be trodden down by it.19As often as it passeth through, it shall take you;For morning by morning shall it pass through,By day and by night;And it shall be sheer terror to understand the message.20For the bed is too short for a man to stretch himself;And the covering too narrow when he gathereth himself up.21For the Lord will rise up as in mount Perazim,He will be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon;That He may do His work, strange is His work,And bring to pass His act, strange is His act.22Now therefore be ye not scoffers,Lest your bands be made strong;For an extermination wholly determined have I heard from the Lord, the God of hosts,Upon the whole land. 23Give ye ear, and hear my voice;Attend, and hear my speech.24Is the plowman never done with plowing to sow,With the opening and harrowing of his ground?25When he hath made plain the face thereof,Doth he not cast abroad the black cummin, and scatter the cummin,And put in the wheat in rows and the barley in the appointed placeAnd the spelt in the border thereof?26For He doth instruct him aright;His God doth teach him.27For the black cummin is not threshed with a threshing-sledge,Neither is a cart-wheel turned about upon the cummin;But the black cummin is beaten out with a staff,And the cummin with a rod.28Is bread corn crushed?Nay, he will not ever be threshing it;And though the roller of his wagon and its sharp edges move noisily,He doth not crush it.29This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts:Wonderful is His counsel, and great His wisdom.29Ah, 6Ariel, Ariel, the city where David encamped!Add ye year to year,Let the feasts come round!2Then will I distress Ariel,And there shall be mourning and moaning;And she shall be unto Me as a hearth of God.3And I will encamp against thee round about,And will lay siege against thee with a mound,And I will raise siege works against thee.4And brought down thou shalt speak out of the ground,And thy speech shall be low out of the dust;And thy voice shall be as of a ghost out of the ground,And thy speech shall chirp out of the dust.5But the multitude of thy foes shall be like small dust,And the multitude of the terrible ones as chaff that passeth away;Yea, it shall be at an instant suddenly—6There shall be a visitation from the Lord of hostsWith thunder, and with earthquake, and great noise,With whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.7And the multitude of all the nations that war against Ariel,Even all that war against her, and the bulwarks about her, and they that distress her,Shall be as a dream, a vision of the night.8And it shall be as when a hungry man dreameth, and, behold, he eateth,But he awaketh, and his soul is empty;Or as when a thirsty man dreameth, and, behold, he drinketh,But he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite—So shall the multitude of all the nations be,That fight against mount Zion. 9Stupefy yourselves, and be stupid!Blind yourselves, and be blind!Ye that are drunken, but not with wine,That stagger, but not with strong drink.10For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep,And hath closed your eyes;The prophets, and your heads, the seers, hath He covered.
11And the vision of all this is become unto you as the words of a writing that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying: 'Read this, I pray thee'; and he saith: 'I cannot, for it is sealed'; 12and the writing is delivered to him that is not learned, saying: 'Read this, I pray thee'; and he saith: 'I am not learned.'
13And the Lord said: Forasmuch as this people draw near,And with their mouth and with their lips do honour Me,But have removed their heart far from Me,And their fear of Me is a commandment of men learned by rote;14Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvellous work among this people,Even a marvellous work and a wonder;And the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,And the prudence of their prudent men shall be hid. 15Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord,And their works are in the dark,And they say: 'Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?'16O your perversity!Shall the potter be esteemed as clay;That the thing made should say of him that made it: 'He made me not';Or the thing framed say of him that framed it: 'He hath no understanding?'17Is it not yet a very little while,And Lebanon shall be turned into a fruitful field,And the fruitful field shall be esteemed as a forest?18And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of a book,And the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness.19The humble also shall increase their joy in the Lord,And the neediest among men shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.20For the terrible one is brought to nought,And the scorner ceaseth,And all they that watch for iniquity are cut off;21That make a man an offender by words,And lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate,And turn aside the just with a thing of nought.
22Therefore thus saith the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob:
Jacob shall not now be ashamed,Neither shall his face now wax pale;23When he seeth his children, the work of My hands, in the midst of him,That they sanctify My name;Yea, they shall sanctify the Holy One of Jacob,And shall stand in awe of the God of Israel.24They also that err in spirit shall come to understanding,And they that murmur shall learn instruction. 30Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord,That take counsel, but not of Me;And that form projects, but not of My spirit,That they may add sin to sin;2That walk to go down into Egypt,And have not asked at My mouth;To take refuge in the stronghold of Pharaoh,And to take shelter in the shadow of Egypt!3Therefore shall the stronghold of Pharaoh turn to your shame,And the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your confusion.4For his princes are at Zoan,And his ambassadors are come to Hanes.5They shall all be ashamed of a people that cannot profit them,That are not a help nor profit,But a shame, and also a reproach.
6The burden of the beasts of the South.
Through the land of trouble and anguish,From whence come the lioness and the lion,The viper and flying serpent,They carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses,And their treasures upon the humps of camels,To a people that shall not profit them.7For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose;Therefore have I called her arrogancy that sitteth still.8Now go, write it before them on a tablet,And inscribe it in a book,That it may be for the time to comeFor ever and ever.9For it is a rebellious people,Lying children,Children that refuse to hear the teaching of the Lord;10That say to the seers: 'See not',And to the prophets: 'Prophesy not unto us right things,Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy delusions;11Get you out of the way,Turn aside out of the path,Cause the Holy One of IsraelTo cease from before us.'12Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel:Because ye despise this word,And trust in oppression and perverseness,And stay thereon;13Therefore this iniquity shall be to youAs a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall,Whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.14And He shall break it as a potter's vessel is broken,Breaking it in pieces without sparing;So that there shall not be found among the pieces thereof a sherdTo take fire from the hearth,Or to take water out of the cistern. 15For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:In sitting still and rest shall ye be saved,In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength;And ye would not.16But ye said: 'No, for we will flee upon horses';Therefore shall ye flee;And: 'We will ride upon the swift';Therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.17One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one,At the rebuke of five shall ye flee;Till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain,And as an ensign on a hill.18And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you,And therefore will He be exalted, that He may have compassion upon you;For the Lord is a God of justice,Happy are all they that wait for Him. 19For, O people that dwellest in Zion at Jerusalem,Thou shalt weep no more;He will surely be gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry,When He shall hear, He will answer thee.20And though the Lord give you sparing bread and scant water,Yet shall not thy Teacher hide Himself any more,But thine eyes shall see thy Teacher;21And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying:'This is the way, walk ye in it,When ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.'22And ye shall defile thy graven images overlaid with silver,And thy molten images covered with gold;Thou shalt put them far away as one unclean;Thou shalt say unto it: 'Get thee hence.'23And He will give the rain for thy seed, wherewith thou sowest the ground,And bread of the increase of the ground, and it shall be
