Page images
PDF
EPUB

Nay, they were not ashamed,

Neither knew they how to blush :

Therefore shall they fall one after another,

In the time of their visitation shall they be cast down, saith JEHOVAH.

13 I will utterly consume them, saith JEHOVAH; There shall be no grapes on the vine,

14

Nor shall there be figs on the fig-tree;
Even the leaf is withered;

For I have appointed these to pass away from them.
Wherefore do we sit still?

Assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the
fortified cities;

And let us wait in silence there, since JEHOVAH our God hath silenced us,

And hath given us water of hemlock to drink. Because we have sinned against JEHOVAH, 15 We look for peace, and there is no good,

For a time of healing, and behold terror. 16 From Dan is heard the snorting of his horses, At the sound of the neighing of his steeds the whole land trembleth;

17

18

They are come also, and have eaten up the land, and all that is in it;

The city and those that dwelt in it.

Surely, behold, I am about to send against you serpents,

Basilisks, which cannot be charmed;

And they shall bite you, saith JEHOVAH.

Sorrow is upon me past my remedying,
My heart within me is faint.

19 Behold the voice of the daughter of my people

from a far country!

Is not JEHOVAH in Sion?
Is not her king in her?

(Why then have they provoked nie by their graven images,

And by their foreign vanities?)

20 The harvest is over, the summer is ended; Yet we are not delivered.

21 Upon account of the wound of the daughter of my people am I heart broken;

I mourn; astonishment hath taken hold on me. 22 Is there no balm in Gilead?

Is there no physician there?

Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people restored?

CHAP. IX.

1 Oh that my head were waters,

2

And mine eyes a fountain of tears,

That I might weep day and night

For the slain of the daughter of my people

Он that I had in the wilderness a traveller's
lodge,

That I might leave my people, and go from them!
Because they are all of them adulterers,

An assembly of perfidious dealers.

3 And they have bent their tongue like a bow; By falsehood, and not according to truth, they are become mighty in the land;

Surely from wickedness to wickedness have they proceeded;

And me have they not known, saith JEHOVAH. 4 Be upon your guard each man against his companion;

And place no confidence in any brother:

For every brother will surely supplant;

And every companion will go about to overreach.

5 And they will impose every one upon his com

panion;

And the truth will they not speak ;

They have habituated their tongue to speak falsehood;

They have wearied themselves in practising iniquity.

6 Thy habitation is in the midst of deceit ;

Through deceit have they refused to know me, saith JEHOVAH.

Therefore thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts,

Behold I will melt them and try them;

For how else can I act with respect to the daughter of my people?

8 Their tongue is the arrow of a murderer,

In whose mouth the word is treachery;

He will profess peace towards his companion,
But inwardly will he resolve to fall upon him by
surprise.

9 For these things shall I not visit? saith JEHOVAH; Shall not my soul avenge itself of such a nation

as this?

10 Upon the mountains will I bring up weeping and wailing,

11

And upon the pastures of the plain lamentation; Because they are burned up, so that no man passeth through,

And they hear not the voice of cattle;

Both the fowls of the heavens and the beasts are fled, are gone.

And I will reduce Jerusalem into heaps, a den of dragons;

And the cities of Judah will I make a desolation without inhabitant.

12 Who is the wise man, that can understand this? And to whom the mouth of JEHOVAH hath spoken, so that he can declare it?

Wherefore is the land destroyed,

Burnt up like a desart, so that no man passeth through it?

13 Even JEHOVAH hath said,

Because they have forsaken my law,
Which I set before them ;

And have not hearkened unto my voice,

Neither have walked according to it;

14 But they have gone after the imaginations of their own heart,

And after the deities which they learned from their fathers:

15 Therefore thus saith JEHOVAH of hosts, the God of Israel;

Behold I will feed them with wormwood,

And I will give them water of hemlock to drink. 16 And I will scatter them among nations,

17

Whom they have not known, they nor their fathers;
And I will send after them the sword,

Until I shall have made an end of them.

THUS saith JEHOVAH of hosts,

Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, and let them come;

And send to the skilful ones, and let them come; 18 And let them haste and begin a lamentation over

us;

That our eyes may let fall tears,

And our eyelids pour forth waters.

19 Surely a voice of lamentation hath been heard

from Sion;

How are we spoiled! we are greatly confounded!

H

Because we have abandoned the land,

Because they have thrown down our habitations. 20 Therefore hear, O ye women, the word of JEнO

VAH,

[ocr errors]

And let your ear receive the word of his mouth;
And teach your daughters a lamentation,

And every one her companion a mournful dirge. 21. For death hath climbed up through our windows, It hath entered into our palaces;

It hath at once cut off the children from the street, And destroyed the young men from the broad places.

22 The carcases of men also shall fall as dung on the face of the field,

23

And as the handful behind the reaper, when there is none to gather.

Thus saith JEHOVAH;

Let not the wise glory in his wisdom,.
Nor let the mighty glory in his might,
Nor let the rich glory in his riches:
24 But let him that glorieth glory in this,
In understanding and knowing me,

95

That I am JEHOVAH, exercising loving kindness,
Judgment, and faithfulness upon earth :

For in these do I delight, saith JEHOVAH.

Behold the days are coming, saith JEHOVAH, That I will punish all the circumcision with the uncircumcision;

26 Egypt, and Judah, and Edom,

And the children of Ammon, and Moab,

And all those that have their coast insulated,

Those that dwell in the wilderness:

For all the nations are uncircumcised,

And all the house of Israel, uncircumcised in heart.

« PreviousContinue »