”

The flax and the barley were struck, for the barley had ripened and the flax was blooming.

Your houses shall be filled, and the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians, as neither your fathers nor your fathers’ fathers have seen, since the day that they were on the earth to this day.’” He turned, and went out from Pharaoh.

The locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the borders of Egypt. They were very grievous. Before them there were no such locusts as they, nor will there ever be again.

For they covered the surface of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened, and they ate every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left. There remained nothing green, either tree or herb of the field, through all the land of Egypt.

Moses stretched out his hand towards the sky, and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt for three days.

and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant who is behind the mill, and all the firstborn of livestock.

There will be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as there has not been, nor will be any more.

At midnight, the LORD struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock.

Pharaoh rose up in the night, he, and all his servants, and all the Egyptians; and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was not a house where there was not one dead.

When they came to Marah, they couldn’t drink from the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore its name was called Marah.

“If men quarrel and one strikes the other with a stone, or with his fist, and he doesn’t die, but is confined to bed;

and my wrath will grow hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.

The sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. About three thousand men fell of the people that day.

“Or when the body has a burn from fire on its skin, and the raw flesh of the burn becomes a bright spot, reddish-white, or white,

But if a reddish-white plague is in the bald head or the bald forehead, it is leprosy breaking out in his bald head or his bald forehead.

he is a leprous man. He is unclean. The priest shall surely pronounce him unclean. His plague is on his head.

“The leper in whom the plague is shall wear torn clothes, and the hair of his head shall hang loose. He shall cover his upper lip, and shall cry, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’

All the days in which the plague is in him he shall be unclean. He is unclean. He shall dwell alone. His dwelling shall be outside of the camp.

I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it.

I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you.

“‘If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins.

“‘If you walk contrary to me, and won’t listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins.

I will send the wild animals amongst you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you few in number. Your roads will become desolate.

then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins.

I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence amongst you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight. You shall eat, and not be satisfied.

then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. I will also chastise you seven times for your sins.

You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters.

I will scatter you amongst the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you. Your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.

You will perish amongst the nations. The land of your enemies will eat you up.

Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers they shall pine away with them.

I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity,

The people were complaining in the ears of the LORD. When the LORD heard it, his anger burnt; and the LORD’s fire burnt amongst them, and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.

The name of that place was called Taberah, because the LORD’s fire burnt amongst them.

Moses said to the LORD, “Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why haven’t I found favour in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?

Have I conceived all this people? Have I brought them out, that you should tell me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing infant, to the land which you swore to their fathers’?

Where could I get meat to give all these people? For they weep before me, saying, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’

I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me.

If you treat me this way, please kill me right now, if I have found favour in your sight; and don’t let me see my wretchedness.”

While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the LORD’s anger burnt against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very great plague.

The cloud departed from over the Tent; and behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. Aaron looked at Miriam, and behold, she was leprous.

Let her not, I pray, be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he comes out of his mother’s womb.”

Your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; and all who were counted of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, who have complained against me,

But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.

Your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your prostitution, until your dead bodies are consumed in the wilderness.

After the number of the days in which you spied out the land, even forty days, for every day a year, you will bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you will know my alienation.’

I, the LORD, have spoken. I will surely do this to all this evil congregation who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”

The men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation to murmur against him by bringing up an evil report against the land,

even those men who brought up an evil report of the land, died by the plague before the LORD.

Moses told these words to all the children of Israel, and the people mourned greatly.

Then the Amalekites came down, and the Canaanites who lived in that mountain, and struck them and beat them down even to Hormah.

Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, but you must also make yourself a prince over us?

Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer, put fire from the altar in it, lay incense on it, carry it quickly to the congregation, and make atonement for them; for wrath has gone out from the LORD! The plague has begun.”

He stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed.

Now those who died by the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred, in addition to those who died about the matter of Korah.

The people quarrelled with Moses, and spoke, saying, “We wish that we had died when our brothers died before the LORD!

Why have you brought the LORD’s assembly into this wilderness, that we should die there, we and our animals?

Why have you made us to come up out of Egypt, to bring us in to this evil place? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates; neither is there any water to drink.”

Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom, saying: “Your brother Israel says: You know all the travail that has happened to us;

how our fathers went down into Egypt, and we lived in Egypt a long time. The Egyptians mistreated us and our fathers.

They travelled from Mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. The soul of the people was very discouraged because of the journey.

The LORD sent venomous snakes amongst the people, and they bit the people. Many people of Israel died.

Woe to you, Moab! You are undone, people of Chemosh! He has given his sons as fugitives, and his daughters into captivity, to Sihon king of the Amorites.

We have shot at them. Heshbon has perished even to Dibon. We have laid waste even to Nophah, Which reaches to Medeba.”

Nevertheless Kain shall be wasted, until Asshur carries you away captive.”

But ships shall come from the coast of Kittim. They shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber. He also shall come to destruction.”

Those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.

Now the name of the man of Israel that was slain, who was slain with the Midianite woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a fathers’ house amongst the Simeonites.

The name of the Midianite woman who was slain was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur. He was head of the people of a fathers’ house in Midian.

for they harassed you with their wiles, wherein they have deceived you in the matter of Peor, and in the incident regarding Cozbi, the daughter of the prince of Midian, their sister, who was slain on the day of the plague in the matter of Peor.”

Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and so the plague was amongst the congregation of the LORD.

The LORD’s anger burnt against Israel, and he made them wander back and forth in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation who had done evil in the LORD’s sight was consumed.

For if you turn away from after him, he will yet again leave them in the wilderness; and you will destroy all these people.”

They travelled from Alush, and encamped in Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink.

“But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those you let remain of them will be like pricks in your eyes and thorns in your sides. They will harass you in the land in which you dwell.

The Amorites, who lived in that hill country, came out against you and chased you as bees do, and beat you down in Seir, even to Hormah.

We utterly destroyed them, as we did to Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying every inhabited city, with the women and the little ones.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to possess it. You will not prolong your days on it, but will utterly be destroyed.

The LORD will scatter you amongst the peoples, and you will be left few in number amongst the nations where the LORD will lead you away.

When you are in oppression, and all these things have come on you, in the latter days you shall return to the LORD your God and listen to his voice.

who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with venomous snakes and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water; who poured water for you out of the rock of flint;

Remember what Amalek did to you by the way as you came out of Egypt,

how he met you by the way, and struck the rearmost of you, all who were feeble behind you, when you were faint and weary; and he didn’t fear God.

The Egyptians mistreated us, afflicted us, and imposed hard labour on us.

Then we cried to the LORD, the God of our fathers. The LORD heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression.

You will be cursed in the city, and you will be cursed in the field.

Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.

The fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the increase of your livestock, and the young of your flock will be cursed.

You will be cursed when you come in, and you will be cursed when you go out.

The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me.

The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from off the land where you go in to possess it.

The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with fiery heat, with the sword, with blight, and with mildew. They will pursue you until you perish.

Your sky that is over your head will be bronze, and the earth that is under you will be iron.

The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust. It will come down on you from the sky, until you are destroyed.

The LORD will cause you to be struck before your enemies. You will go out one way against them, and will flee seven ways before them. You will be tossed back and forth amongst all the kingdoms of the earth.

Your dead bodies will be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there will be no one to frighten them away.

The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with the tumours, with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed.

The LORD will strike you with madness, with blindness, and with astonishment of heart.

You will grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. You will only be oppressed and robbed always, and there will be no one to save you.

You will betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her. You will build a house, and you won’t dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, and not use its fruit.

Your ox will be slain before your eyes, and you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away from before your face, and will not be restored to you. Your sheep will be given to your enemies, and you will have no one to save you.

Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look and fail with longing for them all day long. There will be no power in your hand.

A nation which you don’t know will eat the fruit of your ground and all of your work. You will only be oppressed and crushed always,

so that the sights that you see with your eyes will drive you mad.

The LORD will strike you in the knees and in the legs with a sore boil, of which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

The LORD will bring you, and your king whom you will set over yourselves, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone.

You will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword amongst all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away.

You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in, for the locust will consume it.

You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them.

You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives will drop off.

You will father sons and daughters, but they will not be yours, for they will go into captivity.

Locusts will consume all of your trees and the fruit of your ground.

The foreigner who is amongst you will mount up above you higher and higher, and you will come down lower and lower.

He will lend to you, and you won’t lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.

All these curses will come on you, and will pursue you and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you.

They will be for a sign and for a wonder to you and to your offspring forever.

therefore you will serve your enemies whom the LORD sends against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in lack of all things. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies: a nation whose language you will not understand,

a nation of fierce facial expressions, that doesn’t respect the elderly, nor show favour to the young.

They will eat the fruit of your livestock and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed. They also won’t leave you grain, new wine, oil, the increase of your livestock, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish.

They will besiege you in all your gates until your high and fortified walls in which you trusted come down throughout all your land. They will besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you.

You will eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies will distress you.

The man who is tender amongst you, and very delicate, his eye will be evil towards his brother, towards the wife whom he loves, and towards the remnant of his children whom he has remaining,

so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left to him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in all your gates.

The tender and delicate woman amongst you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye will be evil towards the husband that she loves, towards her son, towards her daughter,

towards her young one who comes out from between her feet, and towards her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of all things in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy will distress you in your gates.

then the LORD will make your plagues and the plagues of your offspring fearful, even great plagues, and of long duration, and severe sicknesses, and of long duration.

He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they will cling to you.

Also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, the LORD will bring them on you until you are destroyed.

You will be left few in number, even though you were as the stars of the sky for multitude, because you didn’t listen to the LORD your God’s voice.

It will happen that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be plucked from the land that you are going in to possess.

The LORD will scatter you amongst all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth. There you will serve other gods which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone.

Amongst these nations you will find no ease, and there will be no rest for the sole of your foot; but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and pining of soul.

Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be afraid night and day, and will have no assurance of your life.

In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening!” and at evening you will say, “I wish it were morning!” for the fear of your heart which you will fear, and for the sights which your eyes will see.

The LORD will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I told to you that you would never see it again. There you will offer yourselves to your enemies for male and female slaves, and nobody will buy you.

The LORD will set him apart for evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.

The generation to come—your children who will rise up after you, and the foreigner who will come from a far land—will say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which the LORD has made it sick,

that all of its land is sulphur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath.

Even all the nations will say, “Why has the LORD done this to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?”

Therefore the LORD’s anger burnt against this land, to bring on it all the curses that are written in this book.

The LORD rooted them out of their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and thrust them into another land, as it is today.”

Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall come on them; so that they will say in that day, ‘Haven’t these evils come on us because our God is not amongst us?’

I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evil which they have done, in that they have turned to other gods.

It will happen, when many evils and troubles have come on them, that this song will testify before them as a witness; for it will not be forgotten out of the mouths of their descendants; for I know their ways and what they are doing today, before I have brought them into the land which I promised them.”

For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves, and turn away from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will happen to you in the latter days, because you will do that which is evil in the LORD’s sight, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.”

For a fire is kindled in my anger, that burns to the lowest Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on fire.

“I will heap evils on them. I will spend my arrows on them.

They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will send the teeth of animals on them, with the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.

Outside the sword will bereave, and in the rooms, terror on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the grey-haired man.

I said that I would scatter them afar. I would make their memory to cease from amongst men;

For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poison grapes. Their clusters are bitter.

Their wine is the poison of serpents, the cruel venom of asps.

Vengeance is mine, and recompense, at the time when their foot slides, for the day of their calamity is at hand. Their doom rushes at them.”

For you shall see the land from a distance; but you shall not go there into the land which I give the children of Israel.”

They utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, both young and old, and ox, sheep, and donkey, with the edge of the sword.

Joshua commanded them with an oath at that time, saying, “Cursed is the man before the LORD who rises up and builds this city Jericho. With the loss of his firstborn he will lay its foundation, and with the loss of his youngest son he will set up its gates.”

Joshua said, “Why have you troubled us? The LORD will trouble you today.” All Israel stoned him with stones, and they burnt them with fire and stoned them with stones.

These wine skins, which we filled, were new; and behold, they are torn. These our garments and our sandals have become old because of the very long journey.”

Is the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we have not cleansed ourselves to this day, although there came a plague on the congregation of the LORD,

know for a certainty that the LORD your God will no longer drive these nations from out of your sight; but they shall be a snare and a trap to you, a scourge in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you.

The Amorites forced the children of Dan into the hill country, for they would not allow them to come down to the valley;

Therefore I also said, ‘I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be in your sides, and their gods will be a snare to you.’”

The LORD’s anger burnt against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of raiders who plundered them. He sold them into the hands of their enemies all around, so that they could no longer stand before their enemies.

Wherever they went out, the LORD’s hand was against them for evil, as the LORD had spoken, and as the LORD had sworn to them; and they were very distressed.

When the LORD raised up judges for them, then the LORD was with the judge, and saved them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for it grieved the LORD because of their groaning by reason of those who oppressed them and troubled them.

Therefore the LORD’s anger burnt against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Cushan Rishathaim king of Mesopotamia; and the children of Israel served Cushan Rishathaim eight years.

He gathered the children of Ammon and Amalek to himself; and he went and struck Israel, and they possessed the city of palm trees.

The children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.

The LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; the captain of whose army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth of the Gentiles.

The children of Israel cried to the LORD, for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and he mightily oppressed the children of Israel for twenty years.

“In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied. The travellers walked through byways.

The children of Israel did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, so the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years.

The hand of Midian prevailed against Israel; and because of Midian the children of Israel made themselves the dens which are in the mountains, the caves, and the strongholds.

So it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites, the Amalekites, and the children of the east came up against them.

They encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, until you come to Gaza. They left no sustenance in Israel, and no sheep, ox, or donkey.

For they came up with their livestock and their tents. They came in as locusts for multitude. Both they and their camels were without number; and they came into the land to destroy it.

Israel was brought very low because of Midian; and the children of Israel cried to the LORD.

Gideon said to him, “Oh, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? Where are all his wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, ‘Didn’t the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian.”

The Midianites and the Amalekites and all the children of the east lay along in the valley like locusts for multitude; and their camels were without number, as the sand which is on the seashore for multitude.

Abimelech chased him, and he fled before him, and many fell wounded, even to the entrance of the gate.

Abimelech lived at Arumah; and Zebul drove out Gaal and his brothers, that they should not dwell in Shechem.

Abimelech and the companies that were with him rushed forward and stood in the entrance of the gate of the city; and the two companies rushed on all who were in the field and struck them.

Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city and killed the people in it. He beat down the city and sowed it with salt.

All the people likewise each cut down his bough, followed Abimelech, and put them at the base of the stronghold, and set the stronghold on fire over them, so that all the people of the tower of Shechem died also, about a thousand men and women.

A certain woman cast an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head, and broke his skull.

They troubled and oppressed the children of Israel that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the children of Israel that were beyond the Jordan in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead.

The children of Ammon passed over the Jordan to fight also against Judah, and against Benjamin, and against the house of Ephraim, so that Israel was very distressed.

After a while, the children of Ammon made war against Israel.

When he saw her, he tore his clothes, and said, “Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are one of those who trouble me; for I have opened my mouth to the LORD, and I can’t go back.”

Then she said to her father, “Let this thing be done for me. Leave me alone two months, that I may depart and go down on the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my companions.”

He said, “Go.” He sent her away for two months; and she departed, she and her companions, and mourned her virginity on the mountains.

At the end of two months, she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed. She was a virgin. It became a custom in Israel

then they said to him, “Now say ‘Shibboleth;’” and he said “Sibboleth”; for he couldn’t manage to pronounce it correctly, then they seized him and killed him at the fords of the Jordan. At that time, forty-two thousand of Ephraim fell.

The children of Israel again did that which was evil in the LORD’s sight; and the LORD delivered them into the hand of the Philistines forty years.

Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” They said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” The Philistines came up, and burnt her and her father with fire.

When she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, his soul was troubled to death.

She made him sleep on her knees; and she called for a man and shaved off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.

The Philistines laid hold on him and put out his eyes; and they brought him down to Gaza and bound him with fetters of bronze; and he ground at the mill in the prison.

When their hearts were merry, they said, “Call for Samson, that he may entertain us.” They called for Samson out of the prison; and he performed before them. They set him between the pillars;

They took that which Micah had made, and the priest whom he had, and came to Laish, to a people quiet and unsuspecting, and struck them with the edge of the sword; then they burnt the city with fire.

Behold, here is my virgin daughter and his concubine. I will bring them out now. Humble them, and do with them what seems good to you; but to this man don’t do any such folly.”

But the men wouldn’t listen to him; so the man grabbed his concubine, and brought her out to them; and they had sex with her, and abused her all night until the morning. When the day began to dawn, they let her go.

Then the woman came in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man’s house where her lord was, until it was light.

Her lord rose up in the morning and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way; and behold, the woman his concubine had fallen down at the door of the house, with her hands on the threshold.

He said to her, “Get up, and let’s get going!” but no one answered. Then he took her up on the donkey; and the man rose up, and went to his place.

The men of Gibeah rose against me, and surrounded the house by night. They intended to kill me and they raped my concubine, and she is dead.

The children of Benjamin came out of Gibeah, and on that day destroyed twenty-two thousand of the Israelite men down to the ground.

Benjamin went out against them out of Gibeah the second day, and destroyed down to the ground of the children of Israel again eighteen thousand men. All these drew the sword.

The children of Benjamin went out against the people, and were drawn away from the city; and they began to strike and kill of the people as at other times, in the highways, of which one goes up to Bethel and the other to Gibeah, in the field, about thirty men of Israel.

The ambushers hurried, and rushed on Gibeah; then the ambushers spread out, and struck all the city with the edge of the sword.

The men of Israel turned in the battle, and Benjamin began to strike and kill of the men of Israel about thirty persons; for they said, “Surely they are struck down before us, as in the first battle.”

But when the cloud began to arise up out of the city in a pillar of smoke, the Benjamites looked behind them; and behold, the whole city went up in smoke to the sky.

The men of Israel turned, and the men of Benjamin were dismayed; for they saw that disaster had come on them.

Therefore they turned their backs before the men of Israel to the way of the wilderness, but the battle followed hard after them; and those who came out of the cities destroyed them in the middle of it.

They surrounded the Benjamites, chased them, and trod them down at their resting place, as far as near Gibeah towards the sunrise.

Eighteen thousand men of Benjamin fell; all these were men of valour.

They turned and fled towards the wilderness to the rock of Rimmon. They gleaned five thousand men of them in the highways, and followed hard after them to Gidom, and struck two thousand men of them.

So that all who fell that day of Benjamin were twenty-five thousand men who drew the sword. All these were men of valour.

The men of Israel turned again on the children of Benjamin, and struck them with the edge of the sword—including the entire city, the livestock, and all that they found. Moreover they set all the cities which they found on fire.

This is the thing that you shall do: you shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman who has lain with a man.”

In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land. A certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to live in the country of Moab with his wife and his two sons.

Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons.

Mahlon and Chilion both died, and the woman was bereaved of her two children and of her husband.

would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, for it grieves me seriously for your sakes, for the LORD’s hand has gone out against me.”

She said to them, “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.

I went out full, and the LORD has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the LORD has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?”

Her rival provoked her severely, to irritate her, because the LORD had shut up her womb.

So year by year, when she went up to the LORD’s house, her rival provoked her. Therefore she wept, and didn’t eat.

She was in bitterness of soul, and prayed to the LORD, weeping bitterly.

She vowed a vow, and said, “LORD of Armies, if you will indeed look at the affliction of your servant and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a boy, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and no razor shall come on his head.”

Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit. I have not been drinking wine or strong drink, but I poured out my soul before the LORD.

Don’t consider your servant a wicked woman; for I have been speaking out of the abundance of my complaint and my provocation.”

Behold, the days come that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father’s house, that there will not be an old man in your house.

You will see the affliction of my habitation, in all the wealth which I will give Israel. There shall not be an old man in your house forever.

The man of yours whom I don’t cut off from my altar will consume your eyes and grieve your heart. All the increase of your house will die in the flower of their age.

This will be the sign to you that will come on your two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they will both die.

It will happen that everyone who is left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and will say, “Please put me into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a morsel of bread.”’”

At that time, when Eli was laid down in his place (now his eyes had begun to grow dim, so that he could not see),

The Philistines put themselves in array against Israel. When they joined battle, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men of the army in the field.

Woe to us! Who shall deliver us out of the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods that struck the Egyptians with all kinds of plagues in the wilderness.

The Philistines fought, and Israel was defeated, and each man fled to his tent. There was a very great slaughter; for thirty thousand footmen of Israel fell.

A man of Benjamin ran out of the army and came to Shiloh the same day, with his clothes torn and with dirt on his head.

Now Eli was ninety-eight years old. His eyes were set, so that he could not see.

He who brought the news answered, “Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has been also a great slaughter amongst the people. Your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and God’s ark has been captured.”

When he made mention of God’s ark, Eli fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate; and his neck broke, and he died, for he was an old man and heavy. He had judged Israel forty years.

His daughter-in-law, Phinehas’ wife, was with child, near to giving birth. When she heard the news that God’s ark was taken and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she bowed herself and gave birth; for her pains came on her.

About the time of her death the women who stood by her said to her, “Don’t be afraid, for you have given birth to a son.” But she didn’t answer, neither did she regard it.

She named the child Ichabod, saying, “The glory has departed from Israel!” because God’s ark was taken, and because of her father-in-law and her husband.

She said, “The glory has departed from Israel; for God’s ark has been taken.”

But the LORD’s hand was heavy on the people of Ashdod, and he destroyed them and struck them with tumours, even Ashdod and its borders.

When the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel shall not stay with us, for his hand is severe on us and on Dagon our god.”

It was so, that after they had carried it there, the LORD’s hand was against the city with a very great confusion; and he struck the men of the city, both small and great, so that tumours broke out on them.

They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and they said, “Send the ark of the God of Israel away, and let it go again to its own place, that it not kill us and our people.” For there was a deadly panic throughout all the city. The hand of God was very heavy there.

The men who didn’t die were struck with the tumours; and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

Then they said, “What should the trespass offering be which we shall return to him?” They said, “Five golden tumours and five golden mice, for the number of the lords of the Philistines; for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.

He struck of the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the LORD’s ark, he struck fifty thousand and seventy of the men. Then the people mourned, because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter.

He said, “This will be the way of the king who shall reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them as his servants, for his chariots and to be his horsemen; and they will run before his chariots.

He will appoint them to him for captains of thousands and captains of fifties; and he will assign some to plough his ground and to reap his harvest; and to make his instruments of war and the instruments of his chariots.

He will take your daughters to be perfumers, to be cooks, and to be bakers.

He will take your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, even your best, and give them to his servants.

He will take one tenth of your seed and of your vineyards, and give it to his officers and to his servants.

He will take your male servants, your female servants, your best young men, and your donkeys, and assign them to his own work.

He will take one tenth of your flocks; and you will be his servants.

You will cry out in that day because of your king whom you will have chosen for yourselves; and the LORD will not answer you in that day.”

Nahash the Ammonite said to them, “On this condition I will make it with you, that all your right eyes be gouged out. I will make this dishonour all Israel.”

But they forgot the LORD their God; and he sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the army of Hazor, and into the hand of the Philistines, and into the hand of the king of Moab; and they fought against them.

The men of Israel were distressed that day; for Saul had adjured the people, saying, “Cursed is the man who eats any food until it is evening, and I am avenged of my enemies.” So none of the people tasted food.

Then one of the people answered, and said, “Your father directly commanded the people with an oath, saying, ‘Cursed is the man who eats food today.’” So the people were faint.

They struck the Philistines that day from Michmash to Aijalon. The people were very faint;

Samuel said, “As your sword has made women childless, so your mother will be childless amongst women!” Then Samuel cut Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal.

Now the LORD’s Spirit departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.

Saul’s servants said to him, “See now, an evil spirit from God troubles you.

On the next day, an evil spirit from God came mightily on Saul, and he prophesied in the middle of the house. David played with his hand, as he did day by day. Saul had his spear in his hand;

Everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered themselves to him; and he became captain over them. There were with him about four hundred men.

The king said to Doeg, “Turn and attack the priests!” Doeg the Edomite turned, and he attacked the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five people who wore a linen ephod.

He struck Nob, the city of the priests, with the edge of the sword—both men and women, children and nursing babies, and cattle, donkeys, and sheep, with the edge of the sword.

Abiathar told David that Saul had slain the LORD’s priests.

David was told, “Behold, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah, and are robbing the threshing floors.”

Then Saul fell immediately his full length on the earth, and was terrified, because of Samuel’s words. There was no strength in him, for he had eaten no bread all day long or all night long.

When David and his men had come to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid on the South and on Ziklag, and had struck Ziklag and burnt it with fire,

and had taken captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great. They didn’t kill any, but carried them off and went their way.

When David and his men came to the city, behold, it was burnt with fire; and their wives, their sons, and their daughters were taken captive.

Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voice and wept until they had no more power to weep.

David’s two wives were taken captive, Ahinoam the Jezreelitess, and Abigail the wife of Nabal the Carmelite.

David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the souls of all the people were grieved, every man for his sons and for his daughters; but David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.

David asked him, “To whom do you belong? Where are you from?” He said, “I am a young man of Egypt, servant to an Amalekite; and my master left me, because three days ago I got sick.

We made a raid on the South of the Cherethites, and on that which belongs to Judah, and on the South of Caleb; and we burnt Ziklag with fire.”

Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain on Mount Gilboa.

The Philistines overtook Saul and his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, the sons of Saul.

The battle went hard against Saul, and the archers overtook him; and he was greatly distressed by reason of the archers.

Then Saul said to his armour bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through and abuse me!” But his armour bearer would not, for he was terrified. Therefore Saul took his sword and fell on it.

When his armour bearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell on his sword, and died with him.

So Saul died with his three sons, his armour bearer, and all his men that same day together.

When the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley, and those who were beyond the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned the cities and fled; and the Philistines came and lived in them.

On the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.

They cut off his head, stripped off his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines all around, to carry the news to the house of their idols and to the people.

They put his armour in the house of the Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.

When the inhabitants of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul,

After the death of Saul, when David had returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and David had stayed two days in Ziklag,

on the third day, behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul, with his clothes torn and earth on his head. When he came to David, he fell to the earth and showed respect.

David said to him, “How did it go? Please tell me.” He answered, “The people have fled from the battle, and many of the people also have fallen and are dead. Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also.”

The young man who told him said, “As I happened by chance on Mount Gilboa, behold, Saul was leaning on his spear; and behold, the chariots and the horsemen followed close behind him.

He said to me, ‘Please stand beside me, and kill me, for anguish has taken hold of me because my life lingers in me.’

They mourned, wept, and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the LORD, and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.

“Your glory, Israel, was slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen!

You mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew or rain on you, and no fields of offerings; for there the shield of the mighty was defiled and cast away, the shield of Saul was not anointed with oil.

How the mighty have fallen in the middle of the battle! Jonathan was slain on your high places.

How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war have perished!”

They each caught his opponent by the head and thrust his sword in his fellow’s side; so they fell down together. Therefore that place in Gibeon was called Helkath Hazzurim.

The battle was very severe that day; and Abner was beaten, and the men of Israel, before David’s servants.

However, he refused to turn away. Therefore Abner with the back end of the spear struck him in the body, so that the spear came out behind him; and he fell down there and died in the same place. As many as came to the place where Asahel fell down and died stood still.

Then Abner called to Joab, and said, “Shall the sword devour forever? Don’t you know that it will be bitterness in the latter end? How long will it be then, before you ask the people to return from following their brothers?”

But David’s servants had struck Benjamin Abner’s men so that three hundred and sixty men died.

When Abner had returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside into the middle of the gate to speak with him quietly, and struck him there in the body, so that he died for the blood of Asahel his brother.

Let it fall on the head of Joab and on all his father’s house. Let there not fail from the house of Joab one who has a discharge, or who is a leper, or who leans on a staff, or who falls by the sword, or who lacks bread.”

So Joab and Abishai his brother killed Abner, because he had killed their brother Asahel at Gibeon in the battle.

Now Jonathan, Saul’s son, had a son who was lame in his feet. He was five years old when the news came about Saul and Jonathan out of Jezreel; and his nurse picked him up and fled. As she hurried to flee, he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.

They came there into the middle of the house as though they would have fetched wheat, and they struck him in the body; and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped.

Now when they came into the house as he lay on his bed in his bedroom, they struck him, killed him, beheaded him, and took his head, and went by the way of the Arabah all night.

The LORD’s anger burnt against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by God’s ark.

Michal the daughter of Saul had no child to the day of her death.

So Hanun took David’s servants, shaved off one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away.

The men of the city went out and fought with Joab. Some of the people fell, even of David’s servants; and Uriah the Hittite died also.

The messenger said to David, “The men prevailed against us, and came out to us into the field; and we were on them even to the entrance of the gate.

The shooters shot at your servants from off the wall; and some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.”

Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken Uriah the Hittite’s wife to be your wife.’

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbour, and he will lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.

However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to the LORD’s enemies to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you will surely die.”

Then Nathan departed to his house. The LORD struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and he was very sick.

Amnon was so troubled that he became sick because of his sister Tamar, for she was a virgin, and it seemed hard to Amnon to do anything to her.

However, he would not listen to her voice; but being stronger than she, he forced her and lay with her.

She said to him, “Not so, because this great wrong in sending me away is worse than the other that you did to me!” But he would not listen to her.

Tamar put ashes on her head, and tore her garment of various colours that was on her; and she laid her hand on her head and went her way, crying aloud as she went.

As soon as he had finished speaking, behold, the king’s sons came, and lifted up their voices and wept. The king also and all his servants wept bitterly.

But Absalom fled and went to Talmai the son of Ammihur, king of Geshur. David mourned for his son every day.

All the country wept with a loud voice, and all the people passed over. The king also himself passed over the brook Kidron, and all the people passed over towards the way of the wilderness.

David went up by the ascent of the Mount of Olives, and wept as he went up; and he had his head covered and went barefoot. All the people who were with him each covered his head, and they went up, weeping as they went up.

When David had come to the top, where God was worshipped, behold, Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his tunic torn and earth on his head.

Behold, he is now hidden in some pit, or in some other place. It will happen, when some of them have fallen at the first, that whoever hears it will say, ‘There is a slaughter amongst the people who follow Absalom!’

The people of Israel were struck there before David’s servants, and there was a great slaughter there that day of twenty thousand men.

For the battle was there spread over the surface of all the country, and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.

Absalom happened to meet David’s servants. Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak; and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was hanging between the sky and earth; and the mule that was under him went on.

He answered, “My lord, O king, my servant deceived me. For your servant said, ‘I will saddle a donkey for myself, that I may ride on it and go with the king,’ because your servant is lame.

But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab’s hand. So he struck him with it in the body and shed out his bowels to the ground, and didn’t strike him again; and he died. Joab and Abishai his brother pursued Sheba the son of Bichri.

Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the middle of the highway. When the man saw that all the people stood still, he carried Amasa out of the highway into the field, and cast a garment over him when he saw that everyone who came by him stood still.

There was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the LORD. The LORD said, “It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.”

He delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites; and they hanged them on the mountain before the LORD, and all seven of them fell together. They were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest.

The cords of Sheol were around me. The snares of death caught me.

So Gad came to David, and told him, saying, “Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now answer, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.”

So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning even to the appointed time; and seventy thousand men died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba.

Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy your threshing floor, to build an altar to the LORD, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people.”

Now King David was old and advanced in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he couldn’t keep warm.

To Abiathar the priest the king said, “Go to Anathoth, to your own fields, for you are worthy of death. But I will not at this time put you to death, because you bore the Lord GOD’s ark before David my father, and because you were afflicted in all in which my father was afflicted.”

This woman’s child died in the night, because she lay on it.

When I rose in the morning to nurse my child, behold, he was dead; but when I had looked at him in the morning, behold, it was not my son whom I bore.”

Then the woman whose the living child was spoke to the king, for her heart yearned over her son, and she said, “Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and in no way kill him!” But the other said, “He shall be neither mine nor yours. Divide him.”

“When the sky is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you, if they pray towards this place and confess your name, and turn from their sin when you afflict them,

“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight, mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemy besieges them in the land of their cities, whatever plague, whatever sickness there is,

whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and spread out his hands towards this house,

and they will answer, ‘Because they abandoned the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshipped them, and served them. Therefore the LORD has brought all this evil on them.’”

For when David was in Edom, and Joab the captain of the army had gone up to bury the slain, and had struck every male in Edom

(for Joab and all Israel remained there six months, until he had cut off every male in Edom),

“Your father made our yoke difficult. Now therefore make the hard service of your father, and his heavy yoke which he put on us, lighter, and we will serve you.”

Now my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.’”

and spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”

but came back, and have eaten bread and drank water in the place of which he said to you, “Eat no bread, and drink no water,” your body will not come to the tomb of your fathers.’”

When he had gone, a lion met him by the way and killed him. His body was thrown on the path, and the donkey stood by it. The lion also stood by the body.

When the prophet who brought him back from the way heard of it, he said, “It is the man of God who was disobedient to the LORD’s word. Therefore the LORD has delivered him to the lion, which has mauled him and slain him, according to the LORD’s word which he spoke to him.”

At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam became sick.

Jeroboam’s wife did so, and arose and went to Shiloh, and came to Ahijah’s house. Now Ahijah could not see, for his eyes were set by reason of his age.

therefore, behold, I will bring evil on the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam everyone who urinates on a wall, he who is shut up and he who is left at large in Israel, and will utterly sweep away the house of Jeroboam, as a man sweeps away dung until it is all gone.

The dogs will eat he who belongs to Jeroboam who dies in the city; and the birds of the sky will eat he who dies in the field, for the LORD has spoken it.”’

Arise therefore, and go to your house. When your feet enter into the city, the child will die.

He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he has sinned, and with which he has made Israel to sin.”

Jeroboam’s wife arose and departed, and came to Tirzah. As she came to the threshold of the house, the child died.

and he took away the treasures of the LORD’s house and the treasures of the king’s house. He even took away all of it, including all the gold shields which Solomon had made.

There was war between Asa and Baasha king of Israel all their days.

Ben Hadad listened to King Asa, and sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel, and struck Ijon, and Dan, and Abel Beth Maacah, and all Chinneroth, with all the land of Naphtali.

Now the rest of all the acts of Asa, and all his might, and all that he did, and the cities which he built, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? But in the time of his old age he was diseased in his feet.

Omri went up from Gibbethon, and all Israel with him, and they besieged Tirzah.

When Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the fortified part of the king’s house and burnt the king’s house over him with fire, and died,

But the people who followed Omri prevailed against the people who followed Tibni the son of Ginath; so Tibni died, and Omri reigned.

After a while, the brook dried up, because there was no rain in the land.

She said, “As the LORD your God lives, I don’t have anything baked, but only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jar. Behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and bake it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.”

After these things, the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick; and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.

She said to Elijah, “What have I to do with you, you man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to memory, and to kill my son!”

He cried to the LORD and said, “LORD my God, have you also brought evil on the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?”

Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. The famine was severe in Samaria.

They cried aloud, and cut themselves in their way with knives and lances until the blood gushed out on them.

‘Your silver and your gold are mine. Your wives also and your children, even the best, are mine.’”

The messengers came again and said, “Ben Hadad says, ‘I sent indeed to you, saying, “You shall deliver me your silver, your gold, your wives, and your children;

but I will send my servants to you tomorrow about this time, and they will search your house and the houses of your servants. Whatever is pleasant in your eyes, they will put it in their hand, and take it away.”’”

Then he found another man, and said, “Please strike me.” The man struck him and wounded him.

Set two men, wicked fellows, before him, and let them testify against him, saying, ‘You cursed God and the king!’ Then carry him out, and stone him to death.”

The two men, the wicked fellows, came in and sat before him. The wicked fellows testified against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king!” Then they carried him out of the city and stoned him to death with stones.

Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, “Naboth has been stoned and is dead.”

When Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, “Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.”

When Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.

Say, ‘The king says, “Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I come in peace.”’”

A certain man drew his bow at random, and struck the king of Israel between the joints of the armour. Therefore he said to the driver of his chariot, “Turn around, and carry me out of the battle, for I am severely wounded.”

The battle increased that day. The king was propped up in his chariot facing the Syrians, and died at evening. The blood ran out of the wound into the bottom of the chariot.

The men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold, please, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees; but the water is bad, and the land is barren.”

So the king of Israel went with the king of Judah and the king of Edom, and they marched for seven days along a circuitous route. There was no water for the army or for the animals that followed them.

Then he took his oldest son who would have reigned in his place, and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. There was great wrath against Israel; and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.

Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead. You know that your servant feared the LORD. Now the creditor has come to take for himself my two children to be slaves.”

He said to his father, “My head! My head!” He said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.”

When he had taken him and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees until noon, and then died.

When Elisha had come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and lying on his bed.

Elisha came again to Gilgal. There was a famine in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him; and he said to his servant, “Get the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.”

Now Naaman, captain of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the LORD had given victory to Syria; he was also a mighty man of valour, but he was a leper.

The Syrians had gone out in bands, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little girl, and she waited on Naaman’s wife.

Therefore the leprosy of Naaman will cling to you and to your offspring forever.” He went out from his presence a leper, as white as snow.

There was a great famine in Samaria. Behold, they besieged it until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver.

As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”

Then the king asked her, “What is your problem?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’

So we boiled my son and ate him; and I said to her on the next day, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him;’ and she has hidden her son.”

When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes. Now he was passing by on the wall, and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth underneath on his body.

While he was still talking with them, behold, the messenger came down to him. Then he said, “Behold, this evil is from the LORD. Why should I wait for the LORD any longer?”

Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate. They said to one another, “Why do we sit here until we die?

If we say, ‘We will enter into the city,’ then the famine is in the city, and we will die there. If we sit still here, we also die. Now therefore come, and let’s surrender to the army of the Syrians. If they save us alive, we will live; and if they kill us, we will only die.”

Hazael said, “Why do you weep, my lord?” He answered, “Because I know the evil that you will do to the children of Israel. You will set their strongholds on fire, and you will kill their young men with the sword, and will dash their little ones in pieces, and rip up their pregnant women.”

He went with Joram the son of Ahab to war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth Gilead, and the Syrians wounded Joram.

King Joram returned to be healed in Jezreel from the wounds which the Syrians had given him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. Ahaziah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went down to see Joram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.

Jehu drew his bow with his full strength, and struck Joram between his arms; and the arrow went out at his heart, and he sunk down in his chariot.

But when Ahaziah the king of Judah saw this, he fled by the way of the garden house. Jehu followed after him, and said, “Strike him also in the chariot!” They struck him at the ascent of Gur, which is by Ibleam. He fled to Megiddo, and died there.

His servants carried him in a chariot to Jerusalem, and buried him in his tomb with his fathers in David’s city.

He said, “Throw her down!” So they threw her down; and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and on the horses. Then he trampled her under foot.

When the letter came to them, they took the king’s sons and killed them, even seventy people, and put their heads in baskets, and sent them to him to Jezreel.

He said, “Take them alive!” They took them alive, and killed them at the pit of the shearing house, even forty-two men. He didn’t leave any of them.

In those days the LORD began to cut away parts of Israel; and Hazael struck them in all the borders of Israel

from the Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassites, from Aroer, which is by the valley of the Arnon, even Gilead and Bashan.

Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal offspring.

The LORD’s anger burnt against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, continually.

Jehoahaz begged the LORD, and the LORD listened to him; for he saw the oppression of Israel, how the king of Syria oppressed them.

For he didn’t leave to Jehoahaz of the people any more than fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria destroyed them and made them like the dust in threshing.

Now Elisha became sick with the illness of which he died; and Joash the king of Israel came down to him, and wept over him, and said, “My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen!”

Hazael king of Syria oppressed Israel all the days of Jehoahaz.

For the LORD saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter for all, slave and free; and there was no helper for Israel.

The LORD struck the king, so that he was a leper to the day of his death, and lived in a separate house. Jotham, the king’s son, was over the household, judging the people of the land.

Then Menahem attacked Tiphsah and all who were in it and its border areas, from Tirzah. He attacked it because they didn’t open their gates to him, and he ripped up all their women who were with child.

In the days of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria came and took Ijon, Abel Beth Maacah, Janoah, Kedesh, Hazor, Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria.

The king of Assyria listened to him; and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus and took it, and carried its people captive to Kir, and killed Rezin.

Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against him; and Hoshea became his servant, and brought him tribute.

The king of Assyria discovered a conspiracy in Hoshea; for he had sent messengers to So king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria seized him, and bound him in prison.

Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years.

In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

They caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in the LORD’s sight, to provoke him to anger.

Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight. There was none left but the tribe of Judah only.

The LORD rejected all the offspring of Israel, afflicted them, and delivered them into the hands of raiders, until he had cast them out of his sight.

For he tore Israel from David’s house; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king; and Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin.

The children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they didn’t depart from them

until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he said by all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria to this day.

The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, from Cuthah, from Avva, and from Hamath and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the children of Israel; and they possessed Samaria and lived in its cities.

So it was, at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they didn’t fear the LORD. Therefore the LORD sent lions amongst them, which killed some of them.

Therefore they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying, “The nations which you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria don’t know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions amongst them; and behold, they kill them, because they don’t know the law of the god of the land.”

At the end of three years they took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken.

The king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes,

At that time, Hezekiah cut off the gold from the doors of the LORD’s temple, and from the pillars which Hezekiah king of Judah had overlaid, and gave it to the king of Assyria.

But Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me to your master and to you, to speak these words? Hasn’t he sent me to the men who sit on the wall, to eat their own dung, and to drink their own urine with you?”

They said to him, “Hezekiah says, ‘Today is a day of trouble, of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the point of birth, and there is no strength to deliver them.

In those days Hezekiah was sick and dying. Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “The LORD says, ‘Set your house in order; for you will die, and not live.’”

‘Behold, the days come that all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have laid up in store to this day, will be carried to Babylon. Nothing will be left,’ says the LORD.

‘They will take away some of your sons who will issue from you, whom you will father; and they will be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”

I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plumb line of Ahab’s house; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.

I will cast off the remnant of my inheritance and deliver them into the hands of their enemies. They will become a prey and a plunder to all their enemies,

Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood very much, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; in addition to his sin with which he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the LORD’s sight.

“The LORD says, ‘Behold, I will bring evil on this place and on its inhabitants, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read.

In his days Pharaoh Necoh king of Egypt went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates; and King Josiah went against him, but Pharaoh Necoh killed him at Megiddo when he saw him.

Pharaoh Necoh made Eliakim the son of Josiah king in the place of Josiah his father, and changed his name to Jehoiakim; but he took Jehoahaz away, and he came to Egypt and died there.

Jehoiakim gave the silver and the gold to Pharaoh; but he taxed the land to give the money according to the commandment of Pharaoh. He exacted the silver and the gold of the people of the land, from everyone according to his assessment, to give it to Pharaoh Necoh.

and Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon—he, his mother, his servants, his princes, and his officers; and the king of Babylon captured him in the eighth year of his reign.

He carried out from there all the treasures of the LORD’s house and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the LORD’s temple, as the LORD had said.

He carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. No one remained except the poorest people of the land.

He carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, with the king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officers, and the chief men of the land. He carried them into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.

All the men of might, even seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths one thousand, all of them strong and fit for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.

On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

They killed Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, then put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

Now in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem.

He burnt the LORD’s house, the king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem. He burnt every great house with fire.

All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down the walls around Jerusalem.

Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive the rest of the people who were left in the city and those who had deserted to the king of Babylon—all the rest of the multitude.

The Chaldeans broke up the pillars of bronze that were in the LORD’s house and the bases and the bronze sea that were in the LORD’s house, and carried the bronze pieces to Babylon.

They took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they ministered.

The captain of the guard took away the fire pans, the basins, that which was of gold, for gold, and that which was of silver, for silver.

The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold;

and out of the city he took an officer who was set over the men of war; and five men of those who saw the king’s face, who were found in the city; and the scribe, the captain of the army, who mustered the people of the land, and sixty men of the people of the land who were found in the city.

Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah.

The king of Babylon attacked them and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away captive out of his land.

But in the seventh month, Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal offspring came, and ten men with him, and struck Gedaliah so that he died, with the Jews and the Chaldeans that were with him at Mizpah.

All the people, both small and great, and the captains of the forces arose and came to Egypt; for they were afraid of the Chaldeans.

Jabez was more honourable than his brothers. His mother named him Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him with sorrow.”

and Beerah his son, whom Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria carried away captive. He was prince of the Reubenites.

For many fell slain, because the war was of God. They lived in their place until the captivity.

So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried away the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.

Zabad his son, Shuthelah his son, Ezer, and Elead, whom the men of Gath who were born in the land killed, because they came down to take away their livestock.

He went in to his wife, and she conceived and bore a son, and he named him Beriah, because there was trouble with his house.

Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain on Mount Gilboa.

The Philistines followed hard after Saul and after his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malchishua, the sons of Saul.

The battle went hard against Saul, and the archers overtook him; and he was distressed by reason of the archers.

Then Saul said to his armour bearer, “Draw your sword, and thrust me through with it, lest these uncircumcised come and abuse me.” But his armour bearer would not, for he was terrified. Therefore Saul took his sword and fell on it.

When his armour bearer saw that Saul was dead, he likewise fell on his sword and died.

So Saul died with his three sons; and all his house died together.

When all the men of Israel who were in the valley saw that they fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned their cities, and fled; and the Philistines came and lived in them.

On the next day, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, they found Saul and his sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.

They stripped him and took his head and his armour, then sent into the land of the Philistines all around to carry the news to their idols and to the people.

They put his armour in the house of their gods, and fastened his head in the house of Dagon.

So Hanun took David’s servants, shaved them, and cut off their garments in the middle at their buttocks, and sent them away.

Then some people went and told David how the men were treated. He sent to meet them; for the men were greatly humiliated. The king said, “Stay at Jericho until your beards have grown, and then return.”

God was displeased with this thing; therefore he struck Israel.

either three years of famine; or three months to be consumed before your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days of the sword of the LORD, even pestilence in the land, and the LORD’s angel destroying throughout all the borders of Israel. Now therefore consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me.’”

So the LORD sent a pestilence on Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.

David said to God, “Isn’t it I who commanded the people to be counted? It is even I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand, O LORD my God, be against me and against my father’s house; but not against your people, that they should be plagued.”

Now, behold, in my affliction I have prepared for the LORD’s house one hundred thousand talents of gold, one million talents of silver, and bronze and iron without weight; for it is in abundance. I have also prepared timber and stone; and you may add to them.

“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there is blight or mildew, locust or caterpillar; if their enemies besiege them in the land of their cities; whatever plague or whatever sickness there is—

whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all your people Israel, who will each know his own plague and his own sorrow, and shall spread out his hands towards this house,

“If I shut up the sky so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence amongst my people,

“Your father made our yoke grievous. Now therefore make the grievous service of your father and his heavy yoke which he put on us, lighter, and we will serve you.”

The young men who had grown up with him spoke to him, saying, “Thus you shall tell the people who spoke to you, saying, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but make it lighter on us;’ thus you shall say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist.

Now whereas my father burdened you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.’”

and spoke to them after the counsel of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to it. My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.”

So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem and took away the treasures of the LORD’s house and the treasures of the king’s house. He took it all away. He also took away the shields of gold which Solomon had made.

Abijah and his people killed them with a great slaughter, so five hundred thousand chosen men of Israel fell down slain.

Jeroboam didn’t recover strength again in the days of Abijah. The LORD struck him, and he died.

But when in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found by them.

In those times there was no peace to him who went out, nor to him who came in; but great troubles were on all the inhabitants of the lands.

They were broken in pieces, nation against nation, and city against city; for God troubled them with all adversity.

Then Asa was angry with the seer, and put him in the prison; for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time.

In the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa was diseased in his feet. His disease was exceedingly great; yet in his disease he didn’t seek the LORD, but just the physicians.

and say, ‘The king says, “Put this fellow in the prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and with water of affliction, until I return in peace.”’”

A certain man drew his bow at random, and struck the king of Israel between the joints of the armour. Therefore he said to the driver of the chariot, “Turn around and carry me out of the battle, for I am severely wounded.”

The battle increased that day. However, the king of Israel propped himself up in his chariot against the Syrians until the evening; and at about sunset, he died.

‘If evil comes on us—the sword, judgement, pestilence, or famine—we will stand before this house, and before you (for your name is in this house), and cry to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’

behold, the LORD will strike your people with a great plague, including your children, your wives, and all your possessions;

and you will have great sickness with a disease of your bowels, until your bowels fall out by reason of the sickness, day by day.’”

and they came up against Judah, broke into it, and carried away all the possessions that were found in the king’s house, including his sons and his wives, so that there was no son left to him except Jehoahaz, the youngest of his sons.

After all this the LORD struck him in his bowels with an incurable disease.

In process of time, at the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness, and he died of severe diseases. His people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers.

The inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his place, because the band of men who came with the Arabians to the camp had slain all the oldest. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram king of Judah reigned.

He also followed their counsel, and went with Jehoram the son of Ahab king of Israel to war against Hazael king of Syria at Ramoth Gilead; and the Syrians wounded Joram.

He returned to be healed in Jezreel of the wounds which they had given him at Ramah, when he fought against Hazael king of Syria. Azariah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, went down to see Jehoram the son of Ahab in Jezreel, because he was sick.

When Jehu was executing judgement on Ahab’s house, he found the princes of Judah and the sons of the brothers of Ahaziah serving Ahaziah, and killed them.

Now when Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal offspring of the house of Judah.

They conspired against him, and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king in the court of the LORD’s house.

Thus Joash the king didn’t remember the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but killed his son. When he died, he said, “May the LORD look at it, and repay it.”

At the end of the year, the army of the Syrians came up against him. They came to Judah and Jerusalem, and destroyed all the princes of the people from amongst the people, and sent all their plunder to the king of Damascus.

When they had departed from him (for they left him seriously wounded), his own servants conspired against him for the blood of the sons of Jehoiada the priest, and killed him on his bed, and he died. They buried him in David’s city, but they didn’t bury him in the tombs of the kings.

Uzziah the king was a leper to the day of his death, and lived in a separate house, being a leper; for he was cut off from the LORD’s house. Jotham his son was over the king’s house, judging the people of the land.

Therefore the LORD his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria. They struck him, and carried away from him a great multitude of captives, and brought them to Damascus. He was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who struck him with a great slaughter.

For Pekah the son of Remaliah killed in Judah one hundred and twenty thousand in one day, all of them valiant men, because they had forsaken the LORD, the God of their fathers.

Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, killed Maaseiah the king’s son, Azrikam the ruler of the house, and Elkanah who was next to the king.

The children of Israel carried away captive of their brothers two hundred thousand women, sons, and daughters, and also took away much plunder from them, and brought the plunder to Samaria.

But a prophet of the LORD was there, whose name was Oded; and he went out to meet the army that came to Samaria, and said to them, “Behold, because the LORD, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he has delivered them into your hand, and you have slain them in a rage which has reached up to heaven.

For again the Edomites had come and struck Judah, and carried away captives.

The Philistines also had invaded the cities of the lowland and of the South of Judah, and had taken Beth Shemesh, Aijalon, Gederoth, Soco with its villages, Timnah with its villages, and also Gimzo and its villages; and they lived there.

Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria came to him and gave him trouble, but didn’t strengthen him.

Therefore the LORD’s wrath was on Judah and Jerusalem, and he has delivered them to be tossed back and forth, to be an astonishment and a hissing, as you see with your eyes.

For behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this.

Don’t be like your fathers and like your brothers, who trespassed against the LORD, the God of their fathers, so that he gave them up to desolation, as you see.

When he was in distress, he begged the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers.

“The LORD says, ‘Behold, I will bring evil on this place and on its inhabitants, even all the curses that are written in the book which they have read before the king of Judah.

The archers shot at King Josiah; and the king said to his servants, “Take me away, because I am seriously wounded!”

So his servants took him out of the chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had, and brought him to Jerusalem; and he died, and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.

The king of Egypt removed him from office at Jerusalem, and fined the land one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against him, and bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar also carried some of the vessels of the LORD’s house to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon.

At the return of the year, King Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon, with the valuable vessels of the LORD’s house, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem.

Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or infirm. He gave them all into his hand.

All the vessels of God’s house, great and small, and the treasures of the LORD’s house, and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon.

They burnt God’s house, broke down the wall of Jerusalem, burnt all its palaces with fire, and destroyed all of its valuable vessels.

He carried those who had escaped from the sword away to Babylon, and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia,

But after our fathers had provoked the God of heaven to wrath, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house and carried the people away into Babylon.

Since the days of our fathers we have been exceedingly guilty to this day; and for our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plunder, and to confusion of face, as it is this day.

They said to me, “The remnant who are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burnt with fire.”

Then there arose a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brothers the Jews.

For there were some who said, “We, our sons and our daughters, are many. Let us get grain, that we may eat and live.”

There were also some who said, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses. Let us get grain, because of the famine.”

There were also some who said, “We have borrowed money for the king’s tribute using our fields and our vineyards as collateral.

Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children as their children. Behold, we bring our sons and our daughters into bondage to be servants, and some of our daughters have been brought into bondage. It is also not in our power to help it, because other men have our fields and our vineyards.”

I was very angry when I heard their cry and these words.

Now that which was prepared for one day was one ox and six choice sheep. Also fowls were prepared for me, and once in ten days a store of all sorts of wine. Yet for all this, I didn’t demand the governor’s pay, because the bondage was heavy on this people.

“You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cry by the Red Sea,

Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness, don’t let all the travail seem little before you that has come on us, on our kings, on our princes, on our priests, on our prophets, on our fathers, and on all your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria to this day.

It yields much increase to the kings whom you have set over us because of our sins. Also they have power over our bodies and over our livestock, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.

who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captives who had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away.

But he scorned the thought of laying hands on Mordecai alone, for they had made known to him Mordecai’s people. Therefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even Mordecai’s people.

If it pleases the king, let it be written that they be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who are in charge of the king’s business, to bring it into the king’s treasuries.”

The king took his ring from his hand, and gave it to Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews’ enemy.

The king said to Haman, “The silver is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you.”

Then the king’s scribes were called in on the first month, on the thirteenth day of the month; and all that Haman commanded was written to the king’s local governors, and to the governors who were over every province, and to the princes of every people, to every province according to its writing, and to every people in their language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus, and it was sealed with the king’s ring.

Letters were sent by couriers into all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to plunder their possessions.

Now when Mordecai found out all that was done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the middle of the city, and wailed loudly and bitterly.

He came even before the king’s gate, for no one is allowed inside the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth.

In every province, wherever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning amongst the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

Esther’s maidens and her eunuchs came and told her this, and the queen was exceedingly grieved. She sent clothing to Mordecai, to replace his sackcloth, but he didn’t receive it.

For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for male and female slaves, I would have held my peace, although the adversary could not have compensated for the king’s loss.”

For how can I endure to see the evil that would come to my people? How can I endure to see the destruction of my relatives?”

and the Sabeans attacked, and took them away. Yes, they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The fire of God has fallen from the sky, and has burnt up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.”

and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you.”

Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshipped.

So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful sores from the sole of his foot to his head.

He took for himself a potsherd to scrape himself with, and he sat amongst the ashes.

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathise with him and to comfort him.

When they lifted up their eyes from a distance, and didn’t recognise him, they raised their voices, and wept; and they each tore his robe, and sprinkled dust on their heads towards the sky.

So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great.

After this Job opened his mouth, and cursed the day of his birth.

Job answered:

“Let the day perish in which I was born, the night which said, ‘There is a boy conceived.’

Let that day be darkness. Don’t let God from above seek for it, neither let the light shine on it.

Let darkness and the shadow of death claim it for their own. Let a cloud dwell on it. Let all that makes the day black terrify it.

As for that night, let thick darkness seize on it. Let it not rejoice amongst the days of the year. Let it not come into the number of the months.

Behold, let that night be barren. Let no joyful voice come therein.

Let them curse it who curse the day, who are ready to rouse up leviathan.

Let the stars of its twilight be dark. Let it look for light, but have none, neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,

because it didn’t shut up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor did it hide trouble from my eyes.

“Why didn’t I die from the womb? Why didn’t I give up the spirit when my mother bore me?

Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should nurse?

or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, as infants who never saw light.

“Why is light given to him who is in misery, life to the bitter in soul,

who long for death, but it doesn’t come; and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,

who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?

Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?

For my sighing comes before I eat. My groanings are poured out like water.

For the thing which I fear comes on me, that which I am afraid of comes to me.

I am not at ease, neither am I quiet, neither do I have rest; but trouble comes.”

But now it has come to you, and you faint. It touches you, and you are troubled.

According to what I have seen, those who plough iniquity and sow trouble, reap the same.

The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions, are broken.

The old lion perishes for lack of prey. The cubs of the lioness are scattered abroad.

How much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!

Between morning and evening they are destroyed. They perish forever without any regarding it.

Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.’

For resentment kills the foolish man, and jealousy kills the simple.

I have seen the foolish taking root, but suddenly I cursed his habitation.

His children are far from safety. They are crushed in the gate. Neither is there any to deliver them,

whose harvest the hungry eat up, and take it even out of the thorns. The snare gapes for their substance.

For affliction doesn’t come out of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground;

but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

“Oh that my anguish were weighed, and all my calamity laid in the balances!

For now it would be heavier than the sand of the seas, therefore my words have been rash.

For the arrows of the Almighty are within me. My spirit drinks up their poison. The terrors of God set themselves in array against me.

My soul refuses to touch them. They are as loathsome food to me.

even that it would please God to crush me; that he would let loose his hand, and cut me off!

Let it still be my consolation, yes, let me exult in pain that doesn’t spare, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.

What is my strength, that I should wait? What is my end, that I should be patient?

Is my strength the strength of stones? Or is my flesh of bronze?

Isn’t it that I have no help in me, that wisdom is driven away from me?

My brothers have dealt deceitfully as a brook, as the channel of brooks that pass away;

In the dry season, they vanish. When it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.

The caravans that travel beside them turn away. They go up into the waste, and perish.

They were distressed because they were confident. They came there, and were confounded.

For now you are nothing. You see a terror, and are afraid.

Did I ever say, ‘Give to me’? or, ‘Offer a present for me from your substance’?

Do you intend to reprove words, since the speeches of one who is desperate are as wind?

“Isn’t a man forced to labour on earth? Aren’t his days like the days of a hired hand?

As a servant who earnestly desires the shadow, as a hireling who looks for his wages,

so I am made to possess months of misery, wearisome nights are appointed to me.

When I lie down, I say, ‘When will I arise, and the night be gone?’ I toss and turn until the dawning of the day.

My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh.

My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope.

Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye will no more see good.

The eye of him who sees me will see me no more. Your eyes will be on me, but I will not be.

As the cloud is consumed and vanishes away, so he who goes down to Sheol will come up no more.

He will return no more to his house, neither will his place know him any more.

“Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

Am I a sea, or a sea monster, that you put a guard over me?

When I say, ‘My bed will comfort me. My couch will ease my complaint,’

then you scare me with dreams and terrify me through visions,

so that my soul chooses strangling, death rather than my bones.

I loathe my life. I don’t want to live forever. Leave me alone, for my days are but a breath.

What is man, that you should magnify him, that you should set your mind on him,

that you should visit him every morning, and test him every moment?

How long will you not look away from me, nor leave me alone until I swallow down my spittle?

If I have sinned, what do I do to you, you watcher of men? Why have you set me as a mark for you, so that I am a burden to myself?

(For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow.)

If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have not seen you.’

For he breaks me with a storm, and multiplies my wounds without cause.

He will not allow me to catch my breath, but fills me with bitterness.

Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me. Though I am blameless, it will prove me perverse.

I am blameless. I don’t respect myself. I despise my life.

“It is all the same. Therefore I say he destroys the blameless and the wicked.

If the scourge kills suddenly, he will mock at the trial of the innocent.

“Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away. They see no good.

They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey.

If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and cheer up,’

I am afraid of all my sorrows. I know that you will not hold me innocent.

I will be condemned. Why then do I labour in vain?

yet you will plunge me in the ditch. My own clothes will abhor me.

For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, that we should come together in judgement.

Let him take his rod away from me. Let his terror not make me afraid;

“My soul is weary of my life. I will give free course to my complaint. I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.

I will tell God, ‘Do not condemn me. Show me why you contend with me.

Is it good to you that you should oppress, that you should despise the work of your hands, and smile on the counsel of the wicked?

“‘Your hands have framed me and fashioned me altogether, yet you destroy me.

Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?

If I am wicked, woe to me. If I am righteous, I still will not lift up my head, being filled with disgrace, and conscious of my affliction.

If my head is held high, you hunt me like a lion. Again you show yourself powerful to me.

You renew your witnesses against me, and increase your indignation on me. Changes and warfare are with me.

“‘Why, then, have you brought me out of the womb? I wish I had given up the spirit, and no eye had seen me.

I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave.

Aren’t my days few? Stop! Leave me alone, that I may find a little comfort,

before I go where I will not return from, to the land of darkness and of the shadow of death;

the land dark as midnight, of the shadow of death, without any order, where the light is as midnight.’”

for you will forget your misery. You will remember it like waters that have passed away.

But the eyes of the wicked will fail. They will have no way to flee. Their hope will be the giving up of the spirit.”

I am like one who is a joke to his neighbour, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke.

In the thought of him who is at ease there is contempt for misfortune. It is ready for them whose foot slips.

Behold, he breaks down, and it can’t be built again. He imprisons a man, and there can be no release.

Behold, he will kill me. I have no hope. Nevertheless, I will maintain my ways before him.

Why do you hide your face, and consider me your enemy?

Will you harass a driven leaf? Will you pursue the dry stubble?

For you write bitter things against me, and make me inherit the iniquities of my youth.

You also put my feet in the stocks, and mark all my paths. You set a bound to the soles of my feet,

though I am decaying like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.

“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.

He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue.

Do you open your eyes on such a one, and bring me into judgement with you?

Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.

Look away from him, that he may rest, until he accomplishes, as a hireling, his day.

“For there is hope for a tree if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, that the tender branch of it will not cease.

Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stock dies in the ground,

But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?

As the waters fail from the sea, and the river wastes and dries up,

so man lies down and doesn’t rise. Until the heavens are no more, they will not awake, nor be roused out of their sleep.

If a man dies, will he live again? I would wait all the days of my warfare, until my release should come.

“But the mountain falling comes to nothing. The rock is removed out of its place.

The waters wear the stones. The torrents of it wash away the dust of the earth. So you destroy the hope of man.

You forever prevail against him, and he departs. You change his face, and send him away.

His sons come to honour, and he doesn’t know it. They are brought low, but he doesn’t perceive it of them.

But his flesh on him has pain, and his soul within him mourns.”

the wicked man writhes in pain all his days, even the number of years that are laid up for the oppressor.

A sound of terrors is in his ears. In prosperity the destroyer will come on him.

He doesn’t believe that he will return out of darkness. He is waited for by the sword.

Distress and anguish make him afraid. They prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle.

because he has covered his face with his fatness, and gathered fat on his thighs.

He has lived in desolate cities, in houses which no one inhabited, which were ready to become heaps.

He will not be rich, neither will his substance continue, neither will their possessions be extended on the earth.

He will not depart out of darkness. The flame will dry up his branches. He will go away by the breath of God’s mouth.

It will be accomplished before his time. His branch will not be green.

He will shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and will cast off his flower as the olive tree.

“I have heard many such things. You are all miserable comforters!

“Though I speak, my grief is not subsided. Though I forbear, what am I eased?

But now, God, you have surely worn me out. You have made all my company desolate.

You have shriveled me up. This is a witness against me. My leanness rises up against me. It testifies to my face.

He has torn me in his wrath and persecuted me. He has gnashed on me with his teeth. My adversary sharpens his eyes on me.

They have gaped on me with their mouth. They have struck me on the cheek reproachfully. They gather themselves together against me.

God delivers me to the ungodly, and casts me into the hands of the wicked.

I was at ease, and he broke me apart. Yes, he has taken me by the neck, and dashed me to pieces. He has also set me up for his target.

His archers surround me. He splits my kidneys apart, and does not spare. He pours out my bile on the ground.

He breaks me with breach on breach. He runs at me like a giant.

I have sewed sackcloth on my skin, and have thrust my horn in the dust.

My face is red with weeping. Deep darkness is on my eyelids,

although there is no violence in my hands, and my prayer is pure.

“Earth, don’t cover my blood. Let my cry have no place to rest.

For when a few years have come, I will go the way of no return.

“My spirit is consumed. My days are extinct and the grave is ready for me.

Surely there are mockers with me. My eye dwells on their provocation.

He who denounces his friends for plunder, even the eyes of his children will fail.

“But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face.

My eye also is dim by reason of sorrow. All my members are as a shadow.

My days are past. My plans are broken off, as are the thoughts of my heart.

They change the night into day, saying ‘The light is near’ in the presence of darkness.

If I look for Sheol as my house, if I have spread my couch in the darkness,

if I have said to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ and ‘My sister,’

where then is my hope? As for my hope, who will see it?

Shall it go down with me to the gates of Sheol, or descend together into the dust?”

You who tear yourself in your anger, will the earth be forsaken for you? Or will the rock be removed out of its place?

Terrors will make him afraid on every side, and will chase him at his heels.

His strength will be famished. Calamity will be ready at his side.

The members of his body will be devoured. The firstborn of death will devour his members.

He will be rooted out of the security of his tent. He will be brought to the king of terrors.

There will dwell in his tent that which is none of his. Sulphur will be scattered on his habitation.

His roots will be dried up beneath. His branch will be cut off above.

His memory will perish from the earth. He will have no name in the street.

He will be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.

He will have neither son nor grandson amongst his people, nor any remaining where he lived.

Those who come after will be astonished at his day, as those who went before were frightened.

“How long will you torment me, and crush me with words?

You have reproached me ten times. You aren’t ashamed that you attack me.

If indeed you will magnify yourselves against me, and plead against me my reproach,

know now that God has subverted me, and has surrounded me with his net.

“Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard. I cry for help, but there is no justice.

He has walled up my way so that I can’t pass, and has set darkness in my paths.

He has stripped me of my glory, and taken the crown from my head.

He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. He has plucked my hope up like a tree.

He has also kindled his wrath against me. He counts me amongst his adversaries.

His troops come on together, build a siege ramp against me, and encamp around my tent.

“He has put my brothers far from me. My acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

My relatives have gone away. My familiar friends have forgotten me.

Those who dwell in my house and my maids consider me a stranger. I am an alien in their sight.

I call to my servant, and he gives me no answer. I beg him with my mouth.

My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother.

Even young children despise me. If I arise, they speak against me.

All my familiar friends abhor me. They whom I loved have turned against me.

My bones stick to my skin and to my flesh. I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

“Have pity on me. Have pity on me, you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me.

Why do you persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ because the root of the matter is found in me,

yet his food in his bowels is turned. It is cobra venom within him.

He will suck cobra venom. The viper’s tongue will kill him.

In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress will overtake him. The hand of everyone who is in misery will come on him.

He will flee from the iron weapon. The bronze arrow will strike him through.

He draws it out, and it comes out of his body. Yes, the glittering point comes out of his liver. Terrors are on him.

All darkness is laid up for his treasures. An unfanned fire will devour him. It will consume that which is left in his tent.

Then Job answered,

Allow me, and I also will speak. After I have spoken, mock on.

As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient?

When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.

“How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger?

How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?

Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.

or darkness, so that you can not see, and floods of waters cover you.

who were snatched away before their time, whose foundation was poured out as a stream,

“Even today my complaint is rebellious. His hand is heavy in spite of my groaning.

Because I was not cut off before the darkness, neither did he cover the thick darkness from my face.

They turn the needy out of the way. The poor of the earth all hide themselves.

Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, they go out to their work, seeking diligently for food. The wilderness yields them bread for their children.

They cut their food in the field. They glean the vineyard of the wicked.

They lie all night naked without clothing, and have no covering in the cold.

They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and embrace the rock for lack of a shelter.

There are those who pluck the fatherless from the breast, and take a pledge of the poor,

so that they go around naked without clothing. Being hungry, they carry the sheaves.

They make oil within the walls of these men. They tread wine presses, and suffer thirst.

From out of the populous city, men groan. The soul of the wounded cries out, yet God doesn’t regard the folly.

The murderer rises with the light. He kills the poor and needy. In the night he is like a thief.

He devours the barren who don’t bear. He shows no kindness to the widow.

They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone. Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of the way as all others, and are cut off as the tops of the ears of grain.

“As God lives, who has taken away my right, the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter

Will God hear his cry when trouble comes on him?

“This is the portion of a wicked man with God, the heritage of oppressors, which they receive from the Almighty.

If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword. His offspring will not be satisfied with bread.

Those who remain of him will be buried in death. His widows will make no lamentation.

He lies down rich, but he will not do so again. He opens his eyes, and he is not.

Terrors overtake him like waters. A storm steals him away in the night.

The east wind carries him away, and he departs. It sweeps him out of his place.

For it hurls at him, and does not spare, as he flees away from his hand.

Men will clap their hands at him, and will hiss him out of his place.

“But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs.

Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished?

They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation.

They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom tree are their food.

They are driven out from amongst men. They cry after them as after a thief,

so that they live in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

They bray amongst the bushes. They are gathered together under the nettles.

They are children of fools, yes, children of wicked men. They were flogged out of the land.

“Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them.

They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don’t hesitate to spit in my face.

For he has untied his cord, and afflicted me; and they have thrown off restraint before me.

On my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet. They cast their ways of destruction up against me.

They mar my path. They promote my destruction without anyone’s help.

As through a wide breach they come. They roll themselves in amid the ruin.

Terrors have turned on me. They chase my honour as the wind. My welfare has passed away as a cloud.

“Now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold of me.

In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest.

My garment is disfigured by great force. It binds me about as the collar of my tunic.

He has cast me into the mire. I have become like dust and ashes.

I cry to you, and you do not answer me. I stand up, and you gaze at me.

You have turned to be cruel to me. With the might of your hand you persecute me.

You lift me up to the wind, and drive me with it. You dissolve me in the storm.

For I know that you will bring me to death, to the house appointed for all living.

“However doesn’t one stretch out a hand in his fall? Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?

Didn’t I weep for him who was in trouble? Wasn’t my soul grieved for the needy?

When I looked for good, then evil came. When I waited for light, darkness came.

My heart is troubled, and doesn’t rest. Days of affliction have come on me.

I go mourning without the sun. I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.

I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.

My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burnt with heat.

Therefore my harp has turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of those who weep.

Is it not calamity to the unrighteous, and disaster to the workers of iniquity?

then let my wife grind for another, and let others sleep with her.

for it is a fire that consumes to destruction, and would root out all my increase.

then let my shoulder fall from the shoulder blade, and my arm be broken from the bone.

Behold, he finds occasions against me. He counts me for his enemy.

He puts my feet in the stocks. He marks all my paths.’

“He is chastened also with pain on his bed, with continual strife in his bones,

so that his life abhors bread, and his soul dainty food.

His flesh is so consumed away that it can’t be seen. His bones that were not seen stick out.

Yes, his soul draws near to the pit, and his life to the destroyers.

Notwithstanding my right I am considered a liar. My wound is incurable, though I am without disobedience.’

What man is like Job, who drinks scorn like water,

“By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out. They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty.

If they are bound in fetters, and are taken in the cords of afflictions,

“But those who are godless in heart lay up anger. They don’t cry for help when he binds them.

They die in youth. Their life perishes amongst the unclean.

He delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear in oppression.

Don’t desire the night, when people are cut off in their place.

Take heed, don’t regard iniquity; for you have chosen this rather than affliction.

They bow themselves. They bear their young. They end their labour pains.

Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am faint. LORD, heal me, for my bones are troubled.

My soul is also in great anguish. But you, LORD—how long?

I am weary with my groaning. Every night I flood my bed. I drench my couch with my tears.

My eye wastes away because of grief. It grows old because of all my adversaries.

let the enemy pursue my soul, and overtake it; yes, let him tread my life down to the earth, and lay my glory in the dust. Selah.

For he who avenges blood remembers them. He doesn’t forget the cry of the afflicted.

Have mercy on me, LORD. See my affliction by those who hate me, and lift me up from the gates of death,

Why do you stand far off, LORD? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

In arrogance, the wicked hunt down the weak. They are caught in the schemes that they devise.

His mouth is full of cursing, deceit, and oppression. Under his tongue is mischief and iniquity.

He lies in wait near the villages. From ambushes, he murders the innocent. His eyes are secretly set against the helpless.

He lurks in secret as a lion in his ambush. He lies in wait to catch the helpless. He catches the helpless when he draws him in his net.

The helpless are crushed. They collapse. They fall under his strength.

But you do see trouble and grief. You consider it to take it into your hand. You help the victim and the fatherless.

On the wicked he will rain blazing coals; fire, sulphur, and scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.

How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?

Their sorrows shall be multiplied who give gifts to another god. Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, nor take their names on my lips.

They close up their callous hearts. With their mouth they speak proudly.

The cords of death surrounded me. The floods of ungodliness made me afraid.

The cords of Sheol were around me. The snares of death came on me.

In my distress I called on the LORD, and cried to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple. My cry before him came into his ears.

For the Chief Musician; set to “The Doe of the Morning.” A Psalm by David. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?

My God, I cry in the daytime, but you don’t answer; in the night season, and am not silent.

But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people.

All those who see me mock me. They insult me with their lips. They shake their heads, saying,

I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have brought me into the dust of death.

For dogs have surrounded me. A company of evildoers have enclosed me. They have pierced my hands and feet.

I can count all of my bones. They look and stare at me.

They divide my garments amongst them. They cast lots for my clothing.

Turn to me, and have mercy on me, for I am desolate and afflicted.

The troubles of my heart are enlarged. Oh bring me out of my distresses.

Consider my affliction and my travail. Forgive all my sins.

Consider my enemies, for they are many. They hate me with cruel hatred.

God, redeem Israel out of all his troubles.

I will be glad and rejoice in your loving kindness, for you have seen my affliction. You have known my soul in adversities.

Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am in distress. My eye, my soul, and my body waste away with grief.

For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.

Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbours, a horror to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me.

I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man. I am like broken pottery.

For I have heard the slander of many, terror on every side, while they conspire together against me, they plot to take away my life.

When I kept silence, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.

For day and night your hand was heavy on me. My strength was sapped in the heat of summer. Selah.

Many sorrows come to the wicked, but loving kindness shall surround him who trusts in the LORD.

This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.

For without cause they have hidden their net in a pit for me. Without cause they have dug a pit for my soul.

But in my adversity, they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together. The attackers gathered themselves together against me, and I didn’t know it. They tore at me, and didn’t cease.

Yes, they opened their mouth wide against me. They said, “Aha! Aha! Our eye has seen it!”

Let them be disappointed and confounded together who rejoice at my calamity. Let them be clothed with shame and dishonour who magnify themselves against me.

The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, to kill those who are upright on the path.

For your arrows have pierced me, your hand presses hard on me.

There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation, neither is there any health in my bones because of my sin.

For my iniquities have gone over my head. As a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

My wounds are loathsome and corrupt because of my foolishness.

I am in pain and bowed down greatly. I go mourning all day long.

For my waist is filled with burning. There is no soundness in my flesh.

I am faint and severely bruised. I have groaned by reason of the anguish of my heart.

Lord, all my desire is before you. My groaning is not hidden from you.

My heart throbs. My strength fails me. As for the light of my eyes, it has also left me.

My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my plague. My kinsmen stand far away.

They also who seek after my life lay snares. Those who seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and meditate deceits all day long.

But I, as a deaf man, don’t hear. I am as a mute man who doesn’t open his mouth.

Yes, I am as a man who doesn’t hear, in whose mouth are no reproofs.

For I am ready to fall. My pain is continually before me.

But my enemies are vigorous and many. Those who hate me without reason are numerous.

I was mute with silence. I held my peace, even from good. My sorrow was stirred.

My heart was hot within me. While I meditated, the fire burnt. I spoke with my tongue:

Remove your scourge away from me. I am overcome by the blow of your hand.

When you rebuke and correct man for iniquity, you consume his wealth like a moth. Surely every man is but a breath.” Selah.

For innumerable evils have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. My heart has failed me.

My enemies speak evil against me: “When will he die, and his name perish?”

If he comes to see me, he speaks falsehood. His heart gathers iniquity to itself. When he goes abroad, he tells it.

All who hate me whisper together against me. They imagine the worst for me.

“An evil disease”, they say, “has afflicted him. Now that he lies he shall rise up no more.”

Yes, my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate bread with me, has lifted up his heel against me.

My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”

Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me.

As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”

But now you rejected us, and brought us to dishonour, and don’t go out with our armies.

You make us turn back from the adversary. Those who hate us take plunder for themselves.

You have made us like sheep for food, and have scattered us amongst the nations.

You sell your people for nothing, and have gained nothing from their sale.

You make us a reproach to our neighbours, a scoffing and a derision to those who are around us.

You make us a byword amongst the nations, a shaking of the head amongst the peoples.

All day long my dishonour is before me, and shame covers my face,

at the taunt of one who reproaches and verbally abuses, because of the enemy and the avenger.

though you have crushed us in the haunt of jackals, and covered us with the shadow of death.

Yes, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.

Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?

For our soul is bowed down to the dust. Our body clings to the earth.

Trembling took hold of them there, pain, as of a woman in travail.

But man, despite his riches, doesn’t endure. He is like the animals that perish.

They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, far from their mansion.

for when he dies he will carry nothing away. His glory won’t descend after him.

he shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall never see the light.

A man who has riches without understanding, is like the animals that perish.

Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, working deceitfully.

because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked. For they bring suffering on me. In anger they hold a grudge against me.

My heart is severely pained within me. The terrors of death have fallen on me.

Day and night they prowl around on its walls. Malice and abuse are also within her.

Destructive forces are within her. Threats and lies don’t depart from her streets.

For it was not an enemy who insulted me, then I could have endured it. Neither was it he who hated me who raised himself up against me, then I would have hidden myself from him.

All day long they twist my words. All their thoughts are against me for evil.

They conspire and lurk, watching my steps. They are eager to take my life.

My soul is amongst lions. I lie amongst those who are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.

At evening let them return. Let them howl like a dog, and go around the city.

They shall wander up and down for food, and wait all night if they aren’t satisfied.

You have shown your people hard things. You have made us drink the wine that makes us stagger.

How long will you assault a man? Would all of you throw him down, like a leaning wall, like a tottering fence?

who sharpen their tongue like a sword, and aim their arrows, deadly words,

to shoot innocent men from ambushes. They shoot at him suddenly and fearlessly.

You brought us into prison. You laid a burden on our backs.

You allowed men to ride over our heads. We went through fire and through water, but you brought us to the place of abundance.

For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “Lilies.” By David. Save me, God, for the waters have come up to my neck!

I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me.

I am weary with my crying. My throat is dry. My eyes fail looking for my God.

Those who hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head. Those who want to cut me off, being my enemies wrongfully, are mighty. I have to restore what I didn’t take away.

Because for your sake, I have borne reproach. Shame has covered my face.

I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s children.

For the zeal of your house consumes me. The reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.

When I wept and I fasted, that was to my reproach.

When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them.

Those who sit in the gate talk about me. I am the song of the drunkards.

You know my reproach, my shame, and my dishonour. My adversaries are all before you.

Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none.

They also gave me poison for my food. In my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink.

For they persecute him whom you have wounded. They tell of the sorrow of those whom you have hurt.

But I am in pain and distress. Let your salvation, God, protect me.

You, who have shown us many and bitter troubles, you will let me live. You will bring us up again from the depths of the earth.

They are free from burdens of men, neither are they plagued like other men.

For all day long I have been plagued, and punished every morning.

When I tried to understand this, it was too painful for me—

For my soul was grieved. I was embittered in my heart.

Lift up your feet to the perpetual ruins, all the evil that the enemy has done in the sanctuary.

Your adversaries have roared in the middle of your assembly. They have set up their standards as signs.

They behaved like men wielding axes, cutting through a thicket of trees.

Now they break all its carved work down with hatchet and hammers.

They have burnt your sanctuary to the ground. They have profaned the dwelling place of your Name.

They said in their heart, “We will crush them completely.” They have burnt up all the places in the land where God was worshipped.

when God arose to judgement, to save all the afflicted ones of the earth. Selah.

In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord. My hand was stretched out in the night, and didn’t get tired. My soul refused to be comforted.

I remember God, and I groan. I complain, and my spirit is overwhelmed. Selah.

You hold my eyelids open. I am so troubled that I can’t speak.

Yet they still went on to sin against him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert.

Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.

He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost.

He also gave over their livestock to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.

He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil.

He made a path for his anger. He didn’t spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence,

and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.

When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel,

and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the adversary’s hand.

He also gave his people over to the sword, and was angry with his inheritance.

Fire devoured their young men. Their virgins had no wedding song.

Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn’t weep.

A Psalm by Asaph. God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps.

They have given the dead bodies of your servants to be food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your saints to the animals of the earth.

They have shed their blood like water around Jerusalem. There was no one to bury them.

We have become a reproach to our neighbours, a scoffing and derision to those who are around us.

for they have devoured Jacob, and destroyed his homeland.

Let the sighing of the prisoner come before you. According to the greatness of your power, preserve those who are sentenced to death.

You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in large measure.

You make us a source of contention to our neighbours. Our enemies laugh amongst themselves.

Why have you broken down its walls, so that all those who pass by the way pluck it?

The boar out of the wood ravages it. The wild animals of the field feed on it.

It’s burnt with fire. It’s cut down. They perish at your rebuke.

A Song. A Psalm by the sons of Korah. For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “The Suffering of Affliction.” A contemplation by Heman, the Ezrahite. LORD, the God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before you.

For my soul is full of troubles. My life draws near to Sheol.

I am counted amongst those who go down into the pit. I am like a man who has no help,

set apart amongst the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more. They are cut off from your hand.

You have laid me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.

Your wrath lies heavily on me. You have afflicted me with all your waves. Selah.

You have taken my friends from me. You have made me an abomination to them. I am confined, and I can’t escape.

My eyes are dim from grief. I have called on you daily, LORD. I have spread out my hands to you.

Are your wonders made known in the dark? Or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up. While I suffer your terrors, I am distracted.

Your fierce wrath has gone over me. Your terrors have cut me off.

They came around me like water all day long. They completely engulfed me.

But you have rejected and spurned. You have been angry with your anointed.

You have renounced the covenant of your servant. You have defiled his crown in the dust.

You have broken down all his hedges. You have brought his strongholds to ruin.

All who pass by the way rob him. He has become a reproach to his neighbours.

You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries. You have made all of his enemies rejoice.

Yes, you turn back the edge of his sword, and haven’t supported him in battle.

You have ended his splendour, and thrown his throne down to the ground.

You have shortened the days of his youth. You have covered him with shame. Selah.

How long, LORD? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire?

Remember how short my time is, for what vanity you have created all the children of men!

What man is he who shall live and not see death, who shall deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah.

Remember, Lord, the reproach of your servants, how I bear in my heart the taunts of all the mighty peoples,

With which your enemies have mocked, LORD, with which they have mocked the footsteps of your anointed one.

You turn man to destruction, saying, “Return, you children of men.”

You sweep them away as they sleep. In the morning they sprout like new grass.

In the morning it sprouts and springs up. By evening, it is withered and dry.

For we are consumed in your anger. We are troubled in your wrath.

For all our days have passed away in your wrath. We bring our years to an end as a sigh.

The days of our years are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty years; yet their pride is but labour and sorrow, for it passes quickly, and we fly away.

Relent, LORD! How long? Have compassion on your servants!

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen evil.

LORD, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked triumph?

They pour out arrogant words. All the evildoers boast.

They break your people in pieces, LORD, and afflict your heritage.

They kill the widow and the alien, and murder the fatherless.

A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed and pours out his complaint before the LORD. Hear my prayer, LORD! Let my cry come to you.

For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burnt as a torch.

My heart is blighted like grass, and withered, for I forget to eat my bread.

By reason of the voice of my groaning, my bones stick to my skin.

I am like a pelican of the wilderness. I have become as an owl of the waste places.

I watch, and have become like a sparrow that is alone on the housetop.

My enemies reproach me all day. Those who are mad at me use my name as a curse.

For I have eaten ashes like bread, and mixed my drink with tears,

because of your indignation and your wrath; for you have taken me up and thrown me away.

My days are like a long shadow. I have withered like grass.

to hear the groans of the prisoner, to free those who are condemned to death,

He weakened my strength along the course. He shortened my days.

He called for a famine on the land. He destroyed the food supplies.

He sent a man before them. Joseph was sold for a slave.

They bruised his feet with shackles. His neck was locked in irons,

They ate up every plant in their land, and ate up the fruit of their ground.

He struck also all the firstborn in their land, the first fruits of all their manhood.

We have sinned with our fathers. We have committed iniquity. We have done wickedly.

He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul.

The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, and covered the company of Abiram.

A fire was kindled in their company. The flame burnt up the wicked.

Thus they provoked him to anger with their deeds. The plague broke in on them.

They angered him also at the waters of Meribah, so that Moses was troubled for their sakes;

Yes, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.

They shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. The land was polluted with blood.

He gave them into the hand of the nations. Those who hated them ruled over them.

Their enemies also oppressed them. They were brought into subjection under their hand.

He rescued them many times, but they were rebellious in their counsel, and were brought low in their iniquity.

They wandered in the wilderness in a desert way. They found no city to live in.

Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.

Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.

Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron,

Therefore he brought down their heart with labour. They fell down, and there was no one to help.

Fools are afflicted because of their disobedience, and because of their iniquities.

Their soul abhors all kinds of food. They draw near to the gates of death.

Again, they are diminished and bowed down through oppression, trouble, and sorrow.

for they have opened the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of deceit against me. They have spoken to me with a lying tongue.

They have also surrounded me with words of hatred, and fought against me without a cause.

They have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

Let his children be wandering beggars. Let them be sought from their ruins.

Let the creditor seize all that he has. Let strangers plunder the fruit of his labour.

because he didn’t remember to show kindness, but persecuted the poor and needy man, the broken in heart, to kill them.

for I am poor and needy. My heart is wounded within me.

I fade away like an evening shadow. I am shaken off like a locust.

My knees are weak through fasting. My body is thin and lacks fat.

I have also become a reproach to them. When they see me, they shake their head.

The cords of death surrounded me, the pains of Sheol got a hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow.

I believed, therefore I said, “I was greatly afflicted.”

Out of my distress, I called on the LORD. The LORD answered me with freedom.

The LORD has punished me severely, but he has not given me over to death.

This is my comfort in my affliction, for your word has revived me.

Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I observe your word.

It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.

LORD, I know that your judgements are righteous, that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.

For I have become like a wineskin in the smoke. I don’t forget your statutes.

Unless your law had been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.

I am afflicted very much. Revive me, LORD, according to your word.

RESH Consider my affliction, and deliver me, for I don’t forget your law.

My soul has had her dwelling too long with him who hates peace.

Have mercy on us, LORD, have mercy on us, for we have endured much contempt.

Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scoffing of those who are at ease, with the contempt of the proud.

A Song of Ascents. Many times they have afflicted me from my youth up. Let Israel now say:

many times they have afflicted me from my youth up, yet they have not prevailed against me.

The ploughers ploughed on my back. They made their furrows long.

A Song of Ascents. Out of the depths I have cried to you, LORD.

A Song of Ascents. LORD, remember David and all his affliction,

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes, we wept, when we remembered Zion.

On the willows in that land, we hung up our harps.

For there, those who led us captive asked us for songs. Those who tormented us demanded songs of joy: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How can we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?

“As when one ploughs and breaks up the earth, our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.”

I pour out my complaint before him. I tell him my troubles.

For the enemy pursues my soul. He has struck my life down to the ground. He has made me live in dark places, as those who have been long dead.

I also will laugh at your disaster. I will mock when calamity overtakes you,

when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when your disaster comes on like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come on you.

Therefore they will eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own schemes.

For the backsliding of the simple will kill them. The careless ease of fools will destroy them.

for her house leads down to death, her paths to the departed spirits.

None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the paths of life.

He will die for lack of instruction. In the greatness of his folly, he will go astray.

for she has thrown down many wounded. Yes, all her slain are a mighty army.

Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the rooms of death.

But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death.”

An abundance of food is in poor people’s fields, but injustice sweeps it away.

The fool’s talk brings a rod to his back, but the lips of the wise protect them.

Even in laughter the heart may be sorrowful, and mirth may end in heaviness.

A glad heart makes a cheerful face, but an aching heart breaks the spirit.

All the days of the afflicted are wretched, but one who has a cheerful heart enjoys a continual feast.

A man’s spirit will sustain him in sickness, but a crushed spirit, who can bear?

All the relatives of the poor shun him; how much more do his friends avoid him! He pursues them with pleas, but they are gone.

Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep. The idle soul shall suffer hunger.

A hot-tempered man must pay the penalty, for if you rescue him, you must do it again.

Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes?

In the end, it bites like a snake, and poisons like a viper.

One who sends a message by the hand of a fool is cutting off feet and drinking violence.

A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge; but the simple pass on, and suffer for it.

As a roaring lion or a charging bear, so is a wicked ruler over helpless people.

A man who is tormented by blood guilt will be a fugitive until death. No one will support him.

When the righteous thrive, the people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, the people groan.

An evil man is snared by his sin, but the righteous can sing and be glad.

Give strong drink to him who is ready to perish, and wine to the bitter in soul.

Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

What does man gain from all his labour in which he labours under the sun?

All things are full of weariness beyond uttering. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under the sky. It is a heavy burden that God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

That which is crooked can’t be made straight; and that which is lacking can’t be counted.

For in much wisdom is much grief; and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

Then I looked at all the works that my hands had worked, and at the labour that I had laboured to do; and behold, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was no profit under the sun.

So I hated life, because the work that is worked under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.

I hated all my labour in which I laboured under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me.

Therefore I began to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labour in which I had laboured under the sun.

For there is a man whose labour is with wisdom, with knowledge, and with skilfulness; yet he shall leave it for his portion to a man who has not laboured for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.

For what does a man have of all his labour and of the striving of his heart, in which he labours under the sun?

For all his days are sorrows, and his travail is grief; yes, even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.

I have seen the burden which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.

Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold, the tears of those who were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

Therefore I praised the dead who have been long dead more than the living who are yet alive.

Yes, better than them both is him who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

There is one who is alone, and he has neither son nor brother. There is no end to all of his labour, neither are his eyes satisfied with wealth. “For whom then do I labour and deprive my soul of enjoyment?” This also is vanity. Yes, it is a miserable business.

If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent taking away of justice and righteousness in a district, don’t marvel at the matter, for one official is eyed by a higher one, and there are officials over them.

If a man fathers a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better than he;

for it comes in vanity, and departs in darkness, and its name is covered with darkness.

All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.

For what advantage has the wise more than the fool? What has the poor man, that knows how to walk before the living?

Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.

For there are many words that create vanity. What does that profit man?

For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he spends like a shadow? For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting; for that is the end of all men, and the living should take this to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the face the heart is made good.

All this I have seen in my days of vanity: there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who lives long in his evildoing.

For there is a time and procedure for every purpose, although the misery of man is heavy on him.

All this I have seen, and applied my mind to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man has power over another to his hurt.

There is a vanity which is done on the earth, that there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked. Again, there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.

This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one event to all. Yes also, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

Yes, if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that comes is vanity.

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near, when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them;”

Before the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain;

in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look out of the windows are darkened,

and the doors shall be shut in the street; when the sound of the grinding is low, and one shall rise up at the voice of a bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low;

yes, they shall be afraid of heights, and terrors will be on the way; and the almond tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goes to his everlasting home, and the mourners go about the streets;

before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the spring, or the wheel broken at the cistern,

“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher. “All is vanity!”

Don’t stare at me because I am dark, because the sun has scorched me. My mother’s sons were angry with me. They made me keeper of the vineyards. I haven’t kept my own vineyard.

The watchmen who go about the city found me. They beat me. They bruised me. The keepers of the walls took my cloak away from me.

Why should you be beaten more, that you revolt more and more? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it, but wounds, welts, and open sores. They haven’t been closed, bandaged, or soothed with oil.

Your country is desolate. Your cities are burnt with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

The daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a besieged city.

I will give boys to be their princes, and children shall rule over them.

The people will be oppressed, everyone by another, and everyone by his neighbour. The child will behave himself proudly against the old man, and the wicked against the honourable.

Indeed a man shall take hold of his brother in the house of his father, saying, “You have clothing, you be our ruler, and let this ruin be under your hand.”

In that day he will cry out, saying, “I will not be a healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing. You shall not make me ruler of the people.”

For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen; because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

The look of their faces testify against them. They parade their sin like Sodom. They don’t hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have brought disaster upon themselves.

Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them, for the deeds of their hands will be paid back to them.

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. My people, those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths.

The LORD will enter into judgement with the elders of his people and their leaders: “It is you who have eaten up the vineyard. The plunder of the poor is in your houses.

What do you mean that you crush my people, and grind the face of the poor?” says the Lord, the LORD of Armies.

It shall happen that instead of sweet spices, there shall be rottenness; instead of a belt, a rope; instead of well set hair, baldness; instead of a robe, a wearing of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty.

Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty in the war.

Her gates shall lament and mourn. She shall be desolate and sit on the ground.

Seven women shall take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread, and wear our own clothing. Just let us be called by your name. Take away our reproach.”

Now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge, and it will be eaten up. I will break down its wall, and it will be trampled down.

I will lay it a wasteland. It won’t be pruned or hoed, but it will grow briers and thorns. I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain on it.”

For the vineyard of the LORD of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant. He looked for justice, but behold, oppression, for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.

In my ears, the LORD of Armies says: “Surely many houses will be desolate, even great and beautiful, unoccupied.

For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah.”

Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them!

Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honourable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.

Therefore Sheol has enlarged its desire, and opened its mouth without measure; and their glory, their multitude, their pomp, and he who rejoices amongst them, descend into it.

Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of the LORD of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore the LORD’s anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the middle of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.

Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste,

and the LORD has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many within the land.

The LORD will bring on you, on your people, and on your father’s house days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah, even the king of Assyria.

now therefore, behold, the Lord brings upon them the mighty flood waters of the River: the king of Assyria and all his glory. It will come up over all its channels, and go over all its banks.

It will sweep onward into Judah. It will overflow and pass through. It will reach even to the neck. The stretching out of its wings will fill the width of your land, O Immanuel.

Many will stumble over it, fall, be broken, be snared, and be captured.”

They will pass through it, very distressed and hungry. It will happen that when they are hungry, they will worry, and curse their king and their God. They will turn their faces upward,

then look to the earth and see distress, darkness, and the gloom of anguish. They will be driven into thick darkness.

The Syrians in front, and the Philistines behind; and they will devour Israel with open mouth. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Yet the people have not turned to him who struck them, neither have they sought the LORD of Armies.

Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed, in one day.

For those who lead this people lead them astray; and those who are led by them are destroyed.

Therefore the Lord will not rejoice over their young men, neither will he have compassion on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is profane and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

For wickedness burns like a fire. It devours the briers and thorns; yes, it kindles in the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke.

Through the LORD of Armies’ wrath, the land is burnt up; and the people are the fuel for the fire. No one spares his brother.

One will devour on the right hand, and be hungry; and he will eat on the left hand, and they will not be satisfied. Everyone will eat the flesh of his own arm:

Manasseh eating Ephraim and Ephraim eating Manasseh, and they together will be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, and to the writers who write oppressive decrees

to deprive the needy of justice, and to rob the poor amongst my people of their rights, that widows may be their plunder, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!

What will you do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which will come from afar? To whom will you flee for help? Where will you leave your wealth?

They will only bow down under the prisoners, and will fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Alas Assyrian, the rod of my anger, the staff in whose hand is my indignation!

I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me I will give him a command to take the plunder and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

However, he doesn’t mean so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off not a few nations.

Therefore the Lord, the LORD of Armies, will send amongst his fat ones leanness; and under his glory a burning will be kindled like the burning of fire.

He will consume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field, both soul and body. It will be as when a standard bearer faints.

The remnant of the trees of his forest shall be few, so that a child could write their number.

They will be dismayed. Pangs and sorrows will seize them. They will be in pain like a woman in labour. They will look in amazement one at another. Their faces will be faces of flame.

It will happen that like a hunted gazelle and like sheep that no one gathers, they will each turn to their own people, and will each flee to their own land.

Everyone who is found will be thrust through. Everyone who is captured will fall by the sword.

Their infants also will be dashed in pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be ransacked, and their wives raped.

Their bows will dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb. Their eyes will not spare children.

Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be like when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

It will never be inhabited, neither will it be lived in from generation to generation. The Arabian will not pitch a tent there, neither will shepherds make their flocks lie down there.

But wild animals of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of jackals. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will frolic there.

Hyenas will cry in their fortresses, and jackals in the pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged.

who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that no one restrained.

How you have fallen from heaven, shining one, son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low!

Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit.

Those who see you will stare at you. They will ponder you, saying, “Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms,

who made the world like a wilderness, and overthrew its cities, who didn’t release his prisoners to their home?”

But you are cast away from your tomb like an abominable branch, clothed with the slain who are thrust through with the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit; like a dead body trodden under foot.

You will not join them in burial, because you have destroyed your land. You have killed your people. The offspring of evildoers will not be named forever.

Prepare for slaughter of his children because of the iniquity of their fathers, that they not rise up and possess the earth, and fill the surface of the world with cities.

The burden of Moab. For in a night, Ar of Moab is laid waste, and brought to nothing. For in a night Kir of Moab is laid waste, and brought to nothing.

They have gone up to Bayith, and to Dibon, to the high places, to weep. Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba. Baldness is on all of their heads. Every beard is cut off.

In their streets, they clothe themselves in sackcloth. In their streets and on their housetops, everyone wails, weeping abundantly.

Heshbon cries out with Elealeh. Their voice is heard even to Jahaz. Therefore the armed men of Moab cry aloud. Their souls tremble within them.

My heart cries out for Moab! Her nobles flee to Zoar, to Eglath Shelishiyah; for they go up by the ascent of Luhith with weeping; for on the way to Horonaim, they raise up a cry of destruction.

For the waters of Nimrim will be desolate; for the grass has withered away, the tender grass fails, there is no green thing.

Therefore they will carry away the abundance they have gotten, and that which they have stored up, over the brook of the willows.

For the cry has gone around the borders of Moab, its wailing to Eglaim, and its wailing to Beer Elim.

For the waters of Dimon are full of blood; for I will bring yet more on Dimon, a lion on those of Moab who escape, and on the remnant of the land.

For it will be that as wandering birds, as a scattered nest, so will the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the Arnon.

Therefore Moab will wail for Moab. Everyone will wail. You will mourn for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth, utterly stricken.

For the fields of Heshbon languish with the vine of Sibmah. The lords of the nations have broken down its choice branches, which reached even to Jazer, which wandered into the wilderness. Its shoots were spread abroad. They passed over the sea.

Therefore I will weep with the weeping of Jazer for the vine of Sibmah. I will water you with my tears, Heshbon, and Elealeh: for on your summer fruits and on your harvest the battle shout has fallen.

Gladness is taken away, and joy out of the fruitful field; and in the vineyards there will be no singing, neither joyful noise. Nobody will tread out wine in the presses. I have made the shouting stop.

Therefore my heart sounds like a harp for Moab, and my inward parts for Kir Heres.

In that day, their strong cities will be like the forsaken places in the woods and on the mountain top, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel; and it will be a desolation.

In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

They will be left together for the ravenous birds of the mountains, and for the animals of the earth. The ravenous birds will eat them in the summer, and all the animals of the earth will eat them in the winter.

I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians, and they will fight everyone against his brother, and everyone against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.

I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel lord. A fierce king will rule over them,” says the Lord, the LORD of Armies.

The waters will fail from the sea, and the river will be wasted and become dry.

The rivers will become foul. The streams of Egypt will be diminished and dried up. The reeds and flags will wither away.

The meadows by the Nile, by the brink of the Nile, and all the sown fields of the Nile, will become dry, be driven away, and be no more.

The fishermen will lament, and all those who fish in the Nile will mourn, and those who spread nets on the waters will languish.

Moreover those who work in combed flax, and those who weave white cloth, will be confounded.

The pillars will be broken in pieces. All those who work for hire will be grieved in soul.

The LORD has mixed a spirit of perverseness in the middle of her; and they have caused Egypt to go astray in all of its works, like a drunken man staggers in his vomit.

Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which head or tail, palm branch or rush, may do.

In the year that Tartan came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and took it;

so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing.

Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have seized me, like the pains of a woman in labour. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I am so dismayed that I can’t see.

My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.

The burden on Arabia. You will lodge in the thickets in Arabia, you caravans of Dedanites.

For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle.

You that are full of shouting, a tumultuous city, a joyous town, your slain are not slain with the sword, neither are they dead in battle.

All your rulers fled away together. They were bound by the archers. All who were found by you were bound together. They fled far away.

Therefore I said, “Look away from me. I will weep bitterly. Don’t labour to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

For it is a day of confusion, and of treading down, and of perplexity from the Lord, the LORD of Armies, in the valley of vision, a breaking down of the walls, and a crying to the mountains.”

He will surely wind you around and around, and throw you like a ball into a large country. There you will die, and there the chariots of your glory will be, you disgrace of your lord’s house.

The burden of Tyre. Howl, you ships of Tarshish! For it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in. From the land of Kittim it is revealed to them.

Pass through your land like the Nile, daughter of Tarshish. There is no restraint any more.

He said, “You shall rejoice no more, you oppressed virgin daughter of Sidon. Arise, pass over to Kittim. Even there you will have no rest.”

Behold, the LORD makes the earth empty, makes it waste, turns it upside down, and scatters its inhabitants.

The earth will be utterly emptied and utterly laid waste; for the LORD has spoken this word.

The earth mourns and fades away. The world languishes and fades away. The lofty people of the earth languish.

Therefore the curse has devoured the earth, and those who dwell therein are found guilty. Therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burnt, and few men are left.

The new wine mourns. The vine languishes. All the merry-hearted sigh.

The mirth of tambourines ceases. The sound of those who rejoice ends. The joy of the harp ceases.

They will not drink wine with a song. Strong drink will be bitter to those who drink it.

The confused city is broken down. Every house is shut up, that no man may come in.

There is a crying in the streets because of the wine. All joy is darkened. The mirth of the land is gone.

The city is left in desolation, and the gate is struck with destruction.

For it will be so within the earth amongst the peoples, as the shaking of an olive tree, as the gleanings when the vintage is done.

From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs. Glory to the righteous! But I said, “I pine away! I pine away! woe is me!” The treacherous have dealt treacherously. Yes, the treacherous have dealt very treacherously.

LORD, in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.

Just as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain and cries out in her pangs, so we have been before you, LORD.

We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fertile valley of those who are overcome with wine!

The crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim will be trodden under foot.

then I will distress Ariel, and there will be mourning and lamentation. She shall be to me as an altar hearth.

I will encamp against you all around you, and will lay siege against you with posted troops. I will raise siege works against you.

You will be brought down, and will speak out of the ground. Your speech will mumble out of the dust. Your voice will be as of one who has a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and your speech will whisper out of the dust.

It will be like when a hungry man dreams, and behold, he eats; but he awakes, and his hunger isn’t satisfied; or like when a thirsty man dreams, and behold, he drinks; but he awakes, and behold, he is faint, and he is still thirsty. The multitude of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion will be like that.

Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink.

The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to an unprofitable people.

Though the Lord may give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teachers won’t be hidden any more, but your eyes will see your teachers;

Beat your breasts for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine.

Thorns and briers will come up on my people’s land; yes, on all the houses of joy in the joyous city.

For the palace will be forsaken. The populous city will be deserted. The hill and the watchtower will be for dens forever, a delight for wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks,

though hail flattens the forest, and the city is levelled completely.

Behold, their valiant ones cry outside; the ambassadors of peace weep bitterly.

The land mourns and languishes. Lebanon is confounded and withers away. Sharon is like a desert, and Bashan and Carmel are stripped bare.

You will conceive chaff. You will give birth to stubble. Your breath is a fire that will devour you.

The peoples will be like the burning of lime, like thorns that are cut down and burnt in the fire.

Their slain will also be cast out, and the stench of their dead bodies will come up. The mountains will melt in their blood.

The wild oxen will come down with them, and the young bulls with the mighty bulls; and their land will be drunken with blood, and their dust made greasy with fat.

Its streams will be turned into pitch, its dust into sulphur, and its land will become burning pitch.

It won’t be quenched night or day. Its smoke will go up forever. From generation to generation, it will lie waste. No one will pass through it forever and ever.

But Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you, to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”

They said to him, “Hezekiah says, ‘Today is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of rejection; for the children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to give birth.

Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the countries and their land,

In those days Hezekiah was sick and near death. Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, came to him, and said to him, “The LORD says, ‘Set your house in order, for you will die, and not live.’”

I said, “In the middle of my life I go into the gates of Sheol. I am deprived of the residue of my years.”

I said, “I won’t see the LORD, the LORD in the land of the living. I will see man no more with the inhabitants of the world.

My dwelling is removed, and is carried away from me like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up my life like a weaver. He will cut me off from the loom. From day even to night you will make an end of me.

I waited patiently until morning. He breaks all my bones like a lion. From day even to night you will make an end of me.

I chattered like a swallow or a crane. I moaned like a dove. My eyes weaken looking upward. Lord, I am oppressed. Be my security.”

What will I say? He has both spoken to me, and himself has done it. I will walk carefully all my years because of the anguish of my soul.

‘Behold, the days are coming when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up until today, will be carried to Babylon. Nothing will be left,’ says the LORD.

‘They will take away your sons who will issue from you, whom you shall father, and they will be eunuchs in the king of Babylon’s palace.’”

Even the youths faint and get weary, and the young men utterly fall;

“I have been silent a long time. I have been quiet and restrained myself. Now I will cry out like a travailing woman. I will both gasp and pant.

But this is a robbed and plundered people. All of them are snared in holes, and they are hidden in prisons. They have become captives, and no one delivers, and a plunder, and no one says, ‘Restore them!’

Therefore he poured the fierceness of his anger on him, and the strength of battle. It set him on fire all around, but he didn’t know. It burnt him, but he didn’t take it to heart.”

Therefore I will profane the princes of the sanctuary; and I will make Jacob a curse, and Israel an insult.”

They stoop and they bow down together. They could not deliver the burden, but they have gone into captivity.

“Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.

Take the millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs, and wade through the rivers.

“Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you shall no longer be called the mistress of kingdoms.

I was angry with my people. I profaned my inheritance and gave them into your hand. You showed them no mercy. You laid a very heavy yoke on the aged.

Therefore disaster will come on you. You won’t know when it dawns. Mischief will fall on you. You won’t be able to put it away. Desolation will come on you suddenly, which you don’t understand.

Behold, they are like stubble. The fire will burn them. They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by.

The things that you laboured in will be like this: those who have trafficked with you from your youth will each wander in his own way. There will be no one to save you.

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.

But I said, “I have laboured in vain. I have spent my strength in vain for nothing; yet surely the justice due to me is with the LORD, and my reward with my God.”

The LORD, the Redeemer of Israel, and his Holy One, says to him whom man despises, to him whom the nation abhors, to a servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and rise up, princes, and they shall worship, because of the LORD who is faithful, even the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

I gave my back to those who beat me, and my cheeks to those who plucked off the hair. I didn’t hide my face from shame and spitting.

Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who adorn yourselves with torches around yourselves, walk in the flame of your fire, and amongst the torches that you have kindled. You will have this from my hand: you will lie down in sorrow.

Awake, awake! Stand up, Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the LORD’s hand the cup of his wrath. You have drunken the bowl of the cup of staggering, and drained it.

These two things have happened to you— who will grieve with you?— desolation and destruction, and famine and the sword. How can I comfort you?

Your sons have fainted. They lie at the head of all the streets, like an antelope in a net. They are full of the LORD’s wrath, the rebuke of your God.

Therefore now hear this, you afflicted, and drunken, but not with wine:

For the Lord GOD says: “My people went down at the first into Egypt to live there; and the Assyrian has oppressed them without cause.

“Now therefore, what do I do here,” says the LORD, “seeing that my people are taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them mock,” says the LORD, “and my name is blasphemed continually all day long.

Just as many were astonished at you— his appearance was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men—

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering and acquainted with disease. He was despised as one from whom men hide their face; and we didn’t respect him.

Surely he has borne our sickness and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed.

He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn’t open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn’t open his mouth.

He was taken away by oppression and judgement. As for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living and stricken for the disobedience of my people?

They made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him. He has caused him to suffer. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days and the LORD’s pleasure will prosper in his hand.

After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light and be satisfied. My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of himself; and he will bear their iniquities.

“You afflicted, tossed with storms, and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in beautiful colours, and lay your foundations with sapphires.

you who inflame yourselves amongst the oaks, under every green tree; who kill the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks?

You went to the king with oil, increased your perfumes, sent your ambassadors far off, and degraded yourself even to Sheol.

I was angry because of the iniquity of his covetousness and struck him. I hid myself and was angry; and he went on backsliding in the way of his heart.

They hatch adders’ eggs and weave the spider’s web. He who eats of their eggs dies; and that which is crushed breaks out into a viper.

We grope for the wall like the blind. Yes, we grope as those who have no eyes. We stumble at noon as if it were twilight. Amongst those who are strong, we are like dead men.

For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them:

In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them. He bore them, and carried them all the days of old.

Your holy people possessed it but a little while. Our adversaries have trodden down your sanctuary.

We have become like those over whom you never ruled, like those who were not called by your name.

For we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteousness is like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

Your holy cities have become a wilderness. Zion has become a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.

Our holy and our beautiful house where our fathers praised you is burnt with fire. All our pleasant places are laid waste.

Will you hold yourself back for these things, LORD? Will you keep silent and punish us very severely?

I will destine you to the sword, and you will all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, you didn’t answer. When I spoke, you didn’t listen; but you did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I didn’t delight.”

Behold, my servants will sing for joy of heart, but you will cry for sorrow of heart, and will wail for anguish of spirit.

“They will go out, and look at the dead bodies of the men who have transgressed against me; for their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”

Then the LORD said to me, “Out of the north, evil will break out on all the inhabitants of the land.

For behold, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north,” says the LORD. “They will come, and they will each set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all its walls all around, and against all the cities of Judah.

Is Israel a slave? Is he born into slavery? Why has he become a captive?

The young lions have roared at him and raised their voices. They have made his land waste. His cities are burnt up, without inhabitant.

The children also of Memphis and Tahpanhes have broken the crown of your head.

“Your own wickedness will correct you, and your backsliding will rebuke you. Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing, that you have forsaken the LORD your God, and that my fear is not in you,” says the Lord, the LORD of Armies.

“I have struck your children in vain. They received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

“Lift up your eyes to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? You have sat waiting for them by the road, as an Arabian in the wilderness. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and with your wickedness.

But the shameful thing has devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters.

“Your way and your doings have brought these things to you. This is your wickedness, for it is bitter, for it reaches to your heart.”

My anguish, my anguish! I am pained at my very heart! My heart trembles within me. I can’t hold my peace, because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

Destruction on destruction is decreed, for the whole land is laid waste. Suddenly my tents are destroyed, and my curtains gone in a moment.

How long will I see the standard and hear the sound of the trumpet?

I saw the earth and, behold, it was waste and void, and the heavens, and they had no light.

I saw, and behold, there was no man, and all the birds of the sky had fled.

I saw, and behold, the fruitful field was a wilderness, and all its cities were broken down at the presence of the LORD, before his fierce anger.

For the LORD says, “The whole land will be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.

Every city flees for the noise of the horsemen and archers. They go into the thickets and climb up on the rocks. Every city is forsaken, and not a man dwells therein.

You, when you are made desolate, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself with scarlet, though you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with makeup, you make yourself beautiful in vain. Your lovers despise you. They seek your life.

For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, the anguish as of her who gives birth to her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, who gasps for breath, who spreads her hands, saying, “Woe is me now! For my soul faints before the murderers.”

Therefore a lion out of the forest will kill them. A wolf of the evenings will destroy them. A leopard will watch against their cities. Everyone who goes out there will be torn in pieces, because their transgressions are many and their backsliding has increased.

They will eat up your harvest and your bread, which your sons and your daughters should eat. They will eat up your flocks and your herds. They will eat up your vines and your fig trees. They will beat down your fortified cities in which you trust with the sword.

“Flee for safety, you children of Benjamin, out of the middle of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa and raise up a signal on Beth Haccherem, for evil looks out from the north with a great destruction.

I will cut off the beautiful and delicate one, the daughter of Zion.

Shepherds with their flocks will come to her. They will pitch their tents against her all around. They will feed everyone in his place.”

“Prepare war against her! Arise! Let’s go up at noon. Woe to us! For the day declines, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out.

Arise! Let’s go up by night, and let’s destroy her palaces.”

For the LORD of Armies said, “Cut down trees, and cast up a mound against Jerusalem. This is the city to be visited. She is filled with oppression within herself.

As a well produces its waters, so she produces her wickedness. Violence and destruction is heard in her. Sickness and wounds are continually before me.

Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.”

The LORD of Armies says, “They will thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel like a vine. Turn again your hand as a grape gatherer into the baskets.”

Therefore I am full of the LORD’s wrath. I am weary with holding it in. “Pour it out on the children in the street, and on the assembly of young men together; for even the husband with the wife will be taken, the aged with him who is full of days.

Their houses will be turned to others, their fields and their wives together; for I will stretch out my hand on the inhabitants of the land, says the LORD.”

Therefore The LORD says, “Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. The fathers and the sons together will stumble against them. The neighbour and his friend will perish.”

They take hold of bow and spear. They are cruel, and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, everyone set in array, as a man to the battle, against you, daughter of Zion.”

We have heard its report. Our hands become feeble. Anguish has taken hold of us, and pains as of a woman in labour.

Daughter of my people, clothe yourself with sackcloth, and wallow in ashes! Mourn, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation, for the destroyer will suddenly come on us.

Therefore behold, the days come”, says the LORD, “that it will no more be called ‘Topheth’ or ‘The valley of the son of Hinnom’, but ‘The valley of Slaughter’; for they will bury in Topheth until there is no place to bury.

The dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth. No one will frighten them away.

Then I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land will become a waste.”

“At that time,” says the LORD, “they will bring the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of his princes, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves.

They will spread them before the sun, the moon, and all the army of the sky, which they have loved, which they have served, after which they have walked, which they have sought, and which they have worshipped. They will not be gathered or be buried. They will be like dung on the surface of the earth.

Death will be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them,” says the LORD of Armies.

“For, behold, I will send serpents, adders amongst you, which will not be charmed; and they will bite you,” says the LORD.

For the hurt of the daughter of my people, I am hurt. I mourn. Dismay has taken hold of me.

Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a spring of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Friends deceive each other, and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies. They weary themselves committing iniquity.

Therefore the LORD of Armies says, “Behold, I will melt them and test them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people?

I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burnt up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone.

“I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.”

Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burnt up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

The LORD says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in my ways,

Therefore the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says, “Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood and give them poisoned water to drink.

I will scatter them also amongst the nations, whom neither they nor their fathers have known. I will send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.”

The LORD of Armies says, “Consider, and call for the mourning women, that they may come. Send for the skilful women, that they may come.

Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with waters.

For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, ‘How we are ruined! We are greatly confounded because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings.’”

For death has come up into our windows. It has entered into our palaces to cut off the children from outside, and the young men from the streets.

Speak, “The LORD says, “‘The dead bodies of men will fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester. No one will gather them.’”

For the LORD says, “Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it.”

Woe is me because of my injury! My wound is serious; but I said, “Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it.”

Therefore the LORD says, ‘Behold, I will bring evil on them which they will not be able to escape; and they will cry to me, but I will not listen to them.

Then the cities of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem will go and cry to the gods to which they offer incense, but they will not save them at all in the time of their trouble.

“Therefore don’t pray for this people. Don’t lift up cry or prayer for them; for I will not hear them in the time that they cry to me because of their trouble.

The LORD called your name, “A green olive tree, beautiful with goodly fruit.” With the noise of a great roar he has kindled fire on it, and its branches are broken.

But I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter. I didn’t know that they had devised plans against me, saying, “Let’s destroy the tree with its fruit, and let’s cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered.”

therefore the LORD of Armies says, ‘Behold, I will punish them. The young men will die by the sword. Their sons and their daughters will die by famine.

There will be no remnant to them, for I will bring evil on the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.’”

You are righteous, LORD, when I contend with you; yet I would like to plead a case with you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are they all at ease who deal very treacherously?

How long will the land mourn, and the herbs of the whole country wither? Because of the wickedness of those who dwell therein, the animals and birds are consumed; because they said, “He won’t see our latter end.”

For even your brothers, and the house of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you! Even they have cried aloud after you! Don’t believe them, though they speak beautiful words to you.

“I have forsaken my house. I have cast off my heritage. I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.

Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard. They have trodden my portion under foot. They have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.

They have made it a desolation. It mourns to me, being desolate. The whole land is made desolate, because no one cares.

Destroyers have come on all the bare heights in the wilderness; for the sword of the LORD devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land. No flesh has peace.

I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together,” says the LORD: “I will not pity, spare, or have compassion, that I should not destroy them.”’”

But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride. My eye will weep bitterly, and run down with tears, because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive.

Say to the king and to the queen mother, “Humble yourselves. Sit down, for your crowns have come down, even the crown of your glory.

The cities of the South are shut up, and there is no one to open them. Judah is carried away captive: all of them. They are wholly carried away captive.

Lift up your eyes, and see those who come from the north. Where is the flock that was given to you, your beautiful flock?

What will you say when he sets over you as head those whom you have yourself taught to be friends to you? Won’t sorrows take hold of you, as of a woman in travail?

If you say in your heart, “Why have these things come on me?” Your skirts are uncovered because of the greatness of your iniquity, and your heels suffer violence.

“Therefore I will scatter them as the stubble that passes away by the wind of the wilderness.

Therefore I will also uncover your skirts on your face, and your shame will appear.

I have seen your abominations, even your adulteries and your neighing, the lewdness of your prostitution, on the hills in the field. Woe to you, Jerusalem! You will not be made clean. How long will it yet be?”

This is the LORD’s word that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought:

“Judah mourns, and its gates languish. They sit in black on the ground. The cry of Jerusalem goes up.

Their nobles send their little ones to the waters. They come to the cisterns, and find no water. They return with their vessels empty. They are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads.

Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the ploughmen are disappointed. They cover their heads.

Yes, the doe in the field also calves and forsakes her young, because there is no grass.

The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights. They pant for air like jackals. Their eyes fail, because there is no vegetation.

When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and meal offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”

Therefore the LORD says concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, but I didn’t send them, yet they say, ‘Sword and famine will not be in this land.’ Those prophets will be consumed by sword and famine.

The people to whom they prophesy will be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, or their daughters, for I will pour their wickedness on them.

“You shall say this word to them: “‘Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound.

If I go out into the field, then behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then behold, those who are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.’”

Have you utterly rejected Judah? Has your soul loathed Zion? Why have you struck us, and there is no healing for us? We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay!

It will happen when they ask you, ‘Where shall we go out?’ then you shall tell them, ‘The LORD says: “Such as are for death, to death; such as are for the sword, to the sword; such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for captivity, to captivity.”’

For who will have pity on you, Jerusalem? Who will mourn you? Who will come to ask of your welfare?

You have rejected me,” says the LORD. “You have gone backward. Therefore I have stretched out my hand against you and destroyed you. I am weary of showing compassion.

I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land. I have bereaved them of children. I have destroyed my people. They didn’t return from their ways.

Their widows are increased more than the sand of the seas. I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly.

She who has borne seven languishes. She has given up the spirit. Her sun has gone down while it was yet day. She has been disappointed and confounded. I will deliver their residue to the sword before their enemies,” says the LORD.

Woe is me, my mother, that you have borne me, a man of strife, and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have not lent, neither have men lent to me; yet every one of them curses me.

I will give your substance and your treasures for a plunder without price, and that for all your sins, even in all your borders.

I will make them to pass with your enemies into a land which you don’t know; for a fire is kindled in my anger, which will burn on you.”

LORD, you know. Remember me, visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors. You are patient, so don’t take me away. Know that for your sake I have suffered reproach.

Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed? Will you indeed be to me as a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?

“They will die grievous deaths. They will not be lamented, neither will they be buried. They will be as dung on the surface of the ground. They will be consumed by the sword and by famine. Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.”

Both great and small will die in this land. They will not be buried. Men won’t lament for them, cut themselves, or make themselves bald for them.

My mountain in the field, I will give your substance and all your treasures for a plunder, and your high places, because of sin, throughout all your borders.

You, even of yourself, will discontinue from your heritage that I gave you. I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you don’t know, for you have kindled a fire in my anger which will burn forever.”

For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when good comes, but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, an uninhabited salt land.

to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished, and shake his head.

I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy. I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.

Should evil be recompensed for good? For they have dug a pit for my soul. Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them.

Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword. Let their wives become childless and widows. Let their men be killed and their young men struck by the sword in battle.

Therefore, behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that this place will no more be called ‘Topheth’, nor ‘The Valley of the son of Hinnom’, but ‘The valley of Slaughter’.

“‘“I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem void in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies to be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth.

I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues.

I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. They will each eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, will distress them.”’

and shall tell them, ‘The LORD of Armies says: “Even so I will break this people and this city as one breaks a potter’s vessel, that can’t be made whole again. They will bury in Topheth until there is no place to bury.

This is what I will do to this place,” says the LORD, “and to its inhabitants, even making this city as Topheth.

Then Pashhur struck Jeremiah the prophet and put him in the stocks that were in the upper gate of Benjamin, which was in the LORD’s house.

For the LORD says, ‘Behold, I will make you a terror to yourself and to all your friends. They will fall by the sword of their enemies, and your eyes will see it. I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will carry them captive to Babylon, and will kill them with the sword.

Moreover I will give all the riches of this city, and all its gains, and all its precious things, yes, I will give all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies. They will make them captives, take them, and carry them to Babylon.

You, Pashhur, and all who dwell in your house will go into captivity. You will come to Babylon, and there you will die, and there you will be buried, you, and all your friends, to whom you have prophesied falsely.’”

LORD, you have persuaded me, and I was persuaded. You are stronger than I, and have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day. Everyone mocks me.

For as often as I speak, I cry out; I cry, “Violence and destruction!” because the LORD’s word has been made a reproach to me, and a derision, all day.

If I say that I will not make mention of him, or speak any more in his name, then there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones. I am weary with holding it in. I can’t.

Cursed is the day in which I was born. Don’t let the day in which my mother bore me be blessed.

Cursed is the man who brought news to my father, saying, “A boy is born to you,” making him very glad.

because he didn’t kill me from the womb. So my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great.

Why did I come out of the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and animal. They will die of a great pestilence.

Afterward,” says the LORD, “I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, his servants, and the people, even those who are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. He will strike them with the edge of the sword. He will not spare them, have pity, or have mercy.”’

He who remains in this city will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, but he who goes out and passes over to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he will live, and he will escape with his life.

For I have set my face on this city for evil, and not for good,” says the LORD. “It will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will burn it with fire.”’

But your eyes and your heart are only for your covetousness, for shedding innocent blood, for oppression, and for doing violence.”

He will be buried with the burial of a donkey, drawn and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.”

“Go up to Lebanon, and cry out. Lift up your voice in Bashan, and cry from Abarim; for all your lovers have been destroyed.

The wind will feed all your shepherds, and your lovers will go into captivity. Surely then you will be ashamed and confounded for all your wickedness.

Inhabitant of Lebanon, who makes your nest in the cedars, how greatly to be pitied you will be when pangs come on you, the pain as of a woman in travail!

I would give you into the hand of those who seek your life, and into the hand of them of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.

I will cast you out with your mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born; and there you will die.

But to the land to which their soul longs to return, there they will not return.”

Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which no one delights? Why are they cast out, he and his offspring, and cast into a land which they don’t know?

The LORD says, “Record this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no more will a man of his offspring prosper, sitting on David’s throne and ruling in Judah.”

Therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, says against the shepherds who feed my people: “You have scattered my flock, driven them away, and have not visited them. Behold, I will visit on you the evil of your doings,” says the LORD.

“For the land is full of adulterers; for because of the curse the land mourns. The pastures of the wilderness have dried up. Their course is evil, and their might is not right;

Therefore their way will be to them as slippery places in the darkness. They will be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation,” says the LORD.

Therefore the LORD of Armies says concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink poisoned water; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”

“‘As the bad figs, which can’t be eaten, they are so bad,’ surely the LORD says, ‘So I will give up Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his princes, and the remnant of Jerusalem who remain in this land, and those who dwell in the land of Egypt.

I will even give them up to be tossed back and forth amongst all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, in all places where I will drive them.

I will send the sword, the famine, and the pestilence amongst them, until they are consumed from off the land that I gave to them and to their fathers.’”

“Yet you have not listened to me,” says the LORD, “that you may provoke me to anger with the work of your hands to your own hurt.”

behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,” says the LORD, “and I will send to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against its inhabitants, and against all these nations around. I will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones, and the light of the lamp.

This whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

“It will happen, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation,” says the LORD, “for their iniquity. I will make the land of the Chaldeans desolate forever.

For many nations and great kings will make bondservants of them, even of them. I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.”

For the LORD, the God of Israel, says to me: “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from my hand, and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it.

They will drink, and reel back and forth, and be insane, because of the sword that I will send amongst them.”

Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, with its kings and its princes, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, a hissing, and a curse, as it is today;

“You shall tell them, ‘The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says: “Drink, and be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send amongst you.”’

For, behold, I begin to work evil at the city which is called by my name; and should you be utterly unpunished? You will not be unpunished; for I will call for a sword on all the inhabitants of the earth, says the LORD of Armies.”’

A noise will come even to the end of the earth; for the LORD has a controversy with the nations. He will enter into judgement with all flesh. As for the wicked, he will give them to the sword,”’ says the LORD.”

The LORD of Armies says, “Behold, evil will go out from nation to nation, and a great storm will be raised up from the uttermost parts of the earth.”

The slain of the LORD will be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth. They won’t be lamented. They won’t be gathered or buried. They will be dung on the surface of the ground.

Wail, you shepherds, and cry. Wallow in dust, you leader of the flock; for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions have fully come, and you will fall like fine pottery.

The shepherds will have no way to flee. The leader of the flock will have no escape.

A voice of the cry of the shepherds, and the wailing of the leader of the flock, for the LORD destroys their pasture.

The peaceful folds are brought to silence because of the fierce anger of the LORD.

He has left his covert, as the lion; for their land has become an astonishment because of the fierceness of the oppression, and because of his fierce anger.

They fetched Uriah out of Egypt and brought him to Jehoiakim the king, who killed him with the sword and cast his dead body into the graves of the common people.

“‘“‘It will happen that I will punish the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon,’ says the LORD, ‘with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.

for they prophesy a lie to you, to remove you far from your land, so that I would drive you out, and you would perish.

Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as the LORD has spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon?

which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon didn’t take when he carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, from Jerusalem to Babylon, and all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem—

The prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, of evil, and of pestilence.

the LORD of Armies says: “Behold, I will send on them the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, and will make them like rotten figs that can’t be eaten, they are so bad.

I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed back and forth amongst all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of horror, an astonishment, a hissing, and a reproach amongst all the nations where I have driven them,

A curse will be taken up about them by all the captives of Judah who are in Babylon, saying, ‘The LORD make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire;’

Ask now, and see whether a man travails with child. Why do I see every man with his hands on his waist, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned pale?

Alas, for that day is great, so that none is like it! It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he will be saved out of it.

For the LORD says, “Your hurt is incurable. Your wound is grievous.

There is no one to plead your cause, that you may be bound up. You have no healing medicines.

All your lovers have forgotten you. They don’t seek you. For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins were increased.

Why do you cry over your injury? Your pain is incurable. For the greatness of your iniquity, because your sins have increased, I have done these things to you.

Surely after that I was turned. I repented. After that I was instructed. I struck my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the reproach of my youth.’

Now at that time the king of Babylon’s army was besieging Jerusalem. Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the king of Judah’s house.

They came in and possessed it, but they didn’t obey your voice and didn’t walk in your law. They have done nothing of all that you commanded them to do. Therefore you have caused all this evil to come upon them.

“Behold, siege ramps have been built against the city to take it. The city is given into the hand of the Chaldeans who fight against it, because of the sword, of the famine, and of the pestilence. What you have spoken has happened. Behold, you see it.

Therefore the LORD says: Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans, and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will take it.

The Chaldeans, who fight against this city, will come and set this city on fire, and burn it with the houses on whose roofs they have offered incense to Baal, and poured out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.

For this city has been to me a provocation of my anger and of my wrath from the day that they built it even to this day, so that I should remove it from before my face,

Now therefore the LORD, the God of Israel, says concerning this city, about which you say, “It is given into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence:”

‘While men come to fight with the Chaldeans, and to fill them with the dead bodies of men, whom I have killed in my anger and in my wrath, and for all whose wickedness I have hidden my face from this city,

You won’t escape out of his hand, but will surely be taken and delivered into his hand. Your eyes will see the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he will speak with you mouth to mouth. You will go to Babylon.”’

when the king of Babylon’s army was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish and against Azekah; for these alone remained of the cities of Judah as fortified cities.

The princes were angry with Jeremiah, and struck him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe; for they had made that the prison.

When Jeremiah had come into the dungeon house and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there many days,

Moreover Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “How have I sinned against you, against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison?

Now please hear, my lord the king: please let my supplication be presented before you, that you not cause me to return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.”

Then they took Jeremiah and threw him into the dungeon of Malchijah the king’s son, that was in the court of the guard. They let down Jeremiah with cords. In the dungeon there was no water, but mire; and Jeremiah sank in the mire.

“My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, whom they have cast into the dungeon. He is likely to die in the place where he is, because of the famine; for there is no more bread in the city.”

In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem, and besieged it.

In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city.

All the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate: Nergal Sharezer, Samgarnebo, Sarsechim the Rabsaris, Nergal Sharezer the Rabmag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon.

But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho. When they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; and he pronounced judgement on him.

Then the king of Babylon killed Zedekiah’s sons in Riblah before his eyes. The king of Babylon also killed all the nobles of Judah.

Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.

The Chaldeans burnt the king’s house and the people’s houses with fire and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.

Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the rest of the people who remained in the city, the deserters also who fell away to him, and the rest of the people who remained.

“Go, and speak to Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, saying, ‘The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Behold, I will bring my words on this city for evil, and not for good; and they will be accomplished before you in that day.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains amongst all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were carried away captive to Babylon.

Then Ishmael the son of Nethaniah arose, and the ten men who were with him, and struck Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan with the sword and killed him, whom the king of Babylon had made governor over the land.

Ishmael also killed all the Jews who were with Gedaliah at Mizpah, and the Chaldean men of war who were found there.

The second day after he had killed Gedaliah, and no man knew it,

It was so, when they came into the middle of the city, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah killed them, and cast them into the middle of the pit, he, and the men who were with him.

Now the pit in which Ishmael cast all the dead bodies of the men whom he had killed, by the side of Gedaliah (this was that which Asa the king had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel), Ishmael the son of Nethaniah filled it with those who were killed.

Then Ishmael carried away captive all of the people who were left in Mizpah, even the king’s daughters, and all the people who remained in Mizpah, whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had committed to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. Ishmael the son of Nethaniah carried them away captive, and departed to go over to the children of Ammon.

then it will happen that the sword, which you fear, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are afraid, will follow close behind you there in Egypt; and you will die there.

So will it be with all the men who set their faces to go into Egypt to live there. They will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. None of them will remain or escape from the evil that I will bring on them.’

For the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘As my anger and my wrath has been poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be poured out on you, when you enter into Egypt; and you will be an object of horror, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach; and you will see this place no more.’

Now therefore know certainly that you will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence in the place where you desire to go to live.”

He will come, and will strike the land of Egypt; such as are for death will be put to death, and such as are for captivity to captivity, and such as are for the sword to the sword.

“The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘You have seen all the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem, and on all the cities of Judah. Behold, today they are a desolation, and no man dwells in them,

Therefore my wrath and my anger was poured out, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as it is today.’

I will take the remnant of Judah that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to live there, and they will all be consumed. They will fall in the land of Egypt. They will be consumed by the sword and by the famine. They will die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine. They will be an object of horror, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach.

For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence;

so that none of the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to live there, will escape or be left to return into the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return to dwell there; for no one will return except those who will escape.’”

But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of the sky, and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.”

Thus the LORD could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your doings and because of the abominations which you have committed. Therefore your land has become a desolation, an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is today.

Because you have burnt incense and because you have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed the LORD’s voice, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil has happened to you, as it is today.”

Behold, I watch over them for evil, and not for good; and all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until they are all gone.

‘You said, “Woe is me now! For the LORD has added sorrow to my pain! I am weary with my groaning, and I find no rest.”’

Go up into Gilead, and take balm, virgin daughter of Egypt. You use many medicines in vain. There is no healing for you.

The nations have heard of your shame, and the earth is full of your cry; for the mighty man has stumbled against the mighty, they both fall together.”

You daughter who dwells in Egypt, furnish yourself to go into captivity; for Memphis will become a desolation, and will be burnt up, without inhabitant.

“Egypt is a very beautiful heifer; but destruction out of the north has come. It has come.

The daughter of Egypt will be disappointed; she will be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.”

At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers don’t look back for their children because their hands are so feeble,

Baldness has come on Gaza; Ashkelon is brought to nothing. You remnant of their valley, how long will you cut yourself?

Of Moab. The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Woe to Nebo! For it is laid waste. Kiriathaim is disappointed. It is taken. Misgab is put to shame and broken down.

The praise of Moab is no more. In Heshbon they have devised evil against her: ‘Come! Let’s cut her off from being a nation.’ You also, Madmen, will be brought to silence. The sword will pursue you.

The sound of a cry from Horonaim, desolation and great destruction!

Moab is destroyed. Her little ones have caused a cry to be heard.

For they will go up by the ascent of Luhith with continual weeping. For at the descent of Horonaim they have heard the distress of the cry of destruction.

Flee! Save your lives! Be like the juniper bush in the wilderness.

For, because you have trusted in your works and in your treasures, you also will be taken. Chemosh will go out into captivity, his priests and his princes together.

The destroyer will come on every city, and no city will escape; the valley also will perish, and the plain will be destroyed, as the LORD has spoken.

Give wings to Moab, that she may fly and get herself away: and her cities will become a desolation, without anyone to dwell in them.

Therefore behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will send to him those who pour off, and they will pour him off; and they will empty his vessels, and break their containers in pieces.

Moab is laid waste, and they have gone up into his cities, and his chosen young men have gone down to the slaughter,” says the King, whose name is the LORD of Armies.

“The calamity of Moab is near to come, and his affliction hurries fast.

All you who are around him, bemoan him; and all you who know his name, say, ‘How the strong staff is broken, the beautiful rod!’

“You daughter who dwells in Dibon, come down from your glory, and sit in thirst; for the destroyer of Moab has come up against you. He has destroyed your strongholds.

Inhabitant of Aroer, stand by the way and watch. Ask him who flees, and her who escapes; say, ‘What has been done?’

Moab is disappointed; for it is broken down. Wail and cry! Tell it by the Arnon, that Moab is laid waste.

Therefore I will wail for Moab. Yes, I will cry out for all Moab. They will mourn for the men of Kir Heres.

With more than the weeping of Jazer I will weep for you, vine of Sibmah. Your branches passed over the sea. They reached even to the sea of Jazer. The destroyer has fallen on your summer fruits and on your vintage.

Gladness and joy is taken away from the fruitful field and from the land of Moab. I have caused wine to cease from the wine presses. No one will tread with shouting. The shouting will be no shouting.

From the cry of Heshbon even to Elealeh, even to Jahaz they have uttered their voice, from Zoar even to Horonaim, to Eglath Shelishiyah; for the waters of Nimrim will also become desolate.

Therefore my heart sounds for Moab like flutes, and my heart sounds like flutes for the men of Kir Heres. Therefore the abundance that he has gotten has perished.

For every head is bald, and every beard clipped. There are cuttings on all the hands, and sackcloth on the waist.

On all the housetops of Moab, and in its streets, there is lamentation everywhere; for I have broken Moab like a vessel in which no one delights,” says the LORD.

“How it is broken down! How they wail! How Moab has turned the back with shame! So will Moab become a derision and a terror to all who are around him.”

Kerioth is taken, and the strongholds are seized. The heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day will be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.

“Those who fled stand without strength under the shadow of Heshbon; for a fire has gone out of Heshbon, and a flame from the middle of Sihon, and has devoured the corner of Moab, and the crown of the head of the tumultuous ones.

Woe to you, O Moab! The people of Chemosh are undone; for your sons are taken away captive, and your daughters into captivity.

“Wail, Heshbon, for Ai is laid waste! Cry, you daughters of Rabbah! Clothe yourself in sackcloth. Lament, and run back and forth amongst the fences; for Malcam will go into captivity, his priests and his princes together.

Behold, I will bring a terror on you,” says the Lord, the LORD of Armies, “from all who are around you. All of you will be driven completely out, and there will be no one to gather together the fugitives.

Of Edom, the LORD of Armies says: “Is wisdom no more in Teman? Has counsel perished from the prudent? Has their wisdom vanished?

Flee! Turn back! Dwell in the depths, inhabitants of Dedan; for I will bring the calamity of Esau on him when I visit him.

If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleaning grapes? If thieves came by night, wouldn’t they steal until they had enough?

But I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he will not be able to hide himself. His offspring is destroyed, with his brothers and his neighbours; and he is no more.

For the LORD says: “Behold, they to whom it didn’t pertain to drink of the cup will certainly drink; and are you he who will altogether go unpunished? You won’t go unpunished, but you will surely drink.

“Edom will become an astonishment. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished, and will hiss at all its plagues.

Behold, he will come up and fly as the eagle, and spread out his wings against Bozrah. The heart of the mighty men of Edom at that day will be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.

Damascus has grown feeble, she turns herself to flee, and trembling has seized her. Anguish and sorrows have taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail.

Therefore her young men will fall in her streets, and all the men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says the LORD of Armies.

They will take their tents and their flocks. they will carry away for themselves their curtains, all their vessels, and their camels; and they will cry to them, ‘Terror on every side!’

Their camels will be a booty, and the multitude of their livestock a plunder. I will scatter to all winds those who have the corners of their beards cut off; and I will bring their calamity from every side of them,” says the LORD.

your mother will be utterly disappointed. She who bore you will be confounded. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

Because of the LORD’s wrath she won’t be inhabited, but she will be wholly desolate. Everyone who goes by Babylon will be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.

“Israel is a hunted sheep. The lions have driven him away. First, the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones.”

A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction.

How the hammer of the whole earth is cut apart and broken! How Babylon has become a desolation amongst the nations!

Kill all her bulls. Let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them! For their day has come, the time of their visitation.

Therefore her young men will fall in her streets. All her men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says the LORD.

The proud one will stumble and fall, and no one will raise him up. I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it will devour all who are around him.”

The LORD of Armies says: “The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together. All who took them captive hold them fast. They refuse to let them go.

The king of Babylon has heard the news of them, and his hands become feeble. Anguish has taken hold of him, pains as of a woman in labour.

They will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets.

The land trembles and is in pain; for the purposes of the LORD against Babylon stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.

So the passages are seized. They have burnt the reeds with fire. The men of war are frightened.”

For the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says: “The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden. Yet a little while, and the time of harvest comes for her.”

“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has, like a monster, swallowed me up. He has filled his mouth with my delicacies. He has cast me out.

“How Sheshach is taken! How the praise of the whole earth is seized! How Babylon has become a desolation amongst the nations!

The sea has come up on Babylon. She is covered with the multitude of its waves.

Her cities have become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no man dwells. No son of man passes by it.

“As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so the slain of all the land will fall at Babylon.

“Therefore behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will execute judgement on her engraved images; and through all her land the wounded will groan.

“The sound of a cry comes from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

In the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about.

So the city was besieged to the eleventh year of King Zedekiah.

In the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the famine was severe in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land.

but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and all his army was scattered from him.

The king of Babylon killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. He also killed all the princes of Judah in Riblah.

He put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison until the day of his death.

Now in the fifth month, in the tenth day of the month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, who stood before the king of Babylon, came into Jerusalem.

He burnt the LORD’s house, and the king’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burnt with fire.

All the army of the Chaldeans, who were with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls of Jerusalem all around.

Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the poorest of the people, and the rest of the people who were left in the city, and those who fell away, who defected to the king of Babylon, and the rest of the multitude.

The Chaldeans broke the pillars of bronze that were in the LORD’s house and the bases and the bronze sea that were in the LORD’s house in pieces, and carried all of their bronze to Babylon.

They also took away the pots, the shovels, the snuffers, the basins, the spoons, and all the vessels of bronze with which they ministered.

The captain of the guard took away the cups, the fire pans, the basins, the pots, the lamp stands, the spoons, and the bowls; that which was of gold, as gold, and that which was of silver, as silver.

They took the two pillars, the one sea, and the twelve bronze bulls that were under the bases, which King Solomon had made for the LORD’s house. The bronze of all these vessels was without weight.

The captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the threshold,

and out of the city he took an officer who was set over the men of war; and seven men of those who saw the king’s face, who were found in the city; and the scribe of the captain of the army, who mustered the people of the land; and sixty men of the people of the land, who were found in the middle of the city.

Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took them, and brought them to the king of Babylon to Riblah.

The king of Babylon struck them, and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. So Judah was carried away captive out of his land.

This is the number of the people whom Nebuchadnezzar carried away captive: in the seventh year, three thousand and twenty-three Jews;

in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, he carried away captive from Jerusalem eight hundred and thirty-two persons;

in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive of the Jews seven hundred and forty-five people. All the people numbered four thousand and six hundred.

How the city sits solitary, that was full of people! She has become as a widow, who was great amongst the nations! She who was a princess amongst the provinces has become a slave!

She weeps bitterly in the night. Her tears are on her cheeks. Amongst all her lovers she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her. They have become her enemies.

Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction and because of great servitude. She dwells amongst the nations. She finds no rest. All her persecutors overtook her in her distress.

The roads to Zion mourn, because no one comes to the solemn assembly. All her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh. Her virgins are afflicted, and she herself is in bitterness.

Her adversaries have become the head. Her enemies prosper; for the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. Her young children have gone into captivity before the adversary.

All majesty has departed from the daughter of Zion. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture. They have gone without strength before the pursuer.

Jerusalem remembers in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that were from the days of old; when her people fell into the hand of the adversary, and no one helped her. The adversaries saw her. They mocked at her desolations.

Jerusalem has grievously sinned. Therefore she has become unclean. All who honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness. Yes, she sighs and turns backward.

Her filthiness was in her skirts. She didn’t remember her latter end. Therefore she has come down astoundingly. She has no comforter. “See, LORD, my affliction; for the enemy has magnified himself.”

The adversary has spread out his hand on all her pleasant things; for she has seen that the nations have entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom you commanded that they should not enter into your assembly.

All her people sigh. They seek bread. They have given their pleasant things for food to refresh their soul. “Look, LORD, and see, for I have become despised.”

“Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look, and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which is brought on me, with which the LORD has afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.

“From on high has he sent fire into my bones, and it prevails against them. He has spread a net for my feet. He has turned me back. He has made me desolate and I faint all day long.

“The yoke of my transgressions is bound by his hand. They are knit together. They have come up on my neck. He made my strength fail. The Lord has delivered me into their hands, against whom I am not able to stand.

“The Lord has set at nothing all my mighty men within me. He has called a solemn assembly against me to crush my young men. The Lord has trodden the virgin daughter of Judah as in a wine press.

“For these things I weep. My eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me. My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.”

Zion spreads out her hands. There is no one to comfort her. The LORD has commanded concerning Jacob, that those who are around him should be his adversaries. Jerusalem is amongst them as an unclean thing.

“The LORD is righteous, for I have rebelled against his commandment. Please hear all you peoples, and see my sorrow. My virgins and my young men have gone into captivity.

“I called for my lovers, but they deceived me. My priests and my elders gave up the spirit in the city, while they sought food for themselves to refresh their souls.

“Look, LORD; for I am in distress. My heart is troubled. My heart turns over within me, for I have grievously rebelled. Abroad, the sword bereaves. At home, it is like death.

“They have heard that I sigh. There is no one to comfort me. All my enemies have heard of my trouble. They are glad that you have done it. You will bring the day that you have proclaimed, and they will be like me.

“Let all their wickedness come before you. Do to them as you have done to me for all my transgressions. For my sighs are many, and my heart is faint.

How has the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger! He has cast the beauty of Israel down from heaven to the earth, and hasn’t remembered his footstool in the day of his anger.

The Lord has swallowed up all the dwellings of Jacob without pity. He has thrown down in his wrath the strongholds of the daughter of Judah. He has brought them down to the ground. He has profaned the kingdom and its princes.

He has cut off all the horn of Israel in fierce anger. He has drawn back his right hand from before the enemy. He has burnt up Jacob like a flaming fire, which devours all around.

He has bent his bow like an enemy. He has stood with his right hand as an adversary. He has killed all that were pleasant to the eye. In the tent of the daughter of Zion, he has poured out his wrath like fire.

The Lord has become as an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel. He has swallowed up all her palaces. He has destroyed his strongholds. He has multiplied mourning and lamentation in the daughter of Judah.

He has violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were a garden. He has destroyed his place of assembly. The LORD has caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be forgotten in Zion. In the indignation of his anger, he has despised the king and the priest.

The Lord has cast off his altar. He has abhorred his sanctuary. He has given the walls of her palaces into the hand of the enemy. They have made a noise in the LORD’s house, as in the day of a solemn assembly.

The LORD has purposed to destroy the wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out the line. He has not withdrawn his hand from destroying; He has made the rampart and wall lament. They languish together.

Her gates have sunk into the ground. He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are amongst the nations where the law is not. Yes, her prophets find no vision from the LORD.

The elders of the daughter of Zion sit on the ground. They keep silence. They have cast up dust on their heads. They have clothed themselves with sackcloth. The virgins of Jerusalem hang down their heads to the ground.

My eyes fail with tears. My heart is troubled. My bile is poured on the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because the young children and the infants swoon in the streets of the city.

They ask their mothers, “Where is grain and wine?” when they swoon as the wounded in the streets of the city, when their soul is poured out into their mothers’ bosom.

What shall I testify to you? What shall I liken to you, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I compare to you, that I may comfort you, virgin daughter of Zion? For your breach is as big as the sea. Who can heal you?

Your prophets have seen false and foolish visions for you. They have not uncovered your iniquity, to reverse your captivity, but have seen for you false revelations and causes of banishment.

All that pass by clap their hands at you. They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, “Is this the city that men called ‘The perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth’?”

All your enemies have opened their mouth wide against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth. They say, “We have swallowed her up. Certainly this is the day that we looked for. We have found it. We have seen it.”

The LORD has done that which he planned. He has fulfilled his word that he commanded in the days of old. He has thrown down, and has not pitied. He has caused the enemy to rejoice over you. He has exalted the horn of your adversaries.

Their heart cried to the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river day and night. Give yourself no relief. Don’t let your eyes rest.

Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands towards him for the life of your young children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.

“Look, LORD, and see to whom you have done thus! Should the women eat their offspring, the children that they held and bounced on their knees? Should the priest and the prophet be killed in the sanctuary of the Lord?

“The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets. My virgins and my young men have fallen by the sword. You have killed them in the day of your anger. You have slaughtered, and not pitied.

“You have called, as in the day of a solemn assembly, my terrors on every side. There was no one that escaped or remained in the day of the LORD’s anger. My enemy has consumed those whom I have cared for and brought up.

I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.

He has led me and caused me to walk in darkness, and not in light.

Surely he turns his hand against me again and again all day long.

He has made my flesh and my skin old. He has broken my bones.

He has built against me, and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.

He has made me dwell in dark places, as those who have been long dead.

He has walled me about, so that I can’t go out. He has made my chain heavy.

Yes, when I cry, and call for help, he shuts out my prayer.

He has walled up my ways with cut stone. He has made my paths crooked.

He is to me as a bear lying in wait, as a lion in hiding.

He has turned away my path, and pulled me in pieces. He has made me desolate.

He has bent his bow, and set me as a mark for the arrow.

He has caused the shafts of his quiver to enter into my kidneys.

I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long.

He has filled me with bitterness. He has stuffed me with wormwood.

He has also broken my teeth with gravel. He has covered me with ashes.

You have removed my soul far away from peace. I forgot prosperity.

I said, “My strength has perished, along with my expectation from the LORD.”

Remember my affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the bitterness.

My soul still remembers them, and is bowed down within me.

It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.

Let him give his cheek to him who strikes him. Let him be filled full of reproach.

For he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.

To crush under foot all the prisoners of the earth,

Doesn’t evil and good come out of the mouth of the Most High?

Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?

“You have covered us with anger and pursued us. You have killed. You have not pitied.

You have covered yourself with a cloud, so that no prayer can pass through.

You have made us an off-scouring and refuse in the middle of the peoples.

“All our enemies have opened their mouth wide against us.

Terror and the pit have come on us, devastation and destruction.”

My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.

My eye pours down and doesn’t cease, without any intermission,

My eye affects my soul, because of all the daughters of my city.

They have chased me relentlessly like a bird, those who are my enemies without cause.

They have cut off my life in the dungeon, and have cast a stone on me.

Waters flowed over my head. I said, “I am cut off.”

I called on your name, LORD, out of the lowest dungeon.

LORD, you have seen my wrong. Judge my cause.

You have seen all their vengeance and all their plans against me.

You have heard their reproach, LORD, and all their plans against me,

the lips of those that rose up against me, and their plots against me all day long.

You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song.

How the gold has become dim! The most pure gold has changed! The stones of the sanctuary are poured out at the head of every street.

The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how they are esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

Even the jackals offer their breast. They nurse their young ones. But the daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

The tongue of the nursing child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst. The young children ask for bread, and no one breaks it for them.

Those who ate delicacies are desolate in the streets. Those who were brought up in purple embrace dunghills.

For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, which was overthrown as in a moment. No hands were laid on her.

Their appearance is blacker than a coal. They are not known in the streets. Their skin clings to their bones. It is withered. It has become like wood.

Those who are killed with the sword are better than those who are killed with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through, for lack of the fruits of the field.

The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children. They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

The LORD has accomplished his wrath. He has poured out his fierce anger. He has kindled a fire in Zion, which has devoured its foundations.

It is because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the middle of her.

They wander as blind men in the streets. They are polluted with blood, So that men can’t touch their garments.

“Go away!” they cried to them. “Unclean! Go away! Go away! Don’t touch! When they fled away and wandered, men said amongst the nations, “They can’t live here any more.”

The LORD’s anger has scattered them. He will not pay attention to them any more. They didn’t respect the persons of the priests. They didn’t favour the elders.

Our eyes still fail, looking in vain for our help. In our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save.

They hunt our steps, so that we can’t go in our streets. Our end is near. Our days are fulfilled, for our end has come.

Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky. They chased us on the mountains. They set an ambush for us in the wilderness.

The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits; of whom we said, under his shadow we will live amongst the nations.

Rejoice and be glad, daughter of Edom, who dwells in the land of Uz. The cup will pass through to you also. You will be drunken, and will make yourself naked.

Remember, LORD, what has come on us. Look, and see our reproach.

Our inheritance has been turned over to strangers, our houses to aliens.

We must pay for water to drink. Our wood is sold to us.

Our pursuers are on our necks. We are weary, and have no rest.

We have given our hands to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

Our fathers sinned, and are no more. We have borne their iniquities.

Servants rule over us. There is no one to deliver us out of their hand.

We get our bread at the peril of our lives, because of the sword in the wilderness.

Our skin is black like an oven, because of the burning heat of famine.

They ravished the women in Zion, the virgins in the cities of Judah.

Princes were hanged up by their hands. The faces of elders were not honoured.

The young men carry millstones. The children stumbled under loads of wood.

The elders have ceased from the gate, and the young men from their music.

The joy of our heart has ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning.

The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned!

For this our heart is faint. For these things our eyes are dim:

for the mountain of Zion, which is desolate. The foxes walk on it.

But you have utterly rejected us. You are very angry against us.

In the fifth of the month, which was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity,

He spread it before me. It was written within and without; and lamentations, mourning, and woe were written in it.

But you, son of man, behold, they will put ropes on you, and will bind you with them, and you will not go out amongst them.

Lay siege against it, build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it. Also set camps against it and plant battering rams against it all around.

“Moreover lie on your left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel on it. According to the number of the days that you shall lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity.

For I have appointed the years of their iniquity to be to you a number of days, even three hundred and ninety days. So you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

“Again, when you have accomplished these, you shall lie on your right side, and shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah. I have appointed forty days, each day for a year, to you.

Behold, I put ropes on you, and you shall not turn yourself from one side to the other, until you have accomplished the days of your siege.

You shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin. From time to time you shall drink.

You shall eat it as barley cakes, and you shall bake it in their sight with dung that comes out of man.”

The LORD said, “Even thus will the children of Israel eat their bread unclean, amongst the nations where I will drive them.”

Moreover he said to me, “Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They will eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness. They will drink water by measure, and in dismay;

that they may lack bread and water, be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.

A third part you shall burn in the fire in the middle of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled. You shall take a third part, and strike with the sword around it. A third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them.

Of these again you shall take, and cast them into the middle of the fire, and burn them in the fire. From it a fire will come out into all the house of Israel.

I will do in you that which I have not done, and which I will not do anything like it any more, because of all your abominations.

Therefore the fathers will eat the sons within you, and the sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgements on you; and I will scatter the whole remnant of you to all the winds.

A third part of you will die with the pestilence, and they will be consumed with famine within you. A third part will fall by the sword around you. A third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them.

“‘Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach amongst the nations that are around you, in the sight of all that pass by.

So it will be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment, to the nations that are around you, when I execute judgements on you in anger and in wrath, and in wrathful rebukes—I, the LORD, have spoken it—

when I send on them the evil arrows of famine that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you. I will increase the famine on you and will break your staff of bread.

I will send on you famine and evil animals, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood will pass through you. I will bring the sword on you. I, the LORD, have spoken it.’”

and say, ‘You mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD! The Lord GOD says to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys: “Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword on you, and I will destroy your high places.

Your altars will become desolate, and your incense altars will be broken. I will cast down your slain men before your idols.

In all your dwelling places, the cities will be laid waste and the high places will be desolate, so that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your incense altars may be cut down, and your works may be abolished.

The slain will fall amongst you, and you will know that I am the LORD.

“The Lord GOD says: ‘Strike with your hand, and stamp with your foot, and say, “Alas!”, because of all the evil abominations of the house of Israel; for they will fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.

He who is far off will die of the pestilence. He who is near will fall by the sword. He who remains and is besieged will die by the famine. Thus I will accomplish my wrath on them.

“The Lord GOD says: ‘A disaster! A unique disaster! Behold, it comes.

Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness. None of them will remain, nor of their multitude, nor of their wealth. There will be nothing of value amongst them.

For the seller won’t return to that which is sold, although they are still alive; for the vision concerns the whole multitude of it. None will return. None will strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life.

They have blown the trumpet, and have made all ready; but no one goes to the battle, for my wrath is on all its multitude.

“‘The sword is outside, and the pestilence and the famine within. He who is in the field will die by the sword. He who is in the city will be devoured by famine and pestilence.

All hands will be feeble, and all knees will be weak as water.

They will cast their silver in the streets, and their gold will be as an unclean thing. Their silver and their gold won’t be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’s wrath. They won’t satisfy their souls or fill their bellies; because it has been the stumbling block of their iniquity.

I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a plunder; and they will profane it.

I will also turn my face from them, and they will profane my secret place. Robbers will enter into it, and profane it.

“‘Make chains, for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.

Therefore I will bring the worst of the nations, and they will possess their houses. I will also make the pride of the strong to cease. Their holy places will be profaned.

Destruction comes! They will seek peace, and there will be none.

Mischief will come on mischief, and rumour will be on rumour. They will seek a vision of the prophet; but the law will perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders.

The king will mourn, and the prince will be clothed with desolation. The hands of the people of the land will be troubled. I will do to them after their way, and according to their own judgements I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’”

“Son of man, your brothers, even your brothers, the men of your relatives, and all the house of Israel, all of them, are the ones to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, ‘Go far away from the LORD. This land has been given to us for a possession.’

“Say, ‘I am your sign. As I have done, so will it be done to them. They will go into exile, into captivity.

“‘The prince who is amongst them will bear his baggage on his shoulder in the dark, and will go out. They will dig through the wall to carry things out that way. He will cover his face, because he will not see the land with his eyes.

The cities that are inhabited will be laid waste, and the land will be a desolation. Then you will know that I am the LORD.”’”

“Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out my wrath on it in blood, to cut off from it man and animal—

For the Lord GOD says: “How much more when I send my four severe judgements on Jerusalem—the sword, the famine, the evil animals, and the pestilence—to cut off from it man and animal!

Therefore the Lord GOD says: “As the vine wood amongst the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

I will set my face against them. They will go out from the fire, but the fire will still devour them. Then you will know that I am the LORD, when I set my face against them.

I will make the land desolate, because they have acted unfaithfully,” says the Lord GOD.

As for your birth, in the day you were born your navel was not cut. You weren’t washed in water to cleanse you. You weren’t salted at all, nor wrapped in blankets at all.

No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you, to have compassion on you; but you were cast out in the open field, because you were abhorred in the day that you were born.

“‘“Moreover you have taken your sons and your daughters, whom you have borne to me, and you have sacrificed these to them to be devoured. Was your prostitution a small matter,

that you have slain my children and delivered them up, in causing them to pass through the fire to them?

In all your abominations and your prostitution you have not remembered the days of your youth, when you were naked and bare, and were wallowing in your blood.

“‘“It has happened after all your wickedness—woe, woe to you!” says the Lord GOD—

You have played the prostitute also with the Assyrians, because you were insatiable; yes, you have played the prostitute with them, and yet you weren’t satisfied.

You have moreover multiplied your prostitution to the land of merchants, to Chaldea; and yet you weren’t satisfied with this.

in that you build your vaulted place at the head of every way, and make your lofty place in every street, and have not been as a prostitute, in that you scorn pay.

You are different from other women in your prostitution, in that no one follows you to play the prostitute; and whereas you give hire, and no hire is given to you, therefore you are different.”’

‘The Lord GOD says, “Because your filthiness was poured out, and your nakedness uncovered through your prostitution with your lovers; and because of all the idols of your abominations, and for the blood of your children, that you gave to them;

therefore see, I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have taken pleasure, and all those whom you have loved, with all those whom you have hated. I will even gather them against you on every side, and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness.

I will also give you into their hand, and they will throw down your vaulted place, and break down your lofty places. They will strip you of your clothes and take your beautiful jewels. They will leave you naked and bare.

They will also bring up a company against you, and they will stone you with stones, and thrust you through with their swords.

They will burn your houses with fire, and execute judgements on you in the sight of many women. I will cause you to cease from playing the prostitute, and you will also give no hire any more.

“Say, ‘The Lord GOD says: “Will it prosper? Won’t he pull up its roots and cut off its fruit, that it may wither, that all its fresh springing leaves may wither? It can’t be raised from its roots by a strong arm or many people.

Yes, behold, being planted, will it prosper? Won’t it utterly wither when the east wind touches it? It will wither in the ground where it grew.”’”

“Moreover, take up a lamentation for the princes of Israel,

The nations also heard of him. He was taken in their pit; and they brought him with hooks to the land of Egypt.

He knew their palaces, and laid waste their cities. The land was desolate with its fullness, because of the noise of his roaring.

Then the nations attacked him on every side from the provinces. They spread their net over him. He was taken in their pit.

They put him in a cage with hooks, and brought him to the king of Babylon. They brought him into strongholds, so that his voice should no more be heard on the mountains of Israel.

But it was plucked up in fury. It was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up its fruit. Its strong branches were broken off and withered. The fire consumed them.

Now it is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty land.

Fire has gone out of its branches. It has devoured its fruit, so that there is in it no strong branch to be a sceptre to rule.’ This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.”

I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused all that opens the womb to pass through the fire, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the LORD.”’

“Therefore sigh, you son of man. You shall sigh before their eyes with a broken heart and with bitterness.

It shall be, when they ask you, ‘Why do you sigh?’ that you shall say, ‘Because of the news, for it comes! Every heart will melt, all hands will be feeble, every spirit will faint, and all knees will be weak as water. Behold, it comes, and it shall be done, says the Lord GOD.’”

Cry and wail, son of man; for it is on my people. It is on all the princes of Israel. They are delivered over to the sword with my people. Therefore beat your thigh.

“You therefore, son of man, prophesy, and strike your hands together. Let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the fatally wounded. It is the sword of the great one who is fatally wounded, which enters into their rooms.

I have set the threatening sword against all their gates, that their heart may melt, and their stumblings be multiplied. Ah! It is made as lightning. It is pointed for slaughter.

You have become guilty in your blood that you have shed, and are defiled in your idols which you have made! You have caused your days to draw near, and have come to the end of your years. Therefore I have made you a reproach to the nations, and a mocking to all the countries.

Those who are near and those who are far from you will mock you, you infamous one, full of tumult.

“‘“Behold, the princes of Israel, everyone according to his power, have been in you to shed blood.

There is a conspiracy of her prophets within it, like a roaring lion ravening the prey. They have devoured souls. They take treasure and precious things. They have made many widows within it.

Her princes within it are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain.

The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery. Yes, they have troubled the poor and needy, and have oppressed the foreigner wrongfully.

These uncovered her nakedness. They took her sons and her daughters, and they killed her with the sword. She became a byword amongst women; for they executed judgements on her.

They will come against you with weapons, chariots, and wagons, and with a company of peoples. They will set themselves against you with buckler, shield, and helmet all around. I will commit the judgement to them, and they will judge you according to their judgements.

I will set my jealousy against you, and they will deal with you in fury. They will take away your nose and your ears. Your remnant will fall by the sword. They will take your sons and your daughters; and the rest of you will be devoured by the fire.

They will also strip you of your clothes and take away your beautiful jewels.

“For the Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, I will deliver you into the hand of them whom you hate, into the hand of them from whom your soul is alienated.

They will deal with you in hatred, and will take away all your labour, and will leave you naked and bare. The nakedness of your prostitution will be uncovered, both your lewdness and your prostitution.

“The Lord GOD says: ‘You will drink of your sister’s cup, which is deep and large. You will be ridiculed and held in derision. It contains much.

You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of your sister Samaria.

You will even drink it and drain it out. You will gnaw the broken pieces of it, and will tear your breasts; for I have spoken it,’ says the Lord GOD.

“For the Lord GOD says: ‘I will bring up a mob against them, and will give them to be tossed back and forth and robbed.

The company will stone them with stones and dispatch them with their swords. They will kill their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.

She is weary with toil; yet her great rust, rust by fire, doesn’t leave her.

“Son of man, behold, I will take away from you the desire of your eyes with one stroke; yet you shall neither mourn nor weep, neither shall your tears run down.

So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. So I did in the morning as I was commanded.

‘Speak to the house of Israel, “The Lord GOD says: ‘Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pities; and your sons and your daughters whom you have left behind will fall by the sword.

Your turbans will be on your heads, and your sandals on your feet. You won’t mourn or weep; but you will pine away in your iniquities, and moan one towards another.

“You, son of man, shouldn’t it be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their heart—their sons and their daughters—

Tell the children of Ammon, ‘Hear the word of the Lord GOD! The Lord GOD says, “Because you said, ‘Aha!’ against my sanctuary when it was profaned, and against the land of Israel when it was made desolate, and against the house of Judah when they went into captivity,

therefore, behold, I will deliver you to the children of the east for a possession. They will set their encampments in you and make their dwellings in you. They will eat your fruit and they will drink your milk.

By reason of the abundance of his horses, their dust will cover you. Your walls will shake at the noise of the horsemen, of the wagons, and of the chariots, when he enters into your gates, as men enter into a city which is broken open.

He will tread down all your streets with the hoofs of his horses. He will kill your people with the sword. The pillars of your strength will go down to the ground.

They will make a plunder of your riches and make a prey of your merchandise. They will break down your walls and destroy your pleasant houses. They will lay your stones, your timber, and your dust in the middle of the waters.

I will cause the noise of your songs to cease. The sound of your harps won’t be heard any more.

I will make you a bare rock. You will be a place for the spreading of nets. You will be built no more; for I the LORD have spoken it,’ says the Lord GOD.

“The Lord GOD says to Tyre: ‘Won’t the islands shake at the sound of your fall, when the wounded groan, when the slaughter is made within you?

Then all the princes of the sea will come down from their thrones, and lay aside their robes, and strip off their embroidered garments. They will clothe themselves with trembling. They will sit on the ground, and will tremble every moment, and be astonished at you.

They will take up a lamentation over you, and tell you, “How you are destroyed, who were inhabited by seafaring men, the renowned city, who was strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, who caused their terror to be on all who lived there!”

Now the islands will tremble in the day of your fall. Yes, the islands that are in the sea will be dismayed at your departure.’

“For the Lord GOD says: ‘When I make you a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited, when I bring up the deep on you, and the great waters cover you,

then I will bring you down with those who descend into the pit, to the people of old time, and will make you dwell in the lower parts of the earth, in the places that are desolate of old, with those who go down to the pit, that you be not inhabited; and I will set glory in the land of the living.

Your rowers have brought you into great waters. The east wind has broken you in the heart of the seas.

Your riches, your wares, your merchandise, your mariners, your pilots, your repairers of ship seams, the dealers in your merchandise, and all your men of war who are in you, with all your company which is amongst you, will fall into the heart of the seas in the day of your ruin.

All who handle the oars, the mariners and all the pilots of the sea, will come down from their ships. They will stand on the land,

and will cause their voice to be heard over you, and will cry bitterly. They will cast up dust on their heads. They will wallow in the ashes.

They will make themselves bald for you, and clothe themselves with sackcloth. They will weep for you in bitterness of soul, with bitter mourning.

In their wailing they will take up a lamentation for you, and lament over you, saying, ‘Who is there like Tyre, like her who is brought to silence in the middle of the sea?’

In the time that you were broken by the seas, in the depths of the waters, your merchandise and all your company fell within you.

All the inhabitants of the islands are astonished at you, and their kings are horribly afraid. They are troubled in their face.

The merchants amongst the peoples hiss at you. You have come to a terrible end, and you will be no more.”’”

They will bring you down to the pit. You will die the death of those who are slain in the heart of the seas.

For I will send pestilence into her, and blood into her streets. The wounded will fall within her, with the sword on her on every side. Then they will know that I am the LORD.

I’ll cast you out into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your rivers. You’ll fall on the open field. You won’t be brought together or gathered. I have given you for food to the animals of the earth and to the birds of the sky.

When they took hold of you by your hand, you broke and tore all their shoulders. When they leaned on you, you broke and paralysed all of their thighs.”

“‘Therefore the Lord GOD says: “Behold, I will bring a sword on you, and will cut off man and animal from you.

therefore, behold, I am against you and against your rivers. I will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from the tower of Seveneh even to the border of Ethiopia.

No foot of man will pass through it, nor will any animal foot pass through it. It won’t be inhabited for forty years.

I will make the land of Egypt a desolation in the middle of the countries that are desolate. Her cities amongst the cities that are laid waste will be a desolation forty years. I will scatter the Egyptians amongst the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.”

“Son of man, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyre. Every head was made bald, and every shoulder was worn; yet he had no wages, nor did his army, from Tyre, for the service that he had served against it.

A sword will come on Egypt, and anguish will be in Ethiopia, when the slain fall in Egypt. They take away her multitude, and her foundations are broken down.

“‘“Ethiopia, Put, Lud, all the mixed people, Cub, and the children of the land that is allied with them, will fall with them by the sword.”

“They will be desolate in the middle of the countries that are desolate. Her cities will be amongst the cities that are wasted.

“‘“In that day messengers will go out from before me in ships to make the careless Ethiopians afraid. There will be anguish on them, as in the day of Egypt; for, behold, it comes.”

He and his people with him, the terrible of the nations, will be brought in to destroy the land. They will draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the land with the slain.

I will make the rivers dry, and will sell the land into the hand of evil men. I will make the land desolate, and all that is therein, by the hand of foreigners. I, the LORD, have spoken it.”

I will set a fire in Egypt Sin will be in great anguish. No will be broken up. Memphis will have adversaries in the daytime.

The young men of Aven and of Pibeseth will fall by the sword. They will go into captivity.

At Tehaphnehes also the day will withdraw itself, when I break the yokes of Egypt there. The pride of her power will cease in her. As for her, a cloud will cover her, and her daughters will go into captivity.

“Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Behold, it has not been bound up, to apply medicines, to put a bandage to bind it, that it may become strong to hold the sword.

I will scatter the Egyptians amongst the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.

I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and put my sword in his hand; but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he will groan before the king of Babylon with the groaning of a mortally wounded man.

Foreigners, the tyrants of the nations, have cut him off and have left him. His branches have fallen on the mountains and in all the valleys, and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the land. All the peoples of the earth have gone down from his shadow and have left him.

All the birds of the sky will dwell on his ruin, and all the animals of the field will be on his branches,

They also went down into Sheol with him to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were his arm, who lived under his shadow in the middle of the nations.

I will cause your multitude to fall by the swords of the mighty. They are all the ruthless of the nations. They will bring the pride of Egypt to nothing, and all its multitude will be destroyed.

“When I make the land of Egypt desolate and waste, a land destitute of that of which it was full, when I strike all those who dwell therein, then they will know that I am the LORD.

“‘“This is the lamentation with which they will lament. The daughters of the nations will lament with this. They will lament with it over Egypt, and over all her multitude,” says the Lord GOD.’”

“Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her and the daughters of the famous nations, to the lower parts of the earth, with those who go down into the pit.

Whom do you pass in beauty? Go down, and be laid with the uncircumcised.

They will fall amongst those who are slain by the sword. She is delivered to the sword. Draw her away with all her multitudes.

The strong amongst the mighty will speak to him out of the middle of Sheol with those who help him. They have gone down. The uncircumcised lie still, slain by the sword.

“Asshur is there with all her company. Her graves are all around her. All of them are slain, fallen by the sword,

whose graves are set in the uttermost parts of the pit, and her company is around her grave, all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who caused terror in the land of the living.

“There is Elam and all her multitude around her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, who have gone down uncircumcised into the lower parts of the earth, who caused their terror in the land of the living, and have borne their shame with those who go down to the pit.

They have made Elam a bed amongst the slain with all her multitude. Her graves are around her, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for their terror was caused in the land of the living, and they have borne their shame with those who go down to the pit. He is put amongst those who are slain.

“There is Meshech, Tubal, and all their multitude. Their graves are around them, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for they caused their terror in the land of the living.

They will not lie with the mighty who are fallen of the uncircumcised, who have gone down to Sheol with their weapons of war and have laid their swords under their heads. Their iniquities are on their bones; for they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.

“But you will be broken amongst the uncircumcised, and will lie with those who are slain by the sword.

“There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, who in their might are laid with those who are slain by the sword. They will lie with the uncircumcised, and with those who go down to the pit.

“There are the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Sidonians, who have gone down with the slain. They are put to shame in the terror which they caused by their might. They lie uncircumcised with those who are slain by the sword, and bear their shame with those who go down to the pit.

“You, son of man, tell the house of Israel: ‘You say this, “Our transgressions and our sins are on us, and we pine away in them. How then can we live?”’

In the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, one who had escaped out of Jerusalem came to me, saying, “The city has been defeated!”

“You shall tell them, ‘The Lord GOD says: “As I live, surely those who are in the waste places will fall by the sword. I will give whoever is in the open field to the animals to be devoured, and those who are in the strongholds and in the caves will die of the pestilence.

I will make the land a desolation and an astonishment. The pride of her power will cease. The mountains of Israel will be desolate, so that no one will pass through.

Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I have made the land a desolation and an astonishment because of all their abominations which they have committed.”’

They were scattered, because there was no shepherd. They became food to all the animals of the field, and were scattered.

As for my sheep, they eat that which you have trodden with your feet, and they drink that which you have fouled with your feet.’

Because you thrust with side and with shoulder, and push all the diseased with your horns, until you have scattered them abroad,

“‘“Because you have had a perpetual hostility, and have given over the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end,

I will fill its mountains with its slain. The slain with the sword will fall in your hills and in your valleys and in all your watercourses.

therefore prophesy, and say, ‘The Lord GOD says: “Because, even because they have made you desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that you might be a possession to the residue of the nations, and you are taken up in the lips of talkers, and the evil report of the people;”

therefore, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD: The Lord GOD says to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the cities that are forsaken, which have become a prey and derision to the residue of the nations that are all around;

Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and tell the mountains, the hills, the watercourses and the valleys, ‘The Lord GOD says: “Behold, I have spoken in my jealousy and in my wrath, because you have borne the shame of the nations.”

“‘The Lord GOD says: “Because they say to you, ‘You are a devourer of men, and have been a bereaver of your nation;’

I scattered them amongst the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries. I judged them according to their way and according to their deeds.

I will enter into judgement with him with pestilence and with blood. I will rain on him, on his hordes, and on the many peoples who are with him, torrential rains with great hailstones, fire, and sulphur.

The nations will know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they trespassed against me, and I hid my face from them; so I gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword.

I did to them according to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions. I hid my face from them.

He commanded certain mighty men who were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace.

Then these men were bound in their pants, their tunics, and their mantles, and their other clothes, and were cast into the middle of the burning fiery furnace.

Therefore because the king’s commandment was urgent and the furnace exceedingly hot, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

These three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the middle of the burning fiery furnace.

You will be driven from men and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field. You will be made to eat grass as oxen, and will be wet with the dew of the sky, and seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he will.

You shall be driven from men, and your dwelling shall be with the animals of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like oxen. Seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he will.’”

This was fulfilled the same hour on Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from men and ate grass like oxen; and his body was wet with the dew of the sky until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.

Then the king’s face was changed in him, and his thoughts troubled him; and the joints of his thighs were loosened, and his knees struck one against another.

Then King Belshazzar was greatly troubled, and his face was changed in him, and his lords were perplexed.

He was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the animals’, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys. He was fed with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of the sky, until he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and that he sets up over it whomever he will.

Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting. No musical instruments were brought before him; and his sleep fled from him.

The king commanded, and they brought those men who had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions—them, their children, and their wives; and the lions mauled them, and broke all their bones in pieces before they came to the bottom of the den.

I saw, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them,

He will speak words against the Most High, and will wear out the saints of the Most High. He will plan to change the times and the law; and they will be given into his hand until a time and times and half a time.

Out of one of them came out a little horn which grew exceedingly great—towards the south, and towards the east, and towards the glorious land.

It grew great, even to the army of the sky; and it cast down some of the army and of the stars to the ground and trampled on them.

His power will be mighty, but not by his own power. He will destroy awesomely, and will prosper in what he does. He will destroy the mighty ones and the holy people.

Through his policy he will cause deceit to prosper in his hand. He will magnify himself in his heart, and he will destroy many in their security. He will also stand up against the prince of princes, but he will be broken without human hands.

He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing on us a great evil; for under the whole sky, such has not been done as has been done to Jerusalem.

Therefore the LORD has watched over the evil, and brought it on us; for the LORD our God is righteous in all his works which he does, and we have not obeyed his voice.

After the sixty-two weeks the Anointed One will be cut off, and will have nothing. The people of the prince who come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end will be with a flood, and war will be even to the end. Desolations are determined.

“In those times many will stand up against the king of the south. Also the children of the violent amongst your people will lift themselves up to establish the vision, but they will fall.

But he who comes against him will do according to his own will, and no one will stand before him. He will stand in the glorious land, and destruction will be in his hand.

Then he will turn his face towards the fortresses of his own land; but he will stumble and fall, and won’t be found.

“Then one who will cause a tax collector to pass through the kingdom to maintain its glory will stand up in his place; but within few days he shall be destroyed, not in anger, and not in battle.

The overwhelming forces will be overwhelmed from before him, and will be broken. Yes, also the prince of the covenant.

Yes, those who eat of his delicacies will destroy him, and his army will be swept away. Many will fall down slain.

“Those who are wise amongst the people will instruct many; yet they will fall by the sword and by flame, by captivity and by plunder, many days.

Now when they fall, they will be helped with a little help; but many will join themselves to them with flatteries.

Some of those who are wise will fall—to refine them, and to purify, and to make them white, even to the time of the end, because it is yet for the time appointed.

“At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of your people; and there will be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time. At that time your people will be delivered, everyone who is found written in the book.

I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the river, when he held up his right hand and his left hand to heaven, and swore by him who lives forever that it will be for a time, times, and a half; and when they have finished breaking in pieces the power of the holy people, all these things will be finished.

lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.

Therefore the land will mourn, and everyone who dwells in it will waste away, with all living things in her, even the animals of the field and the birds of the sky; yes, the fish of the sea also die.

You will stumble in the day, and the prophet will also stumble with you in the night; and I will destroy your mother.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.

Ephraim will become a desolation in the day of rebuke. Amongst the tribes of Israel, I have made known that which will surely be.

Ephraim is oppressed, he is crushed in judgement, because he is intent in his pursuit of idols.

Therefore I am to Ephraim like a moth, and to the house of Judah like rottenness.

“When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria, and sent to King Jareb: but he is not able to heal you, neither will he cure you of your wound.

When they go, I will spread my net on them. I will bring them down like the birds of the sky. I will chastise them, as their congregation has heard.

Woe to them! For they have wandered from me. Destruction to them! For they have trespassed against me. Though I would redeem them, yet they have spoken lies against me.

They return, but not to the Most High. They are like a faulty bow. Their princes will fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue. This will be their derision in the land of Egypt.

Israel has cast off that which is good. The enemy will pursue him.

For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.

Israel is swallowed up. Now they are amongst the nations like a worthless thing.

For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey wandering alone. Ephraim has hired lovers for himself.

But although they sold themselves amongst the nations, I will now gather them; and they begin to waste away because of the oppression of the king of mighty ones.

The threshing floor and the wine press won’t feed them, and the new wine will fail her.

They won’t dwell in the LORD’s land; but Ephraim will return to Egypt, and they will eat unclean food in Assyria.

Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them!

I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place; but Ephraim will bring out his children to the murderer.

Give them—LORD what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.

Ephraim is struck. Their root has dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they give birth, yet I will kill the beloved ones of their womb.”

My God will cast them away, because they didn’t listen to him; and they will be wanderers amongst the nations.

It also will be carried to Assyria for a present to a great king. Ephraim will receive shame, and Israel will be ashamed of his own counsel.

Samaria and her king float away like a twig on the water.

You have ploughed wickedness. You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, for you trusted in your way, in the multitude of your mighty men.

Therefore a battle roar will arise amongst your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth Arbel in the day of battle. The mother was dashed in pieces with her children.

So Bethel will do to you because of your great wickedness. At daybreak the king of Israel will be destroyed.

“They won’t return into the land of Egypt; but the Assyrian will be their king, because they refused to repent.

The sword will fall on their cities, and will destroy the bars of their gates, and will put an end to their plans.

I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.

I will meet them like a bear that is bereaved of her cubs, and will tear the covering of their heart. There I will devour them like a lioness. The wild animal will tear them.

The sorrows of a travailing woman will come on him. He is an unwise son, for when it is time, he doesn’t come to the opening of the womb.

Though he is fruitful amongst his brothers, an east wind will come, the breath of the LORD coming up from the wilderness; and his spring will become dry, and his fountain will be dried up. He will plunder the storehouse of treasure.

Samaria will bear her guilt, for she has rebelled against her God. They will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open.”

What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten. What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten. What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten.

Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.

For a nation has come up on my land, strong, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness.

He has laid my vine waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white.

Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the husband of her youth!

Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished.

The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered— the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the sons of men.

The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.

How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

LORD, I cry to you, for the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burnt all the trees of the field.

Yes, the animals of the field pant to you, for the water brooks have dried up, and the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

A fire devours before them, and behind them, a flame burns. The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them, a desolate wilderness. Yes, and no one has escaped them.

At their presence the peoples are in anguish. All faces have grown pale.

They rush on the city. They run on the wall. They climb up into the houses. They enter in at the windows like thieves.

and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.

and have sold the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks, that you may remove them far from their border.

The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Gaza, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they carried away captive the whole community, to deliver them up to Edom;

but I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it will devour its palaces.

I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him who holds the sceptre from Ashkelon; and I will turn my hand against Ekron; and the remnant of the Philistines will perish,” says the Lord GOD.

The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Tyre, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they delivered up the whole community to Edom, and didn’t remember the brotherly covenant;

but I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, and it will devour its palaces.”

The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger raged continually, and he kept his wrath forever;

but I will send a fire on Teman, and it will devour the palaces of Bozrah.”

The LORD says: “For three transgressions of the children of Ammon, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have ripped open the pregnant women of Gilead, that they may enlarge their border.

But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it will devour its palaces, with shouting in the day of battle, with a storm in the day of the whirlwind;

and their king will go into captivity, he and his princes together,” says the LORD.

Behold, I will crush you in your place, as a cart crushes that is full of grain.

“I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in every town; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says the LORD.

“I also have withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest; and I caused it to rain on one city, and caused it not to rain on another city. One field was rained on, and the field where it didn’t rain withered.

So two or three cities staggered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says the LORD.

“I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards, and the swarming locusts have devoured your fig trees and your olive trees; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says the LORD.

“I sent plagues amongst you like I did Egypt. I have slain your young men with the sword, and have carried away your horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you haven’t returned to me,” says the LORD.

“I have overthrown some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick plucked out of the fire; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says the LORD.

Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel:

“The virgin of Israel has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up.”

For the Lord GOD says: “The city that went out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went out one hundred shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”

Therefore the LORD, the God of Armies, the Lord, says: “Wailing will be in all the wide ways. They will say in all the streets, ‘Alas! Alas!’ They will call the farmer to mourning, and those who are skilful in lamentation to wailing.

In all vineyards there will be wailing, for I will pass through the middle of you,” says the LORD.

“Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light.

As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or he went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a snake bit him.

Won’t the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?

Therefore I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Armies.

For, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, house of Israel,” says the LORD, the God of Armies; “and they will afflict you from the entrance of Hamath to the brook of the Arabah.”

The high places of Isaac will be desolate, the sanctuaries of Israel will be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.”

For Amos says, ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.’”

Therefore the LORD says: ‘Your wife shall be a prostitute in the city, and your sons and your daughters shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line; and you yourself shall die in a land that is unclean, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of his land.’”

The songs of the temple will be wailing in that day,” says the Lord GOD. “The dead bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.

Won’t the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it? Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River; and it will be stirred up and sink again, like the River of Egypt.

It will happen in that day,” says the Lord GOD, “that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.

I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day.

Behold, the days come,” says the Lord GOD, “that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the LORD’s words.

They will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will run back and forth to seek the LORD’s word, and will not find it.

In that day the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint for thirst.

Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god, Dan, lives,’ and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives,’ they will fall, and never rise up again.”

I saw the Lord standing beside the altar, and he said, “Strike the tops of the pillars, that the thresholds may shake. Break them in pieces on the head of all of them. I will kill the last of them with the sword. Not one of them will flee away. Not one of them will escape.

Though they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will command the sword, and it will kill them. I will set my eyes on them for evil, and not for good.

All the sinners of my people will die by the sword, who say, ‘Evil won’t overtake nor meet us.’

For the violence done to your brother Jacob, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off forever.

In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance and foreigners entered into his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, even you were like one of them.

But don’t look down on your brother in the day of his disaster, and don’t rejoice over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Don’t speak proudly in the day of distress.

Don’t enter into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Don’t look down on their affliction in the day of their calamity, neither seize their wealth on the day of their calamity.

Don’t stand in the crossroads to cut off those of his who escape. Don’t deliver up those of his who remain in the day of distress.

For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. Yes, they will drink, swallow down, and will be as though they had not been.

He said to them, “Take me up, and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will be calm for you; for I know that because of me this great storm is on you.”

He said, “I called because of my affliction to the LORD. He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried. You heard my voice.

For you threw me into the depths, in the heart of the seas. The flood was all around me. All your waves and your billows passed over me.

The waters surrounded me, even to the soul. The deep was around me. The weeds were wrapped around my head.

But God prepared a worm at dawn the next day, and it chewed on the vine so that it withered.

When the sun arose, God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he was faint and requested for himself that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

For her wounds are incurable; for it has come even to Judah. It reaches to the gate of my people, even to Jerusalem.

Pass on, inhabitant of Shaphir, in nakedness and shame. The inhabitant of Zaanan won’t come out. The wailing of Beth Ezel will take from you his protection.

For the inhabitant of Maroth waits anxiously for good, because evil has come down from the LORD to the gate of Jerusalem.

Harness the chariot to the swift steed, inhabitant of Lachish. She was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion; for the transgressions of Israel were found in you.

Therefore you will give a parting gift to Moresheth Gath. The houses of Achzib will be a deceitful thing to the kings of Israel.

I will yet bring a conqueror to you, inhabitants of Mareshah. The glory of Israel will come to Adullam.

Shave your heads, and cut off your hair for the children of your delight. Enlarge your baldness like the vulture, for they have gone into captivity from you!

Therefore the LORD says: “Behold, I am planning against these people a disaster, from which you will not remove your necks, neither will you walk haughtily, for it is an evil time.

In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, ‘We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors!’”

But lately my people have risen up as an enemy. You strip the robe and clothing from those who pass by without a care, returning from battle.

You drive the women of my people out from their pleasant houses; from their young children you take away my blessing forever.

Arise, and depart! For this is not your resting place, because of uncleanness that destroys, even with a grievous destruction.

You who hate the good, and love the evil; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones;

who also eat the flesh of my people, and peel their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as meat within the cauldron.

Then they will cry to the LORD, but he will not answer them. Yes, he will hide his face from them at that time, because they made their deeds evil.”

who build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

Therefore Zion for your sake will be ploughed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.

Now why do you cry out aloud? Is there no king in you? Has your counsellor perished, that pains have taken hold of you as of a woman in travail?

Be in pain, and labour to give birth, daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now you will go out of the city, and will dwell in the field, and will come even to Babylon. There you will be rescued. There the LORD will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.

Now you shall gather yourself in troops, daughter of troops. He has laid siege against us. They will strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek.

Therefore I also have struck you with a grievous wound. I have made you desolate because of your sins.

You shall eat, but not be satisfied. Your hunger will be within you. You will store up, but not save, and that which you save I will give up to the sword.

You will sow, but won’t reap. You will tread the olives, but won’t anoint yourself with oil; and crush grapes, but won’t drink the wine.

For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of Ahab’s house. You walk in their counsels, that I may make you a ruin, and your inhabitants a hissing. You will bear the reproach of my people.”

Misery is mine! Indeed, I am like one who gathers the summer fruits, as gleanings of the vineyard. There is no cluster of grapes to eat. My soul desires to eat the early fig.

Yet the land will be desolate because of those who dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings.

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

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.

It is decreed: she is uncovered, she is carried away; and her servants moan as with the voice of doves, beating on their breasts.

She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale.

Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of lies and robbery—no end to the prey.

The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of wheels, prancing horses, and bounding chariots,

the horseman charging, and the flashing sword, the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. They stumble on their bodies

I will throw abominable filth on you and make you vile, and will make you a spectacle.

It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, ‘Nineveh is laid waste! Who will mourn for her?’ Where will I seek comforters for you?”

Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young children also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.

You also will be drunken. You will be hidden. You also will seek a stronghold because of the enemy.

There the fire will devour you. The sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the grasshopper. Multiply like grasshoppers. Multiply like the locust.

Your shepherds slumber, king of Assyria. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them.

There is no healing your wound, for your injury is fatal. All who hear the report of you clap their hands over you, for who hasn’t felt your endless cruelty?

Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up.

Therefore the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails; for the wicked surround the righteous; therefore justice comes out perverted.

For, behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation who march through the width of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs.

All of them come for violence. Their hordes face forward. They gather prisoners like sand.

He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad.

I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction. The dwellings of the land of Midian trembled.

For even though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit be in the vines, the labour of the olive fails, the fields yield no food, the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls,

Their wealth will become a plunder, and their houses a desolation. Yes, they will build houses, but won’t inhabit them. They will plant vineyards, but won’t drink their wine.

The great day of the LORD is near. It is near and hurries greatly, the voice of the day of the LORD. The mighty man cries there bitterly.

That day is a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness,

a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fortified cities and against the high battlements.

I will bring such distress on men that they will walk like blind men because they have sinned against the LORD. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung.

Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’s wrath, but the whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he will make an end, yes, a terrible end, of all those who dwell in the land.

before the appointed time when the day passes as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the LORD comes on you, before the day of the LORD’s anger comes on you.

For Gaza will be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation. They will drive out Ashdod at noonday, and Ekron will be rooted up.

You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.’

I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on that which the ground produces, on men, on livestock, and on all the labour of the hands.”

Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty.

I struck you with blight, mildew, and hail in all the work of your hands; yet you didn’t turn to me,’ says the LORD.

Then the LORD’s angel replied, “O LORD of Armies, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you have had indignation these seventy years?”

Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the angel.

“but I will scatter them with a whirlwind amongst all the nations which they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through nor returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate.”

For before those days there was no wages for man nor any wages for an animal, neither was there any peace to him who went out or came in, because of the adversary. For I set all men everyone against his neighbour.

Ashkelon will see it, and fear; Gaza also, and will writhe in agony; as will Ekron, for her expectation will be disappointed; and the king will perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon will not be inhabited.

For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams. They comfort in vain. Therefore they go their way like sheep. They are oppressed, because there is no shepherd.

He will pass through the sea of affliction, and will strike the waves in the sea, and all the depths of the Nile will dry up; and the pride of Assyria will be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt will depart.

Wail, cypress tree, for the cedar has fallen, because the stately ones are destroyed. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the strong forest has come down.

A voice of the wailing of the shepherds! For their glory is destroyed—a voice of the roaring of young lions! For the pride of the Jordan is ruined.

Their buyers slaughter them and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the LORD, for I am rich;’ and their own shepherds don’t pity them.

For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land,” says the LORD; “but, behold, I will deliver every one of the men into his neighbour’s hand and into the hand of his king. They will strike the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them.”

So I fed the flock to be slaughtered, especially the oppressed of the flock. I took for myself two staffs. The one I called “Favour” and the other I called “Union”, and I fed the flock.

I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me.

Then I said, “I will not feed you. That which dies, let it die; and that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let those who are left eat each other’s flesh.”

I took my staff Favour and cut it apart, that I might break my covenant that I had made with all the peoples.

For, behold, I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not visit those who are cut off, neither will seek those who are scattered, nor heal that which is broken, nor feed that which is sound; but he will eat the meat of the fat sheep, and will tear their hoofs in pieces.

Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock! The sword will strike his arm and his right eye. His arm will be completely withered, and his right eye will be totally blinded!”

“Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of reeling to all the surrounding peoples, and it will also be on Judah in the siege against Jerusalem.

It will happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All who burden themselves with it will be severely wounded, and all the nations of the earth will be gathered together against it.

One will say to him, ‘What are these wounds between your arms?’ Then he will answer, ‘Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.’

“Awake, sword, against my shepherd, and against the man who is close to me,” says the LORD of Armies. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; and I will turn my hand against the little ones.

It shall happen that in all the land,” says the LORD, “two parts in it will be cut off and die; but the third will be left in it.

For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city will be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go out into captivity, and the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.

This will be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples who have fought against Jerusalem: their flesh will consume away while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will consume away in their sockets, and their tongue will consume away in their mouth.

A plague like this will fall on the horse, on the mule, on the camel, on the donkey, and on all the animals that will be in those camps.

“For behold, the day comes, burning like a furnace, when all the proud and all who work wickedness will be stubble. The day that comes will burn them up,” says the LORD of Armies, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, and sent out and killed all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding countryside, from two years old and under, according to the exact time which he had learnt from the wise men.

“A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; she wouldn’t be comforted, because they are no more.”

When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward.

The report about him went out into all Syria. They brought to him all who were sick, afflicted with various diseases and torments, possessed with demons, epileptics, and paralytics; and he healed them.

Most certainly I tell you, you shall by no means get out of there until you have paid the last penny.

If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna.

If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna.

The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell—and its fall was great.”

saying, “Lord, my servant lies in the house paralysed, grievously tormented.”

but the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever.

that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”

Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

When he came to the other side, into the country of the Gergesenes, two people possessed by demons met him there, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that nobody could pass that way.

Behold, they cried out, saying, “What do we have to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?”

The demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of pigs.”

Behold, a woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years came behind him, and touched the fringe of his garment;

As they went out, behold, a mute man who was demon possessed was brought to him.

But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you.

Yes, and you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the nations.

“Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.

You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved.

It is enough for the disciple that he be like his teacher, and the servant like his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more those of his household!

He who doesn’t take his cross and follow after me isn’t worthy of me.

Now when John heard in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples

and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, distressed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

Behold, a Canaanite woman came out from those borders and cried, saying, “Have mercy on me, Lord, you son of David! My daughter is severely possessed by a demon!”

From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

but I tell you that Elijah has come already, and they didn’t recognise him, but did to him whatever they wanted to. Even so the Son of Man will also suffer by them.”

“Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is epileptic and suffers grievously; for he often falls into the fire, and often into the water.

While they were staying in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered up into the hands of men,

and they will kill him, and the third day he will be raised up.” They were exceedingly sorry.

“Woe to the world because of occasions of stumbling! For it must be that the occasions come, but woe to that person through whom the occasion comes!

But because he couldn’t pay, his lord commanded him to be sold, with his wife, his children, and all that he had, and payment to be made.

He would not, but went and cast him into prison until he should pay back that which was due.

saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’

“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death,

and will hand him over to the Gentiles to mock, to scourge, and to crucify; and the third day he will be raised up.”

But Jesus answered, “You don’t know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?” They said to him, “We are able.”

He said to them, “You will indeed drink my cup, and be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with; but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give, but it is for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

The farmers took his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned another.

Again, he sent other servants more than the first; and they treated them the same way.

So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard, then killed him.

Then the king said to the servants, ‘Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and throw him into the outer darkness. That is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.’

For they bind heavy burdens that are grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not lift a finger to help them.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel around by sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna as yourselves.

Therefore, behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city,

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be famines, plagues, and earthquakes in various places.

But all these things are the beginning of birth pains.

“Then they will deliver you up to oppression and will kill you. You will be hated by all of the nations for my name’s sake.

Then many will stumble, and will deliver up one another, and will hate one another.

But woe to those who are with child and to nursing mothers in those days!

for then there will be great suffering, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, nor ever will be.

“But immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken;

and will cut him in pieces and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. That is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.

Throw out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

for I was hungry, and you didn’t give me food to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink;

I was a stranger, and you didn’t take me in; naked, and you didn’t clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’

“You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

As they were eating, he said, “Most certainly I tell you that one of you will betray me.”

He answered, “He who dipped his hand with me in the dish will betray me.

The Son of Man goes even as it is written of him, but woe to that man through whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for that man if he had not been born.”

Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of me tonight, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’

He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and severely troubled.

Then he said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with me.”

He went forward a little, fell on his face, and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me; nevertheless, not what I desire, but what you desire.”

Again, a second time he went away and prayed, saying, “My Father, if this cup can’t pass away from me unless I drink it, your desire be done.”

Then he came to his disciples and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.

While he was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came, and with him a great multitude with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and elders of the people.

Now he who betrayed him had given them a sign, saying, “Whoever I kiss, he is the one. Seize him.”

Immediately he came to Jesus, and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.

Jesus said to him, “Friend, why are you here?” Then they came and laid hands on Jesus, and took him.

But all this has happened that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples left him and fled.

Those who had taken Jesus led him away to Caiaphas the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were gathered together.

Now the chief priests, the elders, and the whole council sought false testimony against Jesus, that they might put him to death,

and they found none. Even though many false witnesses came forward, they found none. But at last two false witnesses came forward

and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days.’”

But Jesus stayed silent. The high priest answered him, “I adjure you by the living God that you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God.”

Then the high priest tore his clothing, saying, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Behold, now you have heard his blasphemy.

Then they spat in his face and beat him with their fists, and some slapped him,

saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who hit you?”

Now when morning had come, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.

They bound him, led him away, and delivered him up to Pontius Pilate, the governor.

Pilate said to them, “What then shall I do to Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said to him, “Let him be crucified!”

But the governor said, “Why? What evil has he done?” But they cried out exceedingly, saying, “Let him be crucified!”

All the people answered, “May his blood be on us and on our children!”

Then he released Barabbas to them, but Jesus he flogged and delivered to be crucified.

Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium, and gathered the whole garrison together against him.

They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him.

They braided a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and a reed in his right hand; and they knelt down before him and mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

They spat on him, and took the reed and struck him on the head.

When they had mocked him, they took the robe off him, and put his clothes on him, and led him away to crucify him.

As they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, and they compelled him to go with them, that he might carry his cross.

When they came to a place called “Golgotha”, that is to say, “The place of a skull,”

they gave him sour wine to drink mixed with gall. When he had tasted it, he would not drink.

When they had crucified him, they divided his clothing amongst them, casting lots,

and they sat and watched him there.

They set up over his head the accusation against him written, “THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS.”

Then there were two robbers crucified with him, one on his right hand and one on the left.

Those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads

and saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!”

Likewise the chief priests also mocking with the scribes, the Pharisees, and the elders, said,

The robbers also who were crucified with him cast on him the same reproach.

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.

About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani?” That is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with vinegar, put it on a reed, and gave him a drink.

Jesus cried again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit.

The angel answered the women, “Don’t be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus, who has been crucified.

The unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.

Now Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick with a fever, and immediately they told him about her.

At evening, when the sun had set, they brought to him all who were sick and those who were possessed by demons.

But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day.

Others fell amongst the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

A big wind storm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so much that the boat was already filled.

When he had come out of the boat, immediately a man with an unclean spirit met him out of the tombs.

He lived in the tombs. Nobody could bind him any more, not even with chains,

because he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him, and the fetters broken in pieces. Nobody had the strength to tame him.

Always, night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains, he was crying out, and cutting himself with stones.

He asked him, “What is your name?” He said to him, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”

A certain woman who had a discharge of blood for twelve years,

and had suffered many things by many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better, but rather grew worse,

He came to the synagogue ruler’s house, and he saw an uproar, weeping, and great wailing.

Immediately the king sent out a soldier of his guard and commanded to bring John’s head; and he went and beheaded him in the prison,

and ran around that whole region, and began to bring those who were sick on their mats to where they heard he was.

“I have compassion on the multitude, because they have stayed with me now three days and have nothing to eat.

He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

He called the multitude to himself with his disciples and said to them, “Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

He said to them, “Elijah indeed comes first, and restores all things. How is it written about the Son of Man, that he should suffer many things and be despised?

But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they have also done to him whatever they wanted to, even as it is written about him.”

One of the multitude answered, “Teacher, I brought to you my son, who has a mute spirit;

and wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; and he foams at the mouth, grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they weren’t able.”

They brought him to him, and when he saw him, immediately the spirit convulsed him and he fell on the ground, wallowing and foaming at the mouth.

He asked his father, “How long has it been since this has been happening to him?” He said, “From childhood.

Often it has cast him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

After crying out and convulsing him greatly, it came out of him. The boy became like one dead, so much that most of them said, “He is dead.”

for he was teaching his disciples, and said to them, “The Son of Man is being handed over to the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, on the third day he will rise again.”

If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having your two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire,

‘where their worm doesn’t die, and the fire is not quenched.’

If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life lame, rather than having your two feet to be cast into Gehenna, into the fire that will never be quenched—

‘where their worm doesn’t die, and the fire is not quenched.’

If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out. It is better for you to enter into God’s Kingdom with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the Gehenna of fire,

‘where their worm doesn’t die, and the fire is not quenched.’

For everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt.

“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn him to death, and will deliver him to the Gentiles.

They will mock him, spit on him, scourge him, and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”

But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and to be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with?”

They said to him, “We are able.” Jesus said to them, “You shall indeed drink the cup that I drink, and you shall be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised with;

They came to Jericho. As he went out from Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude, the son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the road.

They took him, beat him, and sent him away empty.

Again, he sent another servant to them; and they threw stones at him, wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully treated.

Again he sent another, and they killed him, and many others, beating some, and killing some.

They took him, killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.

For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places. There will be famines and troubles. These things are the beginning of birth pains.

“But watch yourselves, for they will deliver you up to councils. You will be beaten in synagogues. You will stand before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them.

“Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child. Children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.

You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake, but he who endures to the end will be saved.

But woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days!

For in those days there will be oppression, such as there has not been the like from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be.