Jeremiah 50 Cross References - ERV

¹ The word that the LORD spake concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet. ² Declare ye among the nations and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is dismayed; her images are put to shame, her idols are dismayed. ³ For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they are fled, they are gone, both man and beast. ⁴ In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together; they shall go on their way weeping, and shall seek the LORD their God. ⁵ They shall inquire concerning Zion with their faces thitherward, [saying], Come ye, and join yourselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten. ⁶ My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place. ⁷ All that found them have devoured them: and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the LORD, the habitation of justice, even the LORD, the hope of their fathers. ⁸ Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the he-goats before the flocks. ⁹ For, lo, I will stir up and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country: and they shall set themselves in array against her; from thence she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of an expert mighty man; none shall return in vain. ¹⁰ And Chaldea shall be a spoil: all that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith the LORD. ¹¹ Because ye are glad, because ye rejoice, O ye that plunder mine heritage, because ye are wanton as an heifer that treadeth out [the corn], and neigh as strong horses; ¹² your mother shall be sore ashamed; she that bare you shall be confounded: behold, she shall be the hindermost of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert. ¹³ Because of the wrath of the LORD it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate: every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues. ¹⁴ Set yourselves in array against Babylon round about, all ye that bend the bow; shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she hath sinned against the LORD. ¹⁵ Shout against her round about; she hath submitted herself; her bulwarks are fallen, her walls are thrown down: for it is the vengeance of the LORD; take vengeance upon her; as she hath done, do unto her. ¹⁶ Cut off the sower from Babylon, and him that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest: for fear of the oppressing sword they shall turn every one to his people, and they shall flee every one to his own land. ¹⁷ Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria hath devoured him; and last this Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath broken his bones. ¹⁸ Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria; ¹⁹ And I will bring Israel again to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied upon the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead. ²⁰ In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I leave as a remnant. ²¹ Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod: slay and utterly destroy after them, saith the LORD, and do according to all that I have commanded thee. ²² A sound of battle is in the land, and of great destruction. ²³ How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! ²⁴ I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the LORD. ²⁵ The LORD hath opened his armoury, and hath brought forth the weapons of his indignation: for the Lord, the LORD of hosts, hath a work [to do] in the land of the Chaldeans. ²⁶ Come against her from the utmost border, open her storehouses: cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly: let nothing of her be left. ²⁷ Slay all her bullocks; let them go down to the slaughter: woe unto them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation. ²⁸ The voice of them that flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God, the vengeance of his temple. ²⁹ Call together the archers against Babylon, all them that bend the bow; camp against her round about; let none thereof escape: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she hath done, do unto her: for she hath been proud against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel. ³⁰ Therefore shall her young men fall in her streets, and all her men of war shall be brought to silence in that day, saith the LORD. ³¹ Behold, I am against thee, O thou proud one, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts: for thy day is come, the time that I will visit thee. ³² And the proud one shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up: and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all that are round about him. ³³ Thus saith the LORD of hosts: The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together: and all that took them captives hold them fast; they refuse to let them go. ³⁴ Their redeemer is strong; the LORD of hosts is his name: he shall throughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the earth, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon. ³⁵ A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the LORD, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men. ³⁶ A sword is upon the boasters, and they shall dote: a sword is upon her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed. ³⁷ A sword is upon their horse, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her, and they shall become as women: a sword is upon her treasures, and they shall be robbed. ³⁸ A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up: for it is a land of graven images, and they are mad upon idols. ³⁹ Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wolves shall dwell there, and the ostriches shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation. ⁴⁰ As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the LORD; so shall no man dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein. ⁴¹ Behold, a people cometh from the north; and a great nation, and many kings shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. ⁴² They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea, and they ride upon horses; every one set in array, as man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon. ⁴³ The king of Babylon hath heard the fame of them, and his hands wax feeble: anguish hath taken hold of him, [and] pangs as of a woman in travail. ⁴⁴ Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the pride of Jordan against the strong habitation: but I will suddenly make them run away from her; and whoso is chosen, him will I appoint over her: for who is like me? and who will appoint me a time? and who is the shepherd that will stand before me? ⁴⁵ Therefore hear ye the counsel of the LORD, that he hath taken against Babylon; and his purposes, that he hath purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely they shall drag them away, [even] the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make their habitation desolate with them. ⁴⁶ At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth trembleth, and the cry is heard among the nations.

¹⁰ And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.

³¹ And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.

² The spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was upon my tongue.

¹⁷ While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have taken them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

⁸ O daughter of Babylon, that art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. ⁹ Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the rock.

¹ The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see. ² Set ye up an ensign upon the bare mountain, lift up the voice unto them, wave the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. ³ I have commanded my consecrated ones, yea, I have called my mighty men for mine anger, even my proudly exulting ones.

⁴ that thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!

¹ The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it cometh from the wilderness, from a terrible land. ² A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam; besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease. ³ Therefore are my loins filled with anguish; pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman in travail: I am pained so that I cannot hear; I am dismayed so that I cannot see. ⁴ My heart panteth, horror hath affrighted me: the twilight that I desired hath been turned into trembling unto me. ⁵ They prepare the table, they set the watch, they eat, they drink: rise up, ye princes, anoint the shield. ⁶ For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman; let him declare what he seeth: ⁷ and when he seeth a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of asses, a troop of camels, he shall hearken diligently with much heed. ⁸ And he cried as a lion: O Lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the day-time, and am set in my ward whole nights: ⁹ and, behold, here cometh a troop of men, horsemen in pairs. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods are broken unto the ground. ¹⁰ O thou my threshing, and the corn of my floor: that which I have heard from the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.

¹³ Behold, the land of the Chaldeans; this people is no more; the Assyrian hath appointed it for the beasts of the wilderness: they set up their towers, they overthrew the palaces thereof; he made it a ruin.

¹ Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. ² Take the millstones, and grind meal: remove thy veil, strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers. ³ Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and will accept no man. ⁴ Our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. ⁵ Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called The lady of kingdoms. ⁶ I was wroth with my people, I profaned mine inheritance, and gave them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the aged hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. ⁷ And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end thereof. ⁸ Now therefore hear this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and there is none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: ⁹ but these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: in their full measure shall they come upon thee, despite of the multitude of thy sorceries, and the great abundance of thine enchantments. ¹⁰ For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness; thou hast said, None seeth me; thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee: and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and there is none else beside me. ¹¹ Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know the dawning thereof: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it away: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou knowest not. ¹² Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. ¹³ Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels: let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from the things that shall come upon thee. ¹⁴ Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: it shall not be a coal to warm at, nor a fire to sit before. ¹⁵ Thus shall the things be unto thee wherein thou hast laboured: they that have trafficked with thee from thy youth shall wander every one to his quarter; there shall be none to save thee.

²⁶ and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth: and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them. ²⁷ And thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Drink ye, and be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you.

⁷ And all the nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the time of his own land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him.

¹ Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind. ² And I will send unto Babylon strangers, that shall fan her; and they shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about. ³ Let not the archer bend his bow, and let him not lift himself up in his coat of mail: and spare ye not her young men; destroy ye utterly all her host. ⁴ And they shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets. ⁵ For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, of his God, of the LORD of hosts; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel. ⁶ Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; be not cut off in her iniquity: for it is the time of the LORD’S vengeance; he will render unto her a recompence. ⁷ Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’S hand; that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad. ⁸ Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed. ⁹ We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies. ¹⁰ The LORD hath brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us declare in Zion the work of the LORD our God. ¹¹ Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: the LORD hath stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; because his device is against Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance of his temple. ¹² Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set the watchmen, prepare the ambushes: for the LORD hath both devised and done that which he spake concerning the inhabitants of Babylon. ¹³ O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, the measure of thy covetousness. ¹⁴ The LORD of hosts hath sworn by himself, [saying], Surely I will fill thee with men, as with the cankerworm; and they shall lift up a shout against thee.

⁵ Yea, moreover, wine is a treacherous dealer, a haughty man, and that keepeth not at home; who enlargeth his desire as hell, and he is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all peoples. ⁶ Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and that ladeth himself with pledges! ⁷ Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them? ⁸ Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all that dwell therein. ⁹ Woe to him that getteth an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil! ¹⁰ Thou hast consulted shame to thy house, by cutting off many peoples, and hast sinned against thy soul. ¹¹ For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. ¹² Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity! ¹³ Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts that the peoples labour for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity? ¹⁴ For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. ¹⁵ Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that addest thy venom [thereto], and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness! ¹⁶ Thou art filled with shame for glory: drink thou also, and be as one uncircumcised: the cup of the LORD’S right hand shall be turned unto thee, and foul shame shall be upon thy glory. ¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon shall cover thee, and the destruction of the beasts, which made them afraid; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all that dwell therein. ¹⁸ What profiteth the graven image, that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and the teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols? ¹⁹ Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise! Shall this teach? Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it. ²⁰ But the LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

⁴ Then came he out of the land of the Chaldaeans, and dwelt in Haran: and from thence, when his father was dead, [God] removed him into this land, wherein ye now dwell:

²¹ For no prophecy ever came by the will of man: but men spake from God, being moved by the Holy Ghost.

¹ After these things I saw another angel coming down out of heaven, having great authority; and the earth was lightened with his glory. ² And he cried with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and is become a habitation of devils, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird. ³ For by the wine of the wrath of her fornication all the nations are fallen; and the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth waxed rich by the power of her wantonness. ⁴ And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues: ⁵ for her sins have reached even unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. ⁶ Render unto her even as she rendered, and double [unto her] the double according to her works: in the cup which she mingled, mingle unto her double. ⁷ How much soever she glorified herself, and waxed wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall in no wise see mourning. ⁸ Therefore in one day shall her plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God which judged her. ⁹ And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived wantonly with her, shall weep and wail over her, when they look upon the smoke of her burning, ¹⁰ standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ¹¹ And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no man buyeth their merchandise any more; ¹² merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stone, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet; and all thyine wood, and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble; ¹³ and cinnamon, and spice, and incense, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle, and sheep; and [merchandise] of horses and chariots and slaves; and souls of men. ¹⁴ And the fruits which thy soul lusted after are gone from thee, and all things that were dainty and sumptuous are perished from thee, and [men] shall find them no more at all. ¹⁵ The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning; ¹⁶ saying, Woe, woe, the great city, she that was arrayed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone and pearl! ¹⁷ for in one hour so great riches is made desolate. And every shipmaster, and every one that saileth any whither, and mariners, and as many as gain their living by sea, stood afar off, ¹⁸ and cried out as they looked upon the smoke of her burning, saying, What [city] is like the great city? ¹⁹ And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and mourning, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, wherein were made rich all that had their ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate. ²⁰ Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye saints, and ye apostles, and ye prophets; for God hath judged your judgment on her. ²¹ And a strong angel took up a stone as it were a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with a mighty fall shall Babylon, the great city, be cast down, and shall be found no more at all. ²² And the voice of harpers and minstrels and flute-players and trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft, shall be found any more at all in thee; and the voice of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; ²³ and the light of a lamp shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the princes of the earth; for with thy sorcery were all the nations deceived. ²⁴ And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that have been slain upon the earth.

⁹ And all men shall fear; and they shall declare the work of God, and shall wisely consider of his doing.

³ Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples.

⁴ And in that day shall ye say, Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, declare his doings among the peoples, make mention that his name is exalted.

² Set ye up an ensign upon the bare mountain, lift up the voice unto them, wave the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles.

⁹ and, behold, here cometh a troop of men, horsemen in pairs. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods are broken unto the ground.

¹⁹ and have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them.

¹ At that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah: for he heard that he had been sick, and was recovered.

¹ Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth; their idols are upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: the things that ye carried about are made a load, a burden to the weary [beast].

⁶ Thou hast heard it; behold all this; and ye, will ye not declare it? I have shewed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, which thou hast not known.

¹⁸ For I [know] their works and their thoughts: [the time] cometh, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and shall see my glory. ¹⁹ And I will set a sign among them, and I will send such as escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations.

¹⁶ make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, [that] watchers come from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Judah.

¹⁸ Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them.

¹⁰ Hear the word of the LORD, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off; and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock.

¹² And I will kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt; and he shall burn them, and carry them away captives: and he shall array himself with the land of Egypt, as a shepherd putteth on his garment; and he shall go forth from thence in peace. ¹³ He shall also break the pillars of Beth-shemesh, that is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of Egypt shall he burn with fire.

¹⁴ Declare ye in Egypt, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Noph and in Tahpanhes: say ye, stand forth, and prepare thee; for the sword hath devoured round about thee.

⁴⁶ At the noise of the taking of Babylon the earth trembleth, and the cry is heard among the nations.

⁸ Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.

³¹ One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter:

⁴⁴ And I will do judgment upon Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up; and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.

⁴⁷ Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will do judgment upon the graven images of Babylon, and her whole land shall be ashamed; and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

⁵² Wherefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will do judgment upon her graven images; and through all her land the wounded shall groan.

³¹ And it came to pass in the seven and thirtieth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the twelfth month, in the five and twentieth day of the month, that Evil-merodach king of Babylon, in the [first] year of his reign, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison;

¹¹ The LORD will be terrible unto them: for he will famish all the gods of the earth; and men shall worship him, every one from his place, even all the isles of the nations.

⁶ And I saw another angel flying in mid heaven, having an eternal gospel to proclaim unto them that dwell on the earth, and unto every nation and tribe and tongue and people; ⁷ and he saith with a great voice, Fear God, and give him glory; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made the heaven and the earth and sea and fountains of waters. ⁸ And another, a second angel, followed, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, which hath made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.

² And he cried with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and is become a habitation of devils, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird.

⁷ And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the ground; both man, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air; for it repeateth me that I have made them.

¹² For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.

⁵ They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. ⁶ Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; as destruction from the Almighty shall it come. ⁷ Therefore shall all hands be feeble, and every heart of man shall melt: ⁸ and they shall be dismayed; pangs and sorrows shall take hold [of them]; they shall be in pain as a woman in travail: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces [shall be] faces of flame. ⁹ Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it. ¹⁰ For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

¹⁷ Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver, and as for gold, they shall not delight in it. ¹⁸ And [their] bows shall dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children. ¹⁹ And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ²⁰ It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there. ²¹ But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and ostriches shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. ²² And wolves shall cry in their castles, and jackals in the pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.

²² And I will rise up against them, saith the LORD of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son’s son, saith the LORD. ²³ I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the LORD of hosts. ²⁴ The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:

²⁰ Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

⁶ And I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast: they shall die of a great pestilence.

⁹ For, lo, I will stir up and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country: and they shall set themselves in array against her; from thence she shall be taken: their arrows shall be as of an expert mighty man; none shall return in vain.

¹² your mother shall be sore ashamed; she that bare you shall be confounded: behold, she shall be the hindermost of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert. ¹³ Because of the wrath of the LORD it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate: every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.

³⁵ A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the LORD, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men. ³⁶ A sword is upon the boasters, and they shall dote: a sword is upon her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed. ³⁷ A sword is upon their horse, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her, and they shall become as women: a sword is upon her treasures, and they shall be robbed. ³⁸ A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up: for it is a land of graven images, and they are mad upon idols. ³⁹ Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wolves shall dwell there, and the ostriches shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation. ⁴⁰ As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the LORD; so shall no man dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein. ⁴¹ Behold, a people cometh from the north; and a great nation, and many kings shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth.

⁸ Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed. ⁹ We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

¹¹ Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: the LORD hath stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; because his device is against Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance of his temple.

²⁵ Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the LORD, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. ²⁶ And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the LORD. ²⁷ Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz: appoint a marshal against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough cankerworm.

³⁷ And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and an hissing, without inhabitant. ³⁸ They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as lions’ whelps. ³⁹ When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the LORD. ⁴⁰ I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he-goats. ⁴¹ How is Sheshach taken! and the praise of the whole earth surprised! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations! ⁴² The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof. ⁴³ Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby. ⁴⁴ And I will do judgment upon Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up; and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.

⁴⁸ Then the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for joy over Babylon; for the spoilers shall come unto her from the north, saith the LORD.

⁶² and say, O LORD, thou hast spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that none shall dwell therein, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever.

³ I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumblingblocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the face of the ground, saith the LORD.

²¹ And a strong angel took up a stone as it were a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with a mighty fall shall Babylon, the great city, be cast down, and shall be found no more at all. ²² And the voice of harpers and minstrels and flute-players and trumpeters shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft, shall be found any more at all in thee; and the voice of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee; ²³ and the light of a lamp shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the princes of the earth; for with thy sorcery were all the nations deceived.

¹² But many of the priests and Levites and heads of fathers’ [houses], the old men that had seen the first house, when the foundation of this house was laid before their eyes, wept with a loud voice; and many shouted aloud for joy: ¹³ so that the people could not discern the noise of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the people: for the people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off.

⁴ Seek ye the LORD and his strength; seek his face evermore.

⁴ Turn again our captivity, O LORD, as the streams in the South. ⁵ They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. ⁶ Though he goeth on his way weeping, bearing forth the seed; he shall come again with joy, bringing his sheaves [with him].

¹² And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. ¹³ The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and they that vex Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.

¹ For the LORD will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the stranger shall join himself with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.

¹⁹ I have not spoken in secret, in a place of the land of darkness; I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.

⁶ Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

⁴ For the day of vengeance was in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.

¹⁶ And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the LORD, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the LORD; neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall [that] be done any more. ¹⁷ At that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the LORD, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil heart. ¹⁸ In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance unto your fathers.

¹² And ye shall call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. ¹³ And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all year heart. ¹⁴ And I will be found of you, saith the LORD, and I will turn again your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again unto the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.

¹⁰ Therefore fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be quiet and at ease, and none shall make him afraid. ¹¹ For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee: for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee, but I will not make a full end of thee; but I will correct thee with judgment, and will in no wise leave thee unpunished.

⁶ For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the hills of Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the LORD our God. ⁷ For thus saith the LORD, Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O LORD, save thy people, the remnant of Israel.

⁹ They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by rivers of waters, in a straight way wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. ¹⁰ Hear the word of the LORD, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off; and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock.

³¹ Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

⁶ Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them; and I will reveal unto them abundance of peace and truth. ⁷ And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. ⁸ And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against me, and whereby they have transgressed against me.

¹⁵ In those days, and at that time, will I cause a Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land.

¹⁹ And I will bring Israel again to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied upon the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead. ²⁰ In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I leave as a remnant.

³³ Thus saith the LORD of hosts: The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together: and all that took them captives hold them fast; they refuse to let them go. ³⁴ Their redeemer is strong; the LORD of hosts is his name: he shall throughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the earth, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.

⁴⁷ Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will do judgment upon the graven images of Babylon, and her whole land shall be ashamed; and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her. ⁴⁸ Then the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for joy over Babylon; for the spoilers shall come unto her from the north, saith the LORD.

¹⁶ And thou, son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and [for] all the house of Israel his companions: ¹⁷ and join them for thee one to another into one stick, that they may become one in thine hand. ¹⁸ And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? ¹⁹ say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his companions; and I will put them with it, [even] with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand. ²⁰ And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes. ²¹ And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: ²² and I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:

²⁵ Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for my holy name.

¹¹ And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and they shall appoint themselves one head, and shall go up from the land: for great shall be the day of Jezreel.

⁵ afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall come with fear unto the LORD and to his goodness in the latter days.

¹² Yet even now, saith the LORD, turn ye unto me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:

²¹ and the inhabitants of one [city] shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to entreat the favour of the LORD, and to seek the LORD of hosts: I will go also. ²² Yea, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, and to entreat the favour of the LORD. ²³ Thus saith the LORD of hosts: In those days [it shall come to pass], that ten men shall take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, shall even take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.

¹⁰ And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they shall look unto me whom they have pierced: and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

⁹ Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.

⁷ And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee.

⁵ Verily my house is not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for it is all my salvation, and all [my] desire, although he maketh it not to grow.

¹⁰ And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword: and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

¹⁴ And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

⁸ Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he instruct sinners in the way. ⁹ The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.

⁷ They go from strength to strength, every one of them appeareth before God in Zion.

³ And many peoples shall go and say, come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. ⁴ And he shall judge between the nations, and shall reprove many peoples: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. ⁵ O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

⁸ And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, yea fools, shall not err [therein].

³ Incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live: and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

⁶ Also the strangers, that join themselves to the LORD, to minister unto him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from profaning it, and holdeth fast by my covenant; ⁷ even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar: for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all peoples.

¹⁶ Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls: but they said, We will not walk [therein].

³¹ Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: ³² not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD. ³³ But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD; I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: ³⁴ and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more. ³⁵ Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which stirreth up the sea, that the waves thereof roar; the LORD of hosts is his name: ³⁶ If these ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.

⁴⁰ and I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.

¹ But in the latter days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples shall flow unto it. ² And many nations shall go and say, Come ye, and 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 out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

¹⁷ If any man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or [whether] I speak from myself.

²³ who, when he was come, and had seen the grace of God, was glad; and he exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord:

⁵ and [this], not as we had hoped, but first they gave their own selves to the Lord, and to us by the will of God. ⁶ But now hath he obtained a ministry the more excellent, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted upon better promises. ⁷ For if that first [covenant] had been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a second. ⁸ For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, That I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; ⁹ Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers In the day that I took them by the hand to lead them forth out of the land of Egypt; For they continued not in my covenant, And I regarded them not, saith the Lord. ¹⁰ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, And on their heart also will I write them: And I will be to them a God, And they shall be to me a people:

² He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

⁷ Thou art my hiding place; thou wilt preserve me from trouble; thou wilt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah

¹ A Prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

¹ He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

⁷ Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee.

¹⁷⁶ I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.

⁷ Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest [thy flock], where thou makest [it] to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that is veiled beside the flocks of thy companions? ⁸ If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds’ tents.

¹⁵ For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength: and ye would not.

² And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

¹⁰ His watchmen are blind, they are all without knowledge; they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber. ¹¹ Yea, the dogs are greedy, they can never have enough; and these are shepherds that cannot understand: they have all turned to their own way, each one to his gain, from every quarter. ¹² Come ye, [say they], I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow shall be as this day, [a day] great beyond measure.

²⁰ For of old time I have broken thy yoke, and burst thy bands; and thou saidst, I will not serve; for upon every high hill and under every green tree thou didst bow thyself, playing the harlot.

³² Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number.

⁶ Moreover the LORD said unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.

²³ Truly in vain is [the help that is looked for] from the hills, the tumult on the mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.

²¹ For the shepherds are become brutish, and have not inquired of the LORD: therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks are scattered.

¹¹ for both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the LORD. ¹² Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery places in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation, saith the LORD. ¹³ And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria; they prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. ¹⁴ In the prophets of Jerusalem also I have seen an horrible thing; they commit adultery, and walk in lies, and they strengthen the hands of evil-doers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them become unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah. ¹⁵ Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.

¹⁷ Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria hath devoured him; and last this Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath broken his bones.

¹⁹ And I will bring Israel again to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied upon the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead.

⁴ The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with rigour have ye ruled over them. ⁵ And they were scattered, because there was no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, and were scattered. ⁶ My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my sheep were scattered upon all the face of the earth; and there was none that did search or seek [after them]. ⁷ Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: ⁸ As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely forasmuch as my sheep became a prey, and my sheep became meat to all the beasts of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my sheep, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my sheep; ⁹ therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD; ¹⁰ Thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my sheep at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the sheep; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; and I will deliver my sheep from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them. ¹¹ For thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I myself, even I, will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. ¹² As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so will I seek out my sheep; and I will deliver them out of all places whither they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

¹⁴ I will feed them with good pasture, and upon the mountains of the height of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie down in a good fold, and on fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.

²⁵ And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell securely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods. ²⁶ And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in its season; there shall be showers of blessing. ²⁷ And the tree of the field shall yield its fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be secure in their land; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bars of their yoke, and have delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them. ²⁸ And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the earth devour them; but they shall dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid.

⁴ Thus said the LORD my God: Feed the flock of slaughter; ⁵ whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty; and they that sell them say, Blessed be the LORD, for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not. ⁶ For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith the LORD: but, lo, I will deliver the men every one into his neighbour’s hand, and into the hand of his king: and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them. ⁷ So I fed the flock of slaughter, verily the poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands; and I fed the flock. ⁸ And I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my soul was weary of them, and their soul also loathed me. ⁹ Then said I, I will not feed you: that that dieth, let it die; and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let them which are left eat every one the flesh of another.

³⁶ But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd.

⁶ but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

²⁴ But he answered and said, I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

¹⁰ See that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. ^{11 12} How think ye? if any man have a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and go unto the mountains, and seek that which goeth astray? ¹³ And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth over it more than over the ninety and nine which have not gone astray.

⁴ What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? ⁵ And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶ And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and his neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. ⁷ I say unto you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, [more] than over ninety and nine righteous persons, which need no repentance.

²⁵ For ye were going astray like sheep; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.

⁴ Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. ⁵ They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not ashamed.

⁷ For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his habitation.

¹² the Syrians before, and the Philistines behind, and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

⁶ I was wroth with my people, I profaned mine inheritance, and gave them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the aged hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.

⁹ All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, [yea], all ye beasts in the forest.

³ Israel [was] holiness unto the LORD, the firstfruits of his increase: all that devour him shall be held guilty; evil shall come upon them, saith the LORD.

⁷ I have forsaken mine house, I have cast off mine heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies. ⁸ Mine heritage is become unto me as a lion in the forest: she hath uttered her voice against me; therefore I have hated her. ⁹ Is mine heritage unto me as a speckled bird of prey? are the birds of prey against her round about? go ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, bring them to devour. ¹⁰ Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. ¹¹ They have made it a desolation; it mourneth unto me, being desolate; the whole land is made desolate, because no man layeth it to heart.

⁸ O thou hope of Israel, the saviour thereof in the time of trouble, why shouldest thou be as a sojourner in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night?

²³ Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Yet again shall they use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity: The LORD bless thee, O habitation of justice, O mountain of holiness.

² And the captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said unto him, the LORD thy God pronounced this evil upon this place: ³ and the LORD hath brought it, and done according as he spake; because ye have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore this thing is come upon you.

³³ Thus saith the LORD of hosts: The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together: and all that took them captives hold them fast; they refuse to let them go.

⁶ neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

¹⁶ O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, let thine anger and thy fury, I pray thee, be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are round about us.

¹⁵ And I am very sore displeased with the nations that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction.

⁵ whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty; and they that sell them say, Blessed be the LORD, for I am rich: and their own shepherds pity them not.

¹ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Saviour, and Christ Jesus our hope;

²⁶ And he spake unto the congregation, saying, Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their sins.

³¹ The greyhound; the he-goat also; and the king, against whom there is no rising up.

²⁰ Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans; with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth: say ye, The LORD hath redeemed his servant Jacob.

¹ Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.

⁶ Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; be not cut off in her iniquity: for it is the time of the LORD’S vengeance; he will render unto her a recompence.

⁴⁵ My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and save yourselves every man from the fierce anger of the LORD.

⁶ Ho, ho, flee from the land of the north, saith the LORD: for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, saith the LORD. ⁷ Ho Zion, escape, thou that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.

¹⁷ Wherefore Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, And touch no unclean thing; And I will receive you,

⁴ And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come forth, my people, out of her, that ye have no fellowship with her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues:

²² From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty.

¹ Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and [put it] also in writing, saying, ² Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD, the God of heaven, given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

² Set ye up an ensign upon the bare mountain, lift up the voice unto them, wave the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. ³ I have commanded my consecrated ones, yea, I have called my mighty men for mine anger, even my proudly exulting ones. ⁴ The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people! the noise of a tumult of the kingdoms of the nations gathered together! the LORD of hosts mustereth the host for the battle. ⁵ They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.

¹⁷ Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver, and as for gold, they shall not delight in it. ¹⁸ And [their] bows shall dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children.

² A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam; besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease.

²⁵ I have raised up one from the north, and he is come; from the rising of the sun one that calleth upon my name: and he shall come upon rulers as upon mortar, and as the potter treadeth clay.

¹ Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings; to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut; ² I will go before thee, and make the rugged places plain: I will break in pieces the doors of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: ³ and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I am the LORD, which call thee by thy name, even the God of Israel. ⁴ For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel my chosen, I have called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.

¹⁴ And I will make [them] to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you.

³ For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they are fled, they are gone, both man and beast.

¹⁴ Set yourselves in array against Babylon round about, all ye that bend the bow; shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she hath sinned against the LORD.

²¹ Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod: slay and utterly destroy after them, saith the LORD, and do according to all that I have commanded thee.

²⁶ Come against her from the utmost border, open her storehouses: cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly: let nothing of her be left.

²⁹ Call together the archers against Babylon, all them that bend the bow; camp against her round about; let none thereof escape: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she hath done, do unto her: for she hath been proud against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel.

⁴¹ Behold, a people cometh from the north; and a great nation, and many kings shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. ⁴² They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea, and they ride upon horses; every one set in array, as man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon.

¹ Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind. ² And I will send unto Babylon strangers, that shall fan her; and they shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about. ³ Let not the archer bend his bow, and let him not lift himself up in his coat of mail: and spare ye not her young men; destroy ye utterly all her host. ⁴ And they shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets.

²⁷ Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz: appoint a marshal against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough cankerworm. ²⁸ Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, the governors thereof, and all the deputies thereof, and all the land of his dominion.

⁴ And your spoil shall be gathered as the caterpiller gathereth: as locusts leap shall they leap upon it.

²³ Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not strengthen the foot of their mast, they could not spread the sail: then was the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame took the prey.

³ and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I am the LORD, which call thee by thy name, even the God of Israel.

¹² And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it desolate for ever.

¹⁶ And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her utterly with fire.

¹⁵ But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: Thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art become sleek: Then he forsook God which made him, And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

¹² Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.

² Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old, which thou hast redeemed to be the tribe of thine inheritance; [and] mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt. ³ Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual ruins, all the evil that the enemy hath done in the sanctuary. ⁴ Thine adversaries have roared in the midst of thine assembly; they have set up their ensigns for signs. ⁵ They seemed as men that lifted up axes upon a thicket of trees. ⁶ And now all the carved work thereof together they break down with hatchet and hammers. ⁷ They have set thy sanctuary on fire; they have profaned the dwelling place of thy name even to the ground. ⁸ They said in their heart, Let us make havoc of them altogether: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.

¹ A Psalm of Asaph. O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. ² The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth. ³ Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them. ⁴ We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

¹ A Song, a Psalm of Asaph. O God, keep not thou silence: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. ² For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head. ³ They take crafty counsel against thy people, and consult together against thy hidden ones. ⁴ They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. ⁵ For they have consulted together with one consent; against thee do they make a covenant:

⁵ Whoso mocketh the poor reproacheth his Maker: [and] he that is glad at calamity shall not be unpunished.

⁶ I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. ⁷ Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy, and to cut off nations not a few.

⁸ They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour’s wife.

²⁸ They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass in deeds of wickedness: they plead not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, that they should prosper; and the right of the needy do they not judge.

²¹ Also her hired men in the midst of her are like calves of the stall; for they also are turned back, they are fled away together, they did not stand: for the day of their calamity is come upon them, the time of their visitation.

²⁷ Slay all her bullocks; let them go down to the slaughter: woe unto them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation.

³⁴ Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his maw with my delicates; he hath cast me out. ³⁵ The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and, My blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say.

²¹ They have heard that I sigh; there is none to comfort me; all mine enemies have heard of my trouble; they are glad that thou hast done it: thou wilt bring the day that thou hast proclaimed, and they shall be like unto me.

¹⁵ All that pass by clap their hands at thee; they hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, [saying]: Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? ¹⁶ All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee; they hiss and gnash the teeth; they say, We have swallowed her up; certainly this is the day that we looked for; we have found, we have seen it.

²¹ Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz: the cup shall pass through unto thee also; thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked. ²² The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.

³ and say unto the children of Ammon, Hear the word of the Lord GOD; Thus saith the Lord GOD: Because thou saidst, Aha, against my sanctuary, when it was profaned; and against the land of Israel, when it was made desolate; and against the house of Judah, when they went into captivity: ⁴ therefore behold, I will deliver thee to the children of the east for a possession, and they shall set their encampments in thee, and make their dwellings in thee; they shall eat thy fruit, and they shall drink thy milk. ⁵ And I will make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the children of Ammon a couching place for flocks: and ye shall know that I am the LORD. ⁶ For thus saith the Lord GOD: Because thou hast clapped thine hands, and stamped with the feet, and rejoiced with all the despite of thy soul against the land of Israel; ⁷ therefore behold, I have stretched out mine hand upon thee, and will deliver thee for a spoil to the nations; and I will cut thee off from the peoples, and I will cause thee to perish out of the countries: I will destroy thee; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD. ⁸ Thus saith the Lord GOD: Because that Moab and Seir do say, Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the nations;

¹⁵ Thus saith the Lord GOD: Because the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with despite of soul to destroy it with perpetual enmity; ¹⁶ therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I will stretch out mine hand upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethites, and destroy the remnant of the sea coast. ¹⁷ And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.

² Son of man, because that Tyre hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken [that was] the gate of the peoples; she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now that she is laid waste: ³ therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against thee, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up.

¹¹ And Ephraim is an heifer that is taught, that loveth to tread out [the corn]; but I have passed over upon her fair neck: I will set a rider on Ephraim; Judah shall plow, Jacob shall break his clods.

¹ Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say unto their lords, Bring, and let us drink.

¹² But look not thou on the day of thy brother in the day of his disaster, and rejoice not over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction; neither speak proudly in the day of distress.

⁸ For thus saith the LORD of hosts: After glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye. ⁹ For, behold, I will shake mine hand over them, and they shall be a spoil to those that served them: and ye shall know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me.

¹ Behold, a day of the LORD cometh, when thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. ² For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished: and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. ³ Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.

¹² And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the peoples that have warred against Jerusalem: their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their sockets, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.

²² And I will rise up against them, saith the LORD of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son’s son, saith the LORD.

²⁶ and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another; and all the kingdoms of the world, which are upon the face of the earth: and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them.

² Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will cause an alarm of war to be heard against Rabbah of the children of Ammon; and it shall become a desolate heap, and her daughters shall be burned with fire: then shall Israel possess them that did possess him, saith the LORD.

³⁵ A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the LORD, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men. ³⁶ A sword is upon the boasters, and they shall dote: a sword is upon her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed. ³⁷ A sword is upon their horse, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her, and they shall become as women: a sword is upon her treasures, and they shall be robbed. ³⁸ A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up: for it is a land of graven images, and they are mad upon idols. ³⁹ Therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wolves shall dwell there, and the ostriches shall dwell therein: and it shall be no more inhabited for ever; neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation. ⁴⁰ As when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the LORD; so shall no man dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein.

²⁵ Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the LORD, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. ²⁶ And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the LORD.

⁴³ Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.

⁶² and say, O LORD, thou hast spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that none shall dwell therein, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever. ⁶³ And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates: ⁶⁴ and thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again because of the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

²⁶ But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is our mother.

⁵ and upon her forehead a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

²³ Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place.

⁴ that thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! ⁵ The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, the sceptre of the rulers; ⁶ that smote the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, that ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that none restrained. ⁷ The whole earth is at rest, [and] is quiet: they break forth into singing. ⁸ Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, [and] the cedars of Lebanon, [saying], Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us. ⁹ Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. ¹⁰ All they shall answer and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? ¹¹ Thy pomp is brought down to hell, [and] the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and worms cover thee. ¹² How art thou fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst lay low the nations! ¹³ And thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north: ¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. ¹⁵ Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the uttermost parts of the pit. ¹⁶ They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, they shall consider thee, [saying], Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; ¹⁷ that made the world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof; that let not loose his prisoners to their home?

¹⁶ to make their land an astonishment, and a perpetual hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished, and shake his head.

⁸ And I will make this city an astonishment, and an hissing; every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues thereof.

¹⁷ And Edom shall become an astonishment: every one that passeth by it shall he astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof.

³⁷ And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and an hissing, without inhabitant.

⁶ Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! how long? and that ladeth himself with pledges! ⁷ Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and awake that shall vex thee, and thou shalt be for booties unto them? ⁸ Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all that dwell therein. ⁹ Woe to him that getteth an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil! ¹⁰ Thou hast consulted shame to thy house, by cutting off many peoples, and hast sinned against thy soul. ¹¹ For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it. ¹² Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity! ¹³ Behold, is it not of the LORD of hosts that the peoples labour for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity? ¹⁴ For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. ¹⁵ Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that addest thy venom [thereto], and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness! ¹⁶ Thou art filled with shame for glory: drink thou also, and be as one uncircumcised: the cup of the LORD’S right hand shall be turned unto thee, and foul shame shall be upon thy glory. ¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon shall cover thee, and the destruction of the beasts, which made them afraid; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all that dwell therein. ¹⁸ What profiteth the graven image, that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and the teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?

¹⁵ This is the joyous city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none else beside me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand.

²⁰ And David rose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper, and took, and went, as Jesse had commanded him; and he came to the place of the wagons, as the host which was going forth to the fight shouted for the battle.

⁹ Now when Joab saw that the battle was set against him before and behind, he chose of all the choice men of Israel, and put them in array against the Syrians:

⁴ Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight: that thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

²⁸ whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind:

⁴ The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people! the noise of a tumult of the kingdoms of the nations gathered together! the LORD of hosts mustereth the host for the battle.

⁹ Go up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men go forth: Cush and Put, that handle the shield; and the Ludim, that handle and bend the bow.

³⁵ Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Behold, I will break the bow of Elam; the chief of their might.

⁷ All that found them have devoured them: and their adversaries said, We offend not, because they have sinned against the LORD, the habitation of justice, even the LORD, the hope of their fathers.

¹¹ Because ye are glad, because ye rejoice, O ye that plunder mine heritage, because ye are wanton as an heifer that treadeth out [the corn], and neigh as strong horses;

⁴² They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea, and they ride upon horses; every one set in array, as man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon.

² And I will send unto Babylon strangers, that shall fan her; and they shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about.

¹¹ Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: the LORD hath stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; because his device is against Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance of his temple. ¹² Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set the watchmen, prepare the ambushes: for the LORD hath both devised and done that which he spake concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.

²⁷ Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz: appoint a marshal against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough cankerworm.

⁸ Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all that dwell therein.

¹⁷ For the violence done to Lebanon shall cover thee, and the destruction of the beasts, which made them afraid; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all that dwell therein.

³⁵ Vengeance is mine, and recompence, At the time when their foot shall slide: For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things that are to come upon them shall make haste.

⁴¹ If I whet my glittering sword, And mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine adversaries, And will recompense them that hate me.

⁴³ Rejoice, O ye nations, [with] his people: For he will avenge the blood of his servants, And will render vengeance to his adversaries, And will make expiation for his land, for his people.

⁵ And it shall be, that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall go up every man straight before him.

²⁰ So the people shouted, and [the priests] blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, that the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city.

⁶ But Adoni-bezek fled; and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes. ⁷ And Adoni-bezek said, Threescore and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered [their meat] under my table: as I have done, so God hath requited me. And they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

³³ And Samuel said, As thy sword hath made women childless, so shall thy mother be childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the LORD in Gilgal.

²⁴ And all the princes, and the mighty men, and all the sons likewise of king David, submitted themselves unto Solomon the king.

⁸ Now be ye not stiffnecked, as your fathers were; but yield yourselves unto the LORD, and enter into his sanctuary, which he hath sanctified for ever, and serve the LORD your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you.

¹ O LORD, thou God to whom vengeance belongeth, thou God to whom vengeance belongeth, shine forth.

⁷ To execute vengeance upon the nations, and punishments upon the peoples;

¹⁷ And he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke.

² to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

¹⁰ For that day is [a day] of the Lord, the LORD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour and be satiate, and shall drink its fill of their blood: for the Lord, the LORD of hosts, hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.

²⁸ The voice of them that flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God, the vengeance of his temple. ²⁹ Call together the archers against Babylon, all them that bend the bow; camp against her round about; let none thereof escape: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she hath done, do unto her: for she hath been proud against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁴ The LORD of hosts hath sworn by himself, [saying], Surely I will fill thee with men, as with the cankerworm; and they shall lift up a shout against thee.

²⁵ Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the LORD, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.

³⁶ Therefore thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry.

⁵⁸ Thus saith the LORD of hosts: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the peoples shall labour for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary.

⁶⁴ and thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again because of the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

⁶ We have given the hand to the Egyptians, and to the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.

¹⁸ For he hath despised the oath by breaking the covenant; and behold, he had given his hand, and yet hath done all these things; he shall not escape.

²² In his right hand was the divination [for] Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounts, to build forts.

² The LORD is a jealous God and avengeth; the LORD avengeth and is full of wrath; the LORD taketh vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth [wrath] for his enemies.

² For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you.

²² For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.

⁵ But if our unrighteousness commendeth the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who visiteth with wrath? (I speak after the manner of men.)

¹⁹ Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance belongeth unto me; I will recompense, saith the Lord.

⁸ in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus:

¹³ For judgment [is] without mercy to him that hath shewed no mercy: mercy glorieth against judgment.

⁶ for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and blood hast thou given them to drink: they are worthy.

⁶ Render unto her even as she rendered, and double [unto her] the double according to her works: in the cup which she mingled, mingle unto her double.

² for true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great harlot, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and he hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.

¹⁴ And it shall come to pass, that as the chased roe, and as sheep that no man gathereth, they shall turn every man to his own people, and shall flee every man to his own land.

³⁸ He hath forsaken his covert, as the lion: for their land is become an astonishment because of the fierceness of the oppressing [sword], and because of his fierce anger.

¹⁶ He made many to stumble, yea, they fell one upon another: and they said, Arise, and let us go again to our own people, and to the land of our nativity, from the oppressing sword.

⁹ We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country: for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

²³ and with thee will I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke [of oxen]; and with thee will I break in pieces governors and deputies.

¹¹ Be ashamed, O ye husbandmen, howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field is perished.

¹⁶ Therefore thus saith the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord: Wailing shall be in all the broad ways; and they shall say in all the streets, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.

²⁹ In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maacah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria.

⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away unto Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and in Habor, [on] the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes. ⁷ And it was so, because the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, ⁸ and walked in the statutes of the nations, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they made. ⁹ And the children of Israel did secretly things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city. ¹⁰ and they set them up pillars and Asherim upon every high hill, and under every green tree: ¹¹ and there they burnt incense in all the high places, as did the nations whom the LORD carried away before them; and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger: ¹² and they served idols, whereof the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this thing. ¹³ Yet the LORD testified unto Israel, and unto Judah, by the hand of every prophet, and of every seer, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by the hand of my servants the prophets. ¹⁴ Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their neck, like to the neck of their fathers, who believed not in the LORD their God. ¹⁵ And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified unto them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and [went] after the nations that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them that they should not do like them. ¹⁶ And they forsook all the commandments of the LORD their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal. ¹⁷ And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. ¹⁸ Therefore the LORD was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only. ¹⁹ Also Judah kept not the commandments of the LORD their God, but walked in the statutes of Israel which they made. ²⁰ And the LORD rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight. ²¹ For he rent Israel from the house of David; and they made Jeroboam the son of Nebat king: and Jeroboam drave Israel from following the LORD, and made them sin a great sin. ²² And the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they departed not from them; ²³ until the LORD removed Israel out of his sight, as he spake by the hand of all his servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away out of their own land to Assyria, unto this day.

⁹ And it came to pass in the fourth year of king Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, that Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up against Samaria, and besieged it. ¹⁰ And at the end of three years they took it: even in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of Hoshea king of Israel, Samaria was taken. ¹¹ And the king of Assyria carried Israel away unto Assyria, and put them in Halah, and in Habor, [on] the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes: ¹² because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD their God, but transgressed his covenant, even all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded, and would not hear it, nor do it. ¹³ Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib king of Assyria come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them.

¹ In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years: then he turned and rebelled against him. ² And the LORD sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by the hand of his servants the prophets. ³ Surely at the commandment of the LORD came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did; ⁴ and also for the innocent blood that he shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood: and the LORD would not pardon. ⁵ Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? ⁶ So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead. ⁷ And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land: for the king of Babylon had taken, from the brook of Egypt unto the river Euphrates, all that pertained to the king of Egypt.

¹ And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it; and they built forts against it round about. ² So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah. ³ On the ninth day of the [fourth] month the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. ⁴ Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war [fled] by night by the way of the gate between the two walls, which was by the king’s garden: (now the Chaldeans were against the city round about:) and [the king] went by the way of the Arabah. ⁵ But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after the king, and overtook him in the plains of Jericho: and all his army was scattered from him. ⁶ Then they took the king, and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment upon him. ⁷ And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

²⁰ And Tilgath-pilneser king of Assyria came unto him, and distressed him, but strengthened him not.

¹ After these things, and this faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came, and entered into Judah, and encamped against the fenced cities, and thought to win them for himself. ² And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come, and that he was purposed to fight against Jerusalem, ³ he took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters of the fountains which were without the city; and they helped him. ⁴ So there was gathered much people together, and they stopped all the fountains, and the brook that flowed through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water? ⁵ And he took courage, and built up all the wall that was broken down, and raised it up to the towers, and the other wall without, and strengthened Millo [in] the city of David, and made weapons and shields in abundance. ⁶ And he set captains of war over the people, and gathered them together to him in the broad place at the gate of the city, and spake comfortably to them, saying, ⁷ Be strong and of a good courage, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king of Assyria, nor for all the multitude that is with him: for there is a greater with us than with him: ⁸ with him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the LORD our God to help us, and to fight our battles. And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah. ⁹ After this did Sennacherib king of Assyria send his servants to Jerusalem, (now he was before Lachish, and all his power with him,) unto Hezekiah king of Judah, and unto all Judah that were at Jerusalem, saying, ¹⁰ Thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, Whereon do ye trust, that ye abide the siege in Jerusalem? ¹¹ Doth not Hezekiah persuade you, to give you over to die by famine and by thirst, saying, The LORD our God shall deliver us out of the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹² Hath not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places and his altars, and commanded Judah and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall worship before one altar, and upon it shall ye burn incense? ¹³ Know ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the peoples of the lands? Were the gods of the nations of the lands any ways able to deliver their land out of mine hand? ¹⁴ Who was there among all the gods of those nations which my fathers utterly destroyed, that could deliver his people out of mine hand, that your God should be able to deliver you out of mine hand? ¹⁵ Now therefore let not Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you on this manner, neither believe ye him: for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of mine hand, and out of the hand of my fathers: how much less shall your God deliver you out of mine hand? ¹⁶ And his servants spake yet more against the LORD God, and against his servant Hezekiah. ¹⁷ He wrote also letters, to rail on the LORD, the God of Israel, and to speak against him, saying, As the gods of the nations of the lands which have not delivered their people out of mine hand, so shall not the God of Hezekiah deliver his people out of mine hand. ¹⁸ And they cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language unto the people of Jerusalem that were on the wall, to affright them, and to trouble them; that they might take the city. ¹⁹ And they spake of the God of Jerusalem, as of the gods of the peoples of the earth, which are the work of men’s hands. ²⁰ And Hezekiah the king, and Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz, prayed because of this, and cried to heaven. ²¹ And the LORD sent an angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and captains, in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew him there with the sword. ²² Thus the LORD saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria, and from the hand of all [other], and guided them on every side. ²³ And many brought gifts unto the LORD to Jerusalem, and precious things to Hezekiah king of Judah: so that he was exalted in the sight of all nations from thenceforth.

¹¹ Wherefore the LORD brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

¹ Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz the son of Josiah, and made him king in his father’s stead in Jerusalem. ² Joahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three mouths in Jerusalem. ³ And the king of Egypt deposed him at Jerusalem, and amerced the land in an hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. ⁴ And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and changed his name to Jehoiakim. And Neco took Joahaz his brother, and carried him to Egypt. ⁵ Jehoiakim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD his God. ⁶ Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon. ⁷ Nebuchadnezzar also carried of the vessels of the house of the LORD to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon. ⁸ Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and his abominations which he did, and that which was found in him, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead. ⁹ Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign; and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD. ¹⁰ And at the return of the year king Nebuchadnezzar sent, and brought him to Babylon, with the goodly vessels of the house of the LORD, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem. ¹¹ Zedekiah was twenty and one years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: ¹² and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD his God; he humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet [speaking] from the mouth of the LORD. ¹³ And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the LORD, the God of Israel. ¹⁴ Moreover all the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the heathen; and they polluted the house of the LORD which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. ¹⁵ And the LORD, the God of their fathers, sent to them by his messengers, rising up early and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: ¹⁶ but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy. ¹⁷ Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or ancient: he gave them all into his hand. ¹⁸ And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon. ¹⁹ And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. ²⁰ And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: ²¹ to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths [for] as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfill threescore and ten years. ²² Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and [put it] also in writing, saying, ²³ Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD, the God of heaven, given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whosoever there is among you of all his people, the LORD his God be with him, and let him go up.

¹⁷ The LORD shall bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father’s house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; [even] the king of Assyria. ¹⁸ And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. ¹⁹ And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all pastures. ²⁰ In that day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, [which is] in the parts beyond the River, [even] with the king of Assyria, the head and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard.

⁷ now therefore, behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the River, strong and many, [even] the king of Assyria and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks: ⁸ and he shall sweep onward into Judah; he shall overflow and pass through; he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.

⁵ Ho Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, the staff in whose hand is mine indignation!

¹ Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fenced cities of Judah and took them. ² And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field. ³ Then came forth unto him Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, which was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder. ⁴ And Rabshakeh said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, what confidence is this wherein thou trustest? ⁵ I say, [thy] counsel and strength for the war are but vain words: now on whom dost thou trust, that thou hast rebelled against me? ⁶ Behold, thou trustest upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust on him. ⁷ But if thou say unto me, We trust in the LORD our God: is not that he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar? ⁸ Now therefore, I pray thee, give pledges to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them. ⁹ How then canst thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? ¹⁰ And am I now come up without the LORD against this land to destroy it? The LORD said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it. ¹¹ Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and speak not to us in the Jews’ language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall. ¹² But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master, and to thee, to speak these words? [hath he] not [sent me] to the men that sit upon the wall, to eat their own dung, and to drink their own water with you? ¹³ Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, Hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. ¹⁴ Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you; for he shall not be able to deliver you: ¹⁵ neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely deliver us; this city shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. ¹⁶ Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern: ¹⁷ until I come and take you away to a laud like your own land, a land of corn and wine, a land of bread and vineyards. ¹⁸ Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The LORD will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? ¹⁹ Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim? and have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? ²⁰ Who are they among all the gods of these countries, that have delivered their country out of my hand, that the LORD should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? ²¹ But they held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king’s commandment was, saying, Answer him not. ²² Then came Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, that was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.

¹⁵ The young lions have roared upon him, and yelled: and they have made his land waste; his cities are burned up, without inhabitant.

⁷ A lion is gone up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations; he is on his way, he is gone forth from his place; to make thy land desolate, that thy cities be laid waste, without inhabitant.

⁶ Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities, every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their transgressions are many, [and] their backslidings are increased.

¹ Woe unto the shepherds that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD. ² Therefore thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, against the shepherds that feed my people: Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them; behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD.

¹ (IN the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and besieged it; ² in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city:) ³ that all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, even Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, Rab-saris, Nergal-sharezer, Rab-mag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon. ⁴ And it came to pass that when Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls: and he went out the way of the Arabah. ⁵ But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he gave judgment upon him. ⁶ Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. ⁷ Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon. ⁸ And the Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem.

¹⁹ Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the pride of Jordan against the strong habitation: but I will suddenly make him run away from her; and whoso is chosen, him will I appoint over her: for who is like me? and who will appoint me a time? and who is the shepherd that will stand before me?

⁶ My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place.

³⁸ They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as lions’ whelps.

¹ Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.

⁵ And they were scattered, because there was no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, and were scattered. ⁶ My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my sheep were scattered upon all the face of the earth; and there was none that did search or seek [after them].

¹² As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so will I seek out my sheep; and I will deliver them out of all places whither they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

²⁴ And the king commanded, and they brought those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces, or ever they came at the bottom of the den.

² I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.

³⁶ But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them, because they were distressed and scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd. ³⁷ Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few. ³⁸ Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth labourers into his harvest.

⁴ What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? ⁵ And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. ⁶ And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and his neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.

¹⁰ The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and destroy: I came that they may have life, and may have [it] abundantly. ¹¹ I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep. ¹² He that is a hireling, and not a shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, beholdeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf snatcheth them, and scattereth [them]:

¹² Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.

³⁶ And the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when men arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. ³⁷ So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. ³⁸ And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead.

³ Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs. ⁴ The waters nourished him, the deep made him to grow: her rivers ran round about her plantation; and she sent out her channels unto all the trees of the field. ⁵ Therefore his stature was exalted above all the trees of the field: and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long by reason of many waters, when he shot [them] forth. ⁶ All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt all great nations. ⁷ Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by many waters. ⁸ The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the plane trees were not as his branches; nor was any tree in the garden of God like unto him in his beauty. ⁹ I made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him. ¹⁰ Therefore thus said the Lord GOD: Because thou art exalted in stature, and he hath set his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height; ¹¹ I will even deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness. ¹² And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the watercourses of the land; and all the peoples of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him. ¹³ Upon his ruin all the fowls of the heaven shall dwell, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches: ¹⁴ to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves in their stature, neither set their top among the thick boughs, nor that their mighty ones stand up in their height, [even] all that drink water: for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit. ¹⁵ Thus saith the Lord GOD: In the day when he went down to hell I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the rivers thereof, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. ¹⁶ I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the nether parts of the earth. ¹⁷ They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain by the sword; yea, they that were his arm, [that] dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the nations.

¹ The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. ² The LORD is a jealous God and avengeth; the LORD avengeth and is full of wrath; the LORD taketh vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth [wrath] for his enemies. ³ The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means clear [the guilty]: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

¹³ And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like the wilderness. ¹⁴ And herds shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations: both the pelican and the porcupine shall lodge in the chapiters thereof: [their] voice shall sing in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds; for he hath laid bare the cedar work. ¹⁵ This is the joyous city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there is none else beside me: how is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! every one that passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand.

¹ Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle: and when they saw the land of Jazer, and the land of Gilead, that, behold, the place was a place for cattle;

¹⁵ And Joshua said unto them, If thou be a great people, get thee up to the forest, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim; since the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for thee.

⁵ Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Thy hair is as a flock of goats, that lie along the side of Gilead.

⁹ The land mourneth and languisheth: Lebanon is ashamed and withereth away: Sharon is like a desert; and Bashan and Carmel shake off [their leaves].

² It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing; the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon: they shall see the glory of the LORD, the excellency of our God.

⁹ And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and my chosen shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there. ¹⁰ And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me.

¹⁸ In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I gave for an inheritance unto your fathers.

³ And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and multiply.

⁶ For I will set mine eyes upon them for good, and I will bring them again to this land: and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. ⁷ And I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the LORD: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God: for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.

¹⁰ Therefore fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be quiet and at ease, and none shall make him afraid.

¹⁸ Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will turn again the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have compassion on his dwelling places; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof.

⁶ For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the hills of Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the LORD our God.

⁸ Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, [and] with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall they return hither.

¹⁴ And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the LORD.

²⁵ For I have satiated the weary soul, and every sorrowful soul have I replenished.

³⁷ Behold, I will gather them out of all the countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely:

⁷ And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as at the first. ⁸ And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, whereby they have sinned against me; and I will pardon all their iniquities, whereby they have sinned against me, and whereby they have transgressed against me. ⁹ And [this city] shall be to me for a name of joy, for a praise and for a glory, before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them, and shall fear and tremble for all the good and for all the peace that I procure unto it. ¹⁰ Thus saith the LORD: Yet again there shall be heard in this place, whereof ye say, It is waste, without man and without beast, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man and without inhabitant and without beast, ¹¹ the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that say, Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for his mercy [endureth] for ever: [and of them] that bring [sacrifices] of thanksgiving into the house of the LORD. For I will cause the captivity of the land to return as at the first, saith the LORD. ¹² Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Yet again shall there be in this place, which is waste, without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down.

⁴ In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together; they shall go on their way weeping, and shall seek the LORD their God. ⁵ They shall inquire concerning Zion with their faces thitherward, [saying], Come ye, and join yourselves to the LORD in an everlasting covenant that shall not be forgotten.

¹⁷ Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD: I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.

¹³ And I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them upon the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited places of the country. ¹⁴ I will feed them with good pasture, and upon the mountains of the height of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie down in a good fold, and on fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.

²⁴ For I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land.

³³ Thus saith the Lord GOD: In the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places shall be builded.

⁸ After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, that is gathered out of many peoples, upon the mountains of Israel, which have been a continual waste: but it is brought forth out of the peoples, and they shall dwell securely, all of them.

²⁵ Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Now will I bring again the captivity of Jacob, and have mercy upon the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for my holy name. ²⁶ And they shall bear their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they shall dwell securely in their land, and none shall make them afraid; ²⁷ when I have brought them again from the peoples, and gathered them out of their enemies’ lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations. ²⁸ And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, in that I caused them to go into captivity among the nations, and have gathered them unto their own land; and I will leave none of them any more there; ²⁹ neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.

¹⁴ And I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. ¹⁵ And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.

¹⁷ But in mount Zion there shall be those that escape, and it shall be holy; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. ¹⁸ And the house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble, and they shall burn among them, and devour them: and there shall not be any remaining to the house of Esau; for the LORD hath spoken it. ¹⁹ And they of the South shall possess the mount of Esau; and they of the lowland the Philistines and they shall possess the field of Ephraim, and the field of Samaria: and Benjamin [shall possess] Gilead. ²⁰ And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel, which are [among] the Canaanites, [shall possess] even unto Zarephath; and the captivity of Jerusalem, which is in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the South. ²¹ And saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the LORD’S.

¹⁴ Feed thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage, which dwell solitarily, in the forest in the midst of Carmel: let them feed in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old.

¹⁸ Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy.

²¹ He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, Neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel: The LORD his God is with him, And the shout of a king is among them.

¹² As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

⁹ Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

¹ And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit: ² And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;

²⁵ I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake; and I will not remember thy sins.

²² I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.

³⁴ and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.

¹⁴ so that none of the remnant of Judah, which are gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, shall escape or remain, that they should return into the land of Judah, to the which they have a desire to return to dwell there: for none shall return save such as shall escape.

⁴ In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together; they shall go on their way weeping, and shall seek the LORD their God.

¹⁹ He will turn again and have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot: and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

¹⁹ Repent ye therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord;

²⁶ Unto you first God, having raised up his Servant, sent him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.

¹⁶ And not as through one that sinned, [so] is the gift: for the judgment [came] of one unto condemnation, but the free gift [came] of many trespasses unto justification.

¹³ neither present your members unto sin [as] instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members [as] instruments of righteousness unto God.

³³ Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth; ³⁴ who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

⁶ But if it is by grace, it is no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace.

²⁶ and so all Israel shall be saved: even as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer; He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: ²⁷ And this is my covenant unto them, When I shall take away their sins.

¹⁰ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, And on their heart also will I write them: And I will be to them a God, And they shall be to me a people: ¹¹ And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen, And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: For all shall know me, From the least to the greatest of them. ¹² For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And their sins will I remember no more.

¹⁷ And their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. ¹⁸ Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.

¹⁵ And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote unto you;

¹⁴ And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, which came from the service of the war. ¹⁵ And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? ¹⁶ Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and so the plague was among the congregation of the LORD. ¹⁷ Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. ¹⁸ But all the women children, that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

³ Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

¹¹ It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And Samuel was wroth; and he cried unto the LORD all night. ¹² And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning; and it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a monument, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal. ¹³ And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed the commandment of the LORD. ¹⁴ And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear? ¹⁵ And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed. ¹⁶ Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on. ¹⁷ And Samuel said, Though thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the LORD anointed thee king over Israel; ¹⁸ and the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed. ¹⁹ wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst that which was evil in the sight of the LORD? ²⁰ And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. ²¹ But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the devoted things, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal. ²² And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. ²³ For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king. ²⁴ And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.

¹¹ And David said to Abishai, and to all his servants, Behold, my son, which came forth of my bowels, seeketh my life: how much more [may] this Benjamite now [do it]? let him alone, and let him curse; for the LORD hath bidden him.

²⁵ Am I now come up without the LORD against this place to destroy it? The LORD said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.

²³ Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD, the God of heaven, given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whosoever there is among you of all his people, the LORD his God be with him, and let him go up.

⁶ I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

²⁸ That saith of Cyrus, [He is] my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.

¹⁴ Assemble yourselves, all ye, and hear; which among them hath declared these things? The LORD hath loved him: he shall perform his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm [shall be on] the Chaldeans.

²² Behold, I will command, saith the LORD, and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire: and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.

¹⁰ Cursed be he that doeth the work of the LORD negligently, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood.

¹⁵ Shout against her round about; she hath submitted herself; her bulwarks are fallen, her walls are thrown down: for it is the vengeance of the LORD; take vengeance upon her; as she hath done, do unto her.

²³ the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, Pekod and Shoa and Koa, [and] all the Assyrians with them: desirable young men, governors and rulers all of them, princes and men of renown, all of them riding upon horses.

² A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam; besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease. ³ Therefore are my loins filled with anguish; pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman in travail: I am pained so that I cannot hear; I am dismayed so that I cannot see. ⁴ My heart panteth, horror hath affrighted me: the twilight that I desired hath been turned into trembling unto me.

¹⁹ My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart is disquieted in me; I cannot hold my peace; because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. ²⁰ Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, [and] my curtains in a moment. ²¹ How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?

⁵⁴ The sound of a cry from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! ⁵⁵ For the LORD spoileth Babylon, and destroyeth out of her the great voice; and their waves roar like many waters, the noise of their voice is uttered: ⁵⁶ for the spoiler is come upon her, even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows are broken in pieces: for the LORD is a God of recompences, he shall surely requite.

⁴ that thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! ⁵ The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, the sceptre of the rulers; ⁶ that smote the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, that ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that none restrained.

²⁰ Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: and with thee will I break in pieces the nations; and with thee will I destroy kingdoms; ²¹ and with thee will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and him that rideth therein; ²² and with thee will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces the old man and the youth; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the maid; ²³ and with thee will I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke [of oxen]; and with thee will I break in pieces governors and deputies. ²⁴ And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the LORD.

¹⁶ saying, Woe, woe, the great city, she that was arrayed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone and pearl!

³ And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? let my people go, that they may serve me.

⁴ [He is] wise in heart, and mighty in strength: who hath hardened himself against him, and prospered?

² Shall he that cavilleth contend with the Almighty? he that argueth with God, let him answer it.

⁹ Or hast thou an arm like God? and canst thou thunder with a voice like him?

¹² For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so, are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.

¹¹ And I will punish the world for [their] evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

³ Therefore are my loins filled with anguish; pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman in travail: I am pained so that I cannot hear; I am dismayed so that I cannot see. ⁴ My heart panteth, horror hath affrighted me: the twilight that I desired hath been turned into trembling unto me. ⁵ They prepare the table, they set the watch, they eat, they drink: rise up, ye princes, anoint the shield.

⁹ Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth! shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?

³¹ One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter: ³² and the passages are surprised, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted. ³³ For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for her. ³⁴ Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his maw with my delicates; he hath cast me out. ³⁵ The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and, My blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say. ³⁶ Therefore thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry. ³⁷ And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and an hissing, without inhabitant. ³⁸ They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as lions’ whelps. ³⁹ When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the LORD.

⁵⁷ And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

³⁰ In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. ³¹ And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.

⁴ he that opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God.

⁷ How much soever she glorified herself, and waxed wanton, so much give her of torment and mourning: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall in no wise see mourning. ⁸ Therefore in one day shall her plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God which judged her.

³ Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty one, thy glory and thy majesty.

⁵ Thine arrows are sharp; the peoples fall under thee; [they are] in the heart of the king’s enemies.

⁷ and when he seeth a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of asses, a troop of camels, he shall hearken diligently with much heed. ⁸ And he cried as a lion: O Lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the day-time, and am set in my ward whole nights: ⁹ and, behold, here cometh a troop of men, horsemen in pairs. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods are broken unto the ground.

¹⁰ declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not [yet] done; saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: ¹¹ calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country; yea, I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed, I will also do it.

¹⁴ Assemble yourselves, all ye, and hear; which among them hath declared these things? The LORD hath loved him: he shall perform his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm [shall be on] the Chaldeans. ¹⁵ I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous.

³⁵ A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the LORD, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men. ³⁶ A sword is upon the boasters, and they shall dote: a sword is upon her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed. ³⁷ A sword is upon their horse, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her, and they shall become as women: a sword is upon her treasures, and they shall be robbed. ³⁸ A drought is upon her waters, and they shall be dried up: for it is a land of graven images, and they are mad upon idols.

²⁰ Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: and with thee will I break in pieces the nations; and with thee will I destroy kingdoms;

⁵⁵ For the LORD spoileth Babylon, and destroyeth out of her the great voice; and their waves roar like many waters, the noise of their voice is uttered:

⁶ Shall the trumpet be blown in a city, and the people not be afraid? shalt evil befall a city, and the LORD hath not done it?

⁸ Therefore in one day shall her plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God which judged her.

²⁶ And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss for them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly:

²³ I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the LORD of hosts.

¹⁰ For in this mountain shall the hand of the LORD rest, and Moab shall be trodden down in his place, even as straw is trodden down in the water of the dunghill.

³ I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the peoples there was no man with me: yea, I trod them in mine anger, and trampled them in my fury; and their lifeblood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my raiment. ⁴ For the day of vengeance was in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.

¹⁰ And Chaldea shall be a spoil: all that spoil her shall be satisfied, saith the LORD.

¹³ Because of the wrath of the LORD it shall not be inhabited, but it shall be wholly desolate: every one that goeth by Babylon shall be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues.

²³ How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!

⁴¹ Behold, a people cometh from the north; and a great nation, and many kings shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth.

²⁵ Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the LORD, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain. ²⁶ And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the LORD.

¹⁰ Then mine enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her; which said unto me, Where is the LORD thy God? Mine eyes shall behold her; now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets.

¹⁹ And the angel cast his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vintage of the earth, and cast it into the winepress, the great [winepress], of the wrath of God.

¹⁵ And out of his mouth proceedeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God.

¹³ The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming.

⁷ And the wild-oxen shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be drunken with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.

⁴⁴ He that fleeth from the fear shall fall into the pit; and he that getteth up out of the pit shall be taken in the snare: for I will bring upon her, even upon Moab, the year of their visitation, saith the LORD.

³¹ Behold, I am against thee, O thou proud one, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts: for thy day is come, the time that I will visit thee.

⁵ Thus saith the Lord GOD: An evil, an only evil; behold, it cometh. ⁶ An end is come, the end is come, it awaketh against thee; behold, it cometh. ⁷ Thy doom is come unto thee, O inhabitant of the land: the time is come, the day is near; [a day of] tumult, and not [of] joyful shouting, upon the mountains.

¹⁷ And thou, son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD: Speak unto the birds of every sort, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink blood. ¹⁸ Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. ¹⁹ And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. ²⁰ And ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord GOD.

¹⁷ And the seventh poured out his bowl upon the air; and there came forth a great voice out of the temple, from the throne, saying, It is done: ¹⁸ and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunders; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since there were men upon the earth, so great an earthquake, so mighty. ¹⁹ And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.

¹⁰ standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

¹⁷ And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in mid heaven, Come [and] be gathered together unto the great supper of God;

⁶ [Let] the high praises of God [be] in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand; ⁷ To execute vengeance upon the nations, and punishments upon the peoples; ⁸ To bind their king’s with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; ⁹ To execute upon them the judgment written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.

¹⁰ The LORD hath brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us declare in Zion the work of the LORD our God. ¹¹ Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: the LORD hath stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; because his device is against Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance of his temple.

⁵⁰ Ye that have escaped the sword, go ye, stand not still; remember the LORD from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind. ⁵¹ We are ashamed, because we have heard reproach; confusion hath covered our faces: for strangers are come into the sanctuaries of the LORD’S house.

¹⁰ The adversary hath spread out his hand upon all her pleasant things: for she hath seen that the heathen are entered into her sanctuary, concerning whom thou didst command that they should not enter into thy congregation.

⁶ And he hath violently taken away his tabernacle, as if it were of a garden; he hath destroyed his place of assembly: the LORD hath caused solemn assembly and sabbath to be forgotten in Zion, and hath despised in the indignation of his anger the king and the priest. ⁷ The Lord hath cast off his altar, he hath abhorred his sanctuary, he hath given up into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces: they have made a noise in the house of the LORD, as in the day of a solemn assembly.

³ Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, drank in them. ⁴ They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. ⁵ In the same hour came forth the fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote.

²³ but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified:

² behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of reeling unto all the peoples round about, and upon Judah also shall it be in the siege against Jerusalem. ³ And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples; all that burden themselves with it shall be sore wounded; and all the nations of the earth shall be gathered together against it.

¹³ And thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north: ¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High.

²³ Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice and lifted up thine eyes on high? [even] against the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁰ For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness; thou hast said, None seeth me; thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee: and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and there is none else beside me.

¹⁴ Set yourselves in array against Babylon round about, all ye that bend the bow; shoot at her, spare no arrows: for she hath sinned against the LORD. ¹⁵ Shout against her round about; she hath submitted herself; her bulwarks are fallen, her walls are thrown down: for it is the vengeance of the LORD; take vengeance upon her; as she hath done, do unto her.

²⁴ I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the LORD.

³² And the proud one shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up: and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all that are round about him.

⁵⁶ for the spoiler is come upon her, even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows are broken in pieces: for the LORD is a God of recompences, he shall surely requite.

³⁷ Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.

³⁶ And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god, and shall speak marvelous things against the God of gods: and he shall prosper till the indignation be accomplished; for that which is determined shall be done.

⁵ and there was given to him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and there was given to him authority to continue forty and two months. ⁶ And he opened his mouth for blasphemies against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, [even] them that dwell in the heaven.

¹⁵ Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is taken shall fall by the sword. ¹⁶ Their infants also shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.

²¹ For death is come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from without, [and] the young men from the streets.

²¹ Therefore deliver up their children to the famine, and give them over to the power of the sword; and let their wives become childless, and widows; and let their men be slain of death, [and] their young men smitten of the sword in battle.

¹⁵ Moab is laid waste, and they are gone up into her cities; and his chosen young men are gone down to the slaughter, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

²⁶ Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall be brought to silence in that day, saith the LORD of hosts.

³⁶ A sword is upon the boasters, and they shall dote: a sword is upon her mighty men, and they shall be dismayed.

⁵⁶ for the spoiler is come upon her, even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows are broken in pieces: for the LORD is a God of recompences, he shall surely requite. ⁵⁷ And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

¹⁵ And the kings of the earth, and the princes, and the chief captains, and the rich, and the strong, and every bondman and freeman, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains;

¹⁸ that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of them that sit thereon, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, and small and great.

¹¹ Pour forth the overflowings of thine anger: and look upon every one that is proud, and abase him. ¹² Look on every one that is proud, [and] bring him low; and tread down the wicked where they stand.

¹³ Behold, I am against thee, O inhabitant of the valley, [and] of the rock of the plain, saith the LORD; ye which say, Who shall come down against us? or who shall enter into our habitations?

²⁹ We have heard of the pride of Moab, [that] he is very proud; his loftiness, and his pride, and his arrogancy, and the haughtiness of his heart.

¹⁶ As for thy terribleness, the pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill: though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the LORD;

⁸ therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I, even I, am against thee; and I will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations.

³ speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.

⁹ And the land of Egypt shall be a desolation and a waste; and they shall know that I am the LORD: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it. ¹⁰ therefore behold, I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and will make the land of Egypt an utter waste and desolation, from the tower of Seveneh even unto the border of Ethiopia.

³ and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal:

¹ And thou, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal:

³⁰ The king spake and said, Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty? ³¹ While the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, [saying], O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken: the kingdom is departed from thee.

¹³ Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions: and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard.

⁵ Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face; and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame.

⁴ Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith. ⁵ Yea, moreover, wine is a treacherous dealer, a haughty man, and that keepeth not at home; who enlargeth his desire as hell, and he is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all peoples.

⁶ But he giveth more grace. Wherefore [the scripture] saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.

⁵ Likewise, ye younger, be subject unto the elder. Yea, all of you gird yourselves with humility, to serve one another: for God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.

²² For a fire is kindled in mine anger, And burneth unto the lowest pit, And devoureth the earth with her increase, And setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains.

¹⁸ Pride [goeth] before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

¹² Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour [goeth] humility.

¹² Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. ¹³ For he hath said, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent: and I have removed the bounds of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures, and I have brought down as a valiant man them that sit [on thrones]: ¹⁴ and my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the peoples; and as one gathereth eggs that are forsaken, have I gathered all the earth: and there was none that moved the wing, or that opened the mouth, or chirped. ¹⁵ Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if a rod should shake them that lift it up, or as if a staff should lift up [him that is] not wood.

¹³ And thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north: ¹⁴ I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. ¹⁵ Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the uttermost parts of the pit.

¹⁴ And I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, saith the LORD: and I will kindle a fire in her forest, and it shall devour all that is round about her.

²⁷ And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad.

²⁶ And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the LORD.

² Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyre, Thus saith the Lord GOD: Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art man, and not God, though thou didst set thine heart as the heart of God: ³ behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee: ⁴ by thy wisdom and by thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures: ⁵ by thy great wisdom [and] by thy traffic hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches: ⁶ therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; ⁷ therefore behold, I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. ⁸ They shall bring thee down to the pit; and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain, in the heart of the seas. ⁹ Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou art man, and not God, in the hand of him that woundeth thee.

²⁰ But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened that he dealt proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him:

²³ but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy lords, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified: ²⁴ Then was the part of the hand sent from before him, and this writing was inscribed. ²⁵ And this is the writing that was inscribed, MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. ²⁶ This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God hath numbered thy kingdom, and brought it to an end. ²⁷ TEKEL; thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting. ²⁸ PERES; thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians. ²⁹ Then commanded Belshazzar, and they clothed Daniel with purple, and put a chain of gold about his neck, and made proclamation concerning him, that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom. ³⁰ In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain.

⁴ but I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad.

⁷ But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza, and it shall devour the palaces thereof:

¹⁰ but I will send a fire on the wall of Tyre, and it shall devour the palaces thereof.

¹² but I will send a fire upon Teman, and it shall devour the palaces of Bozrah.

¹⁴ But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbath and it shall devour the palaces thereof, with shouting in the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind:

² but I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth; and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet:

⁵ but I will send a fire upon Judah, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem.

² And Pharaoh said, Who is the LORD, that I should hearken unto his voice to let Israel go? I know not the LORD, and moreover I will not let Israel go.

² And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs:

² For if thou refuse to let them go, and wilt hold them still, ³ behold, the hand of the LORD is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon the horses, upon the asses, upon the camels, upon the herds, and upon the flocks: [there shall be] a very grievous murrain.

¹⁷ As yet exaltest thou thyself against my people, that thou wilt not let them go? ¹⁸ Behold, tomorrow about this time I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as hath not been in Egypt since the day it was founded even until now.

¹⁷ that made the world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof; that let not loose his prisoners to their home?

²⁴ Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captives be delivered? ²⁵ But thus saith the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered: for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children. ²⁶ And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I the LORD am thy saviour, and thy redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

²³ and I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; which have said to thy soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and thou hast laid thy back as the ground, and as the street, to them that go over.

⁴ For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there: and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause. ⁵ Now therefore, what do I here, saith the LORD, seeing that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them do howl, saith the LORD, and my name continually all the day is blasphemed. ⁶ Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore [they shall know] in that day that I am he that doth speak; behold, it is I.

⁶ Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

¹⁵ And ye were now turned, and had done that which is right in mine eyes, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbour; and ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name: ¹⁶ but ye turned and profaned my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom ye had let go free at their pleasure, to return; and ye brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids. ¹⁷ Therefore thus saith the LORD: Ye have not hearkened unto me, to proclaim liberty, every man to his brother, and every man to his neighbour: behold, I proclaim unto you a liberty, saith the LORD, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth. ¹⁸ And I will give the men that have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they made before me, when they cut the calf in twain and passed between the parts thereof;

¹⁷ Israel is a scattered sheep; the lions have driven him away: first the king of Assyria hath devoured him; and last this Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath broken his bones. ¹⁸ Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria;

³⁴ Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his maw with my delicates; he hath cast me out. ³⁵ The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and, My blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say. ³⁶ Therefore thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry.

¹⁵ And I am very sore displeased with the nations that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction. ¹⁶ Therefore thus saith the LORD: I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies; my house shall be built in it, saith the LORD of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth over Jerusalem.

⁶ Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am Jehovah, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:

¹ [A Psalm] of David. Strive thou, O LORD, with them that strive with me: fight thou against them that fight against me.

¹ Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation: O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man.

²³ For the LORD will plead their cause, and despoil of life those that despoil them.

¹¹ For their redeemer is strong; he shall plead their cause against thee.

³ And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy trouble, and from the hard service wherein thou wast made to serve, ⁴ that thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! ⁵ The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, the sceptre of the rulers; ⁶ that smote the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, that ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that none restrained. ⁷ The whole earth is at rest, [and] is quiet: they break forth into singing.

¹⁴ Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the LORD, and thy redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁴ Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring down all of them as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships of their rejoicing.

⁶ Thus saith the LORD, the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts: I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.

²³ Sing, O ye heavens, for the LORD hath done it; shout, ye lower parts of the earth; break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and will glorify himself in Israel. ²⁴ Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb: I am the LORD, that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth; who is with me?

⁴ Our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.

²² Thus saith thy Lord the LORD, and thy God that pleadeth the cause of his people, Behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of staggering, even the bowl of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again:

⁵ For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name: and the Holy One of Israel is thy redeemer; the God of the whole earth shall he be called.

²¹ And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible.

¹⁹ The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and [Israel] is the tribe of his inheritance: the LORD of hosts is his name.

¹⁰ Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and shalt dwell in the field, and shalt come even unto Babylon; there shalt thou be rescued; there shall the LORD redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.

⁹ I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him; until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, [and] I shall behold his righteousness.

⁶ if so be that it is a righteous thing with God to recompense affliction to them that afflict you, ⁷ and to you that are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power

¹ After these things I heard as it were a great voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, Hallelujah; Salvation, and glory, and power, belong to our God: ² for true and righteous are his judgments; for he hath judged the great harlot, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and he hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hand. ³ And a second time they say, Hallelujah. And her smoke goeth up for ever and ever.

²⁵ And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute the vengeance of the covenant; and ye shall be gathered together within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

¹¹ The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish; the counsel of the wisest counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish: how say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings? ¹² Where then are thy wise men? and let them tell thee now; and let them know what the LORD of hosts hath purposed concerning Egypt. ¹³ The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; they have caused Egypt to go astray, that are the corner stone of her tribes.

¹⁴ therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder: and the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid.

²⁵ that frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish:

¹³ Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels: let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from the things that shall come upon thee. ¹⁴ Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: it shall not be a coal to warm at, nor a fire to sit before.

¹⁶ For by fire will the LORD plead, and by his sword, with all flesh: and the slain of the LORD shall be many.

⁹ The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and what manner of wisdom is in them?

⁷ Who would not fear thee, O King of the nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is none like unto thee.

⁶ O thou sword of the LORD, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard; rest, and be still.

³⁰ Therefore shall her young men fall in her streets, and all her men of war shall be brought to silence in that day, saith the LORD.

³⁹ When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the LORD.

² And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

¹ Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. ² Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink therein.

⁷ The king cried aloud to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. The king spake and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and shew me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. ⁸ Then came in all the king’s wise men: but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation.

³⁰ In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain.

⁶ And the sword shall fall upon his cities, and shall consume his bars, and devour [them], because of their own counsels.

¹⁷ Woe to the worthless shepherd that leaveth the flock, the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.

³¹ And one told David, saying, Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, O LORD, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.

¹⁴ And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. For the LORD had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the LORD might bring evil upon Absalom.

¹⁶ And it came to pass, as he talked with him, that [the king] said unto him, Have we made thee of the king’s counsel? forbear; why shouldest thou be smitten? Then the prophet forbare, and said, I know that God hath determined to destroy thee, because thou hast done this, and hast not hearkened unto my counsel.

³⁰ I know his wrath, saith the LORD, that it is nought; his boastings have wrought nothing.

²² Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle, and spread out his wings against Bozrah: and the heart of the mighty men of Edom at that day shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.

³⁰ The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they remain in their strong holds; their might hath failed; they are become as women: her dwelling places are set on fire; her bars are broken.

³² and the passages are surprised, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted.

⁸ But Nineveh hath been from of old like a pool of water: yet they flee away; Stand, stand, [they cry]; but none looketh back.

⁷ And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?

¹³ Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women; the gates of thy land are set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire hath devoured thy bars.

¹⁷ Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy marshals as the swarms of grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are. ¹⁸ Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy worthies are at rest: thy people are scattered upon the mountains, and there is none to gather them.

⁹ [even he], whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, ¹⁰ and with all deceit of unrighteousness for them that are perishing; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. ¹¹ And for this cause God sendeth them a working of error, that they should believe a lie:

² through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies, branded in their own conscience as with a hot iron;

⁴ he is puffed up, knowing nothing, but doting about questionings and disputes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,

²⁰ And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought the signs in his sight, wherewith he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image: they twain were cast alive into the lake of fire that burneth with brimstone:

⁸ But for the fearful, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and fornicators, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part [shall be] in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death.

¹⁵ Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie.

⁷ Some [trust] in chariots, and some in horses: but we will make mention of the name of the LORD our God. ⁸ They are bowed down and fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright.

⁹ He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariots in the fire.

⁶ At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep.

¹⁶ It In that day shall Egypt be like unto women: and it shall tremble and fear because of the shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which he shaketh over it.

²⁰ and all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philistines, and Ashkelon, and Gaza, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod;

²⁴ and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the wilderness;

⁴¹ Kerioth is taken, and the strong holds are surprised, and the heart of the mighty men of Moab at that day shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.

²¹ and with thee will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and him that rideth therein;

⁵ Ethiopia, and Put, and Lud, and all the mingled people, and Cub, and the children of the land that is in league, shall fall with them by the sword.

²⁰ And ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord GOD.

² For the LORD bringeth again the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel: for the emptiers have emptied them out, and marred their vine branches. ³ The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet: the chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation, and the spears are shaken terribly. ⁴ The chariots rage in the streets, they justle one against another in the broad ways: the appearance of them is like torches, they run like the lightnings.

²² and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.

²⁷ that saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers:

¹ Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth; their idols are upon the beasts, and upon the cattle: the things that ye carried about are made a load, a burden to the weary [beast]. ² They stoop, they bow down together; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity. ³ Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which have been borne [by me] from the belly, which have been carried from the womb: ⁴ and even to old age I am he, and even to hoar hairs will I carry [you]: I have made, and I will bear; yea, I will carry, and will deliver. ⁵ To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like? ⁶ Such as lavish gold out of the bag, and weigh silver in the balance, they hire a goldsmith, and he maketh it a god; they fall down, yea, they worship. ⁷ They bear him upon the shoulder, they carry him, and set him in his place, and he standeth; from his place shall he not remove: yea, one shall cry unto him, yet can he not answer, nor save him out of his trouble.

² Declare ye among the nations and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is dismayed; her images are put to shame, her idols are dismayed.

¹² your mother shall be sore ashamed; she that bare you shall be confounded: behold, she shall be the hindermost of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.

⁷ Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’S hand; that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.

³² and the passages are surprised, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted. ³³ For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing-floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while, and the time of harvest shall come for her.

¹ Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits: he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. ² Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the satraps, the deputies, and the governors, the judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. ³ Then the satraps, the deputies, and the governors, the judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, were gathered together unto the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. ⁴ Then the herald cried aloud, to you it is commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, ⁵ that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up: ⁶ and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. ⁷ Therefore at that time, when all the peoples heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of music, all the peoples, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. ⁸ Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and brought accusation against the Jews. ⁹ They answered and said to Nebuchadnezzar the king, O king, live for ever. ¹⁰ Thou, O king, hast made a decree, that every man that shall hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image: ¹¹ and whoso falleth not down and worshippeth, shall be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. ¹² There are certain Jews whom thou hast appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. ¹³ Then Nebuchadnezzar in [his] rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Then they brought these men before the king. ¹⁴ Nebuchadnezzar answered and said unto them, Is it of purpose, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, that ye serve not my god, nor worship the golden image which I have set up? ¹⁵ Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made, [well]: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? ¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer thee in this matter. ¹⁷ If it be [so], our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. ¹⁸ But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. ¹⁹ Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego: [therefore] he spake, and commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times more than it was wont to be heated. ²⁰ And he commanded certain mighty men that were in is army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, [and] to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. ²¹ Then these men were bound in their hosen, their tunics, and their mantles, and their [other] garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. ²² Therefore because the king’s commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. ²³ And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. ²⁴ Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste: he spake and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. ²⁵ He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the aspect of the fourth is like a son of the gods. ²⁶ Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace: he spake and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, ye servants of the Most High God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, came forth out of the midst of the fire. ²⁷ And the satraps, the deputies, and the governors, and the king’s counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, that the fire had no power upon their bodies, nor was the hair of their head singed, neither were their hosen changed, nor had the smell of fire passed on them. ²⁸ Nebuchadnezzar spake and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king’s word, and have yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God. ²⁹ Therefore I make a decree, that every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dung-hill: because there is no other god that is able to deliver after this sort. ³⁰ Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, in the province of Babylon.

⁴ They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

¹⁸ What profiteth the graven image, that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and the teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols? ¹⁹ Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise! Shall this teach? Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it.

¹⁶ Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him, as he beheld the city full of idols.

¹² And the sixth poured out his bowl upon the great river, the [river] Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way might be made ready for the kings that [come] from the sunrising.

¹⁵ And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the harlot sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. ¹⁶ And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her utterly with fire.

¹¹ But the pelican and the porcupine shall possess it; and the owl and the raven shall dwell therein: and he shall stretch over it the line of confusion, and the plummet of emptiness. ¹² They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all her princes shall be nothing. ¹³ And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and thistles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of jackals, a court for ostriches. ¹⁴ And the wild beasts of the desert shall meet with the wolves, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, the night-monster shall settle there, and shall find her a place of rest. ¹⁵ There shall the arrowsnake make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow: yea, there shall the kites be gathered, every one with her mate. ¹⁶ Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall be missing, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it hath commanded, and his spirit it hath gathered them. ¹⁷ And he hath cast the lot for them, and his hand hath divided it unto them by line: they shall possess it for ever, from generation to generation shall they dwell therein.

³⁷ And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and an hissing, without inhabitant. ³⁸ They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as lions’ whelps.

²⁴ Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; ²⁵ and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

²³ [and that] the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, [and] a burning, [that] it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:

¹⁹ And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. ²⁰ It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there.

¹⁸ As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the LORD, no man shall dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein.

⁸ How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? [how] shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? [how] shall I set thee as Zeboim? mine heart is turned within me, my compassions are kindled together. ⁹ I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city.

¹¹ I have overthrown [some] among you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a brand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

⁹ Therefore as I live, saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, a possession of nettles, and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my nation shall inherit them.

²⁸ Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; ²⁹ but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all: ³⁰ after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed.

⁶ and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, having made them an example unto those that should live ungodly;

⁷ Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in like manner with these given themselves over to fornication, and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.

⁸ And their dead bodies [lie] in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

⁸ Therefore in one day shall her plagues come, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God which judged her. ⁹ And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived wantonly with her, shall weep and wail over her, when they look upon the smoke of her burning,

²² Thus saith the LORD, Behold, a people cometh from the north country; and a great nation shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. ²³ They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea, and they ride upon horses; every one set in array, as a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Zion.

¹⁴ For many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of them, even of them: and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the work of their hands.

² Declare ye among the nations and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach is dismayed; her images are put to shame, her idols are dismayed. ³ For out of the north there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they are fled, they are gone, both man and beast.

¹ Thus saith the LORD: Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in Lebkamai, a destroying wind. ² And I will send unto Babylon strangers, that shall fan her; and they shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about.

² Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change, and though the mountains be moved in the heart of the seas; ³ Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah

⁶ The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted.

²⁰ Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of violence.

³⁰ And they shall roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea: and if one look unto the land, behold darkness [and] distress, and the light is darkened in the clouds thereof.

⁶ that smote the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, that ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that none restrained.

¹⁶ The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan: at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones the whole land trembleth; for they are come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it; the city and those that dwell therein.

³ At the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his strong ones, at the rushing of his chariots, at the rumbling of his wheels, the fathers look not back to their children for feebleness of hands;

⁶ For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation; which march through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. ⁷ They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. ⁸ Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves; and their horsemen spread themselves: yea, their horsemen come from far; they fly as an eagle that hasteth to devour.

¹⁴ And the armies which are in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white [and] pure. ¹⁵ And out of his mouth proceedeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God. ¹⁶ And he hath on his garment and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. ¹⁷ And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in mid heaven, Come [and] be gathered together unto the great supper of God; ¹⁸ that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of them that sit thereon, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, and small and great.

⁶ Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; as destruction from the Almighty shall it come. ⁷ Therefore shall all hands be feeble, and every heart of man shall melt: ⁸ and they shall be dismayed; pangs and sorrows shall take hold [of them]; they shall be in pain as a woman in travail: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces [shall be] faces of flame.

²⁴ Damascus is waxed feeble, she turneth herself to flee, and trembling hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail.

⁵ In the same hour came forth the fingers of a man’s hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king’s palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. ⁶ Then the king’s countenance was changed in him, and his thoughts troubled him; and the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.

¹¹ Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders?

⁵ and he spake unto Korah and unto all his company, saying, In the morning the LORD will shew who are his, and who is holy, and will cause him to come near unto him: even him whom he shall choose will he cause to come near unto him.

¹⁰ None is so fierce that he dare stir him up: who then is he that can stand before me? ¹¹ Who hath first given unto me, that I should repay him? [whatsoever is] under the whole heaven is mine.

⁶ For who in the skies can be compared unto the LORD? who among the sons of the mighty is like unto the LORD,

⁸ O LORD God of hosts, who is a mighty one, like unto thee, O JAH? and thy faithfulness is round about thee.

¹⁸ To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him?

²⁵ To whom then will ye liken me, that I should be equal [to him]? saith the Holy One.

¹⁰ Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he; before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.

⁹ Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; [I am] God, and there is none like me;

¹¹ calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country; yea, I have spoken, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed, I will also do it.

¹⁹ Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the pride of Jordan against the strong habitation: but I will suddenly make him run away from her; and whoso is chosen, him will I appoint over her: for who is like me? and who will appoint me a time? and who is the shepherd that will stand before me? ²⁰ Therefore hear ye the counsel of the LORD, that he hath taken against Edom; and his purposes, that he hath purposed against the inhabitants of Teman: Surely they shall drag them away, [even] the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make their habitation desolate with them. ²¹ The earth trembleth at the noise of their fall; there is a cry, the noise whereof is heard in the Red Sea.

¹⁰ The LORD bringeth the counsel of the nations to nought: he maketh the thoughts of the peoples to be of none effect. ¹¹ The counsel of the LORD standeth fast for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.

²⁴ The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: ²⁵ that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulder. ²⁶ This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. ²⁷ For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?

¹⁰ For though ye had smitten the whole army of the Chaldeans that fight against you, and there remained but wounded men among them, yet should they rise up every man in his tent, and burn this city with fire.

²⁰ Therefore hear ye the counsel of the LORD, that he hath taken against Edom; and his purposes, that he hath purposed against the inhabitants of Teman: Surely they shall drag them away, [even] the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make their habitation desolate with them.

²⁸ to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel foreordained to come to pass.

¹¹ in whom also we were made a heritage, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will;

¹⁶ And the ten horns which thou sawest, and the beast, these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and shall burn her utterly with fire. ¹⁷ For God did put in their hearts to do his mind, and to come to one mind, and to give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God should be accomplished.

⁹ Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. ¹⁰ All they shall answer and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?

²¹ The earth trembleth at the noise of their fall; there is a cry, the noise whereof is heard in the Red Sea.

¹⁸ Now shall the isles tremble in the day of thy fall; yea, the isles that are in the sea shall be dismayed at thy departure.

¹⁶ I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the nether parts of the earth.

¹⁰ Yea, I will make many peoples amazed at thee, and their kings shall be horribly afraid for thee, when I shall brandish my sword before them; and they shall tremble at every moment, every man for his own life, in the day of thy fall.

⁹ And the kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived wantonly with her, shall weep and wail over her, when they look upon the smoke of her burning, ¹⁰ standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ¹¹ And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn over her, for no man buyeth their merchandise any more; ¹² merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stone, and pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet; and all thyine wood, and every vessel of ivory, and every vessel made of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble; ¹³ and cinnamon, and spice, and incense, and ointment, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and cattle, and sheep; and [merchandise] of horses and chariots and slaves; and souls of men. ¹⁴ And the fruits which thy soul lusted after are gone from thee, and all things that were dainty and sumptuous are perished from thee, and [men] shall find them no more at all. ¹⁵ The merchants of these things, who were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and mourning; ¹⁶ saying, Woe, woe, the great city, she that was arrayed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone and pearl! ¹⁷ for in one hour so great riches is made desolate. And every shipmaster, and every one that saileth any whither, and mariners, and as many as gain their living by sea, stood afar off, ¹⁸ and cried out as they looked upon the smoke of her burning, saying, What [city] is like the great city? ¹⁹ And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and mourning, saying, Woe, woe, the great city, wherein were made rich all that had their ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.