The Hebrew Prophets

Therefore night shall be to you instead of vision, and darkness to you instead of divination: and the sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be darkened over them.

And they shall be confounded that see visions, and the diviners shall be confounded: and they shall all cover their faces, because there is no answer of God.

But yet I am filled with the strength of the spirit of the Lord, with judgment and power: to declare unto Jacob his wickedness and to Israel his sin.

Hear this, ye princes of the house of Jacob, and ye judges of the house of Israel: you that abhor judgment and pervert all that is right.

You that build up Sion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.

Her princes have judged for bribes: and her priests have taught for hire, and her prophets divined for money: and they leaned upon the Lord, saying: Is not the Lord in the midst of us? no evil shall come among us.

Therefore because of you, Sion shall be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall be as a heap of stones, and the mountain of the temple as the high places of the forests.

And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared in the top of the mountains, and high above the hills: and people shall flow to it.

And many nations shall come in haste, and say: Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob: and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth out of Sion, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem.

And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into spades: nation shall not take sword against nation: neither shall they learn war anymore.

And every man shall sit under his vine, and under his fig tree, and there shall be none to make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken.

For all people will walk every one in the name of his god: but we will walk in the name of the Lord, our God, for ever and ever.

In that day, saith the Lord, I will gather up her that halteth: and her that I had cast out, I will gather up: and her whom I had afflicted.

And I will make her that halted, a remnant: and her that had been afflicted, a mighty nation: and the Lord will reign over them in Mount Sion, from this time now and forever.

And thou, O cloudy tower of the flock, of the daughter of Sion, unto thee shall it come: yea the first power shall come, the kingdom to the daughter of Jerusalem.

Now, why art thou drawn together with grief? Hast thou no king in thee, or is thy counselor perished, because sorrow hath taken thee as a woman in labour.

Be in pain and labour, O daughter of Sion, as a woman that bringeth forth: for now shalt thou go out of the city, and shalt dwell in the country, and shalt come even to Babylon, there thou shalt be delivered: there the Lord will redeem thee out of the hand of thy enemies.

And now many nations are gathered together against thee, and they say: Let her be stoned: and let our eye look upon Sion.

But they have not known the thoughts of the Lord, and have not understood his counsel: because he hath gathered them together as the hay of the floor.

Arise, and tread, O daughter of Sion: for I will make thy horn iron, and thy hoofs I will make brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many peoples, and shalt immolate the spoils of them to the Lord, and their strength to the Lord of the whole earth.

Now shalt thou be laid waste, O daughter of the robber: they have laid siege against us, with a rod shall they strike the cheek of the judge of Israel.

And thou Bethlehem Ephrata, art a little one among the thousands of Juda, out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel: and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.

Therefore will he give them up even till the time wherein she that travaileth shall bring forth: and the remnant of his brethren shall be converted to the children of Israel.

And he shall stand, and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the height of the name of the Lord, his God: and they shall be converted, for now shall he be magnified even to the ends of the earth.

And this man shall be our peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land, and when he shall set his foot in our houses: and we shall raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.