The Hebrew Prophets

Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold I will lay a stone in the foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundation. He that believeth, let him not hasten.

And I will set judgment in weight, and justice in measure: and hail shall overturn the hope of falsehood: and waters shall overflow its protection.

And your league with death shall be abolished, and your covenant with hell shall not stand: when the overflowing scourge shall pass, you shall be trodden down by it.

Whensoever it shall pass through, it shall take you away: because in the morning early it shall pass through, in the day and in the night, and vexation alone shall make you understand what you hear.

For the bed is straitened, so that one must fall out, and a short covering cannot cover both.

For the Lord shall stand up as in the mountain of divisions: he shall be angry as in the valley which is in Gabaon: that he may do his work, his strange work: that he may perform his work, his work is strange to him.

And now do not mock, lest your bonds be tied strait. For I have heard of the Lord the God of hosts a consumption and a cutting short upon all the earth.

Give ear, and hear my voice, hearken, and hear my speech.

Shall the ploughman plough all the day to sow, shall he open and harrow his ground?

Will he not, when he hath made plain the surface thereof, sow gith, and scatter cummin, and put wheat in order, and barley, and millet, and vetches in their bounds?

For he will instruct him in judgment: his God will teach him.

For gith shall not be thrashed with saws, neither shall the cart wheel turn about upon cummin: but gith shall be beaten out with a rod, and cumin with a staff.

But breadcorn shall be broken small: but the thrasher shall not thrash it for ever, neither shall the cart wheel hurt it, nor break it with its teeth.

This also is come forth from the Lord God of hosts, to make his counsel wonderful, and magnify justice.

Woe to Ariel, to Ariel the city which David took: year is added to year. the solemnities are at an end.

And I will make a trench about Ariel, and it shall be in sorrow and mourning, and it shall be to me as Ariel.

And I will make a circle round about thee, and I will cast up a rampart against thee, and raise up bulwarks to besiege thee.

Thou shalt be brought down, thou shall speak out of the earth, and thy speech shall be heard out of the ground: and thy voice shall be from the earth like that of the python, and out of the earth thy speech shall mutter.

And the multitude of them that fan thee, shall be like small dust: and as ashes passing away, the multitude of them that have prevailed against thee.

And it shall be at an instant suddenly. A visitation shall come from the Lord of hosts in thunder, and with earthquake, and with a great noise of whirlwind and tempest; and with the flame of devouring fire.

And the multitude of all nations that have fought against Ariel, shall be as the dream of a vision by night, and all that have fought, and besieged and prevailed against it.

And as he that is hungry dreameth, and eateth, but when he is awake, his soul is empty: and as he that is thirsty dreameth, and drinketh and after he is awake, is yet faint with thirst, and his soul is empty: so shall be the multitude of all the Gentiles, that have fought against mount Sion.

Be astonished, and wonder, waver, and stagger: be drunk, and not with wine: stagger, and not with drunkenness.

For the Lord hath mingled for you the spirit of a deep sleep, he will shut up your eyes, he will cover your prophets and princes, that see visions.

And the vision of all shall be unto you as the words of a book that is sealed which when they shall deliver to one that is learned, they shall say: Read this: and he shall answer: I cannot, for it is sealed.