The Hebrew Prophets

And each at his friend they mock, And truth they do not speak, They taught their tongue to speak falsehood, To commit iniquity they have laboured.

thy dwelling is in the midst of deceit, Through deceit they refused to know Me, An affirmation of Jehovah.

Therefore, thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Lo, I am refining them, and have tried them, For how do I do because of the daughter of My people?

A slaughtering arrow is their tongue, Deceit it hath spoken in its mouth, Peace with its neighbour it speaketh, And in its heart it layeth its ambush,

For these things do not I see after them? An affirmation of Jehovah, Against a nation such as this doth not My soul avenge itself?

For the mountains I lift up weeping and wailing, And for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, For they have been burnt up without any passing over, Nor have they heard the voice of cattle, From the fowl of the heavens unto the beast they have fled, they have gone.

And I make Jerusalem become heaps, A habitation of dragons, And the cities of Judah I make a desolation, Without inhabitant.

Who is the wise man? and he understandeth this, And he to whom the mouth of Jehovah spake? And he doth declare it, For what hath the land perished? It hath been burnt up as a wilderness, Without any passing through.

And Jehovah saith: Because of their forsaking My law that I set before them, And they have not hearkened to My voice nor walked in it,

And they walk after the stubbornness of their heart, And after the Baalim, that their fathers taught them,

Therefore, thus said Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel: Lo, I am causing them--this people--to eat wormwood, And I have caused them to drink water of gall,

And I have scattered them among nations Which they knew not, they and their fathers, And have sent after them the sword, Till I have consumed them.

Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Consider ye, and call for mourning women, And they come, And to the wise women send, and they come,

And they hasten, and lift up for us a wailing. And run down our eyes do tears, And from our eyelids do waters flow.

For--a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: How have we been spoiled! We have been greatly ashamed, Because we have forsaken the land, Because they have cast down our tabernacles.

But hear, ye women, a word of Jehovah, And your ear receiveth a word of His mouth, And teach ye your daughters wailing, and each her neighbour lamentation.

For death hath come up into our windows, It hath come into our palaces, To cut off the suckling from without, Young men from the broad places.

Speak thus--an affirmation of Jehovah, And fallen hath the carcase of man, As dung on the face of the field, And as a handful after the reaper, And there is none gathering.

Thus said Jehovah: Let not the wise boast himself in his wisdom, Nor let the mighty boast himself in his might, Let not the rich boast himself in his riches,

But--in this let the boaster boast himself, In understanding and knowing Me, For I am Jehovah, doing kindness, Judgment, and righteousness, in the earth, For in these I have delighted, An affirmation of Jehovah.

Lo, days are coming--an affirmation of Jehovah, And I have laid a charge on all circumcised in the foreskin,

On Egypt, and on Judah, and on Edom, And on the sons of Ammon, and on Moab, And on all cutting the corner of the beard , Who are dwelling in the wilderness, For all the nations are uncircumcised, And all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart!

Hear ye the word, O house of Israel, That Jehovah hath spoken for you.

Thus said Jehovah: Unto the way of the nations accustom not yourselves, And by the signs of the heavens be not affrighted, For the nations are affrighted by them.

For the statutes of the peoples are vanity, For a tree from a forest hath one cut, Work of the hands of an artificer, with an axe,