Isaiah 3:4–5

¹⁶¶ Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning!

⁷And now, O Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father: and I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in.

⁸And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen, a great people, that cannot be numbered nor counted for multitude.

⁹Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?

¹MANASSEH was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem:

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.

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.

¹JOSIAH was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem one and thirty years.

¹¹¶ Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned eleven years in Jerusalem.

²Jehoahaz was twenty and three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.

³And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the Lord.

⁴Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.

⁵And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

⁶Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the Lord.

⁷Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?

⁸Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in heart he layeth his wait.

⁵And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.

²³¶ And he went up from thence unto Beth-el: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

⁵¶ And when king David came to Bahurim, behold, thence came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera: he came forth, and cursed still as he came.

⁶And he cast stones at David, and at all the servants of king David: and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left.

⁷And thus said Shimei when he cursed, Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial:

⁸The Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose stead thou hast reigned; and the Lord hath delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son: and, behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man.

⁹¶ Then said Abishai the son of Zeruiah unto the king, Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? let me go over, I pray thee, and take off his head.

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

⁵There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as an error which proceedeth from the ruler:

⁶Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place.

⁷I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.

¹²In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbours by extortion, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God.

⁶Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their power to shed blood.

⁷In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.

⁴Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.

¹³The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim.

¹⁹Through the wrath of the Lord of hosts is the land darkened, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother.

²⁰And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm:

²¹Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

⁶But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?

⁴Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

¹⁷But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.

¹BUT now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.

²Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished?

³For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.

⁴Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.

⁵They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;)

⁶To dwell in the clifts of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks.

⁷Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.

⁸They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.

⁹And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.

¹⁰They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face.

¹¹Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me.

¹²Upon my right hand rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction.

³²¶ Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord.

⁶⁴And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?

⁶⁵And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say unto him, Prophesy: and the servants did strike him with the palms of their hands.

⁶⁷Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands,

²⁸And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.

²⁹¶ And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!

³⁰And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head.

¹AND I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment?

²Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;

³Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.

¹¹The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us.

⁹Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother:

¹⁰And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.

¹¹But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.

³¶ That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up.

⁴The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.

⁵¶ Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.

⁶For the son dishonoureth the father, the daughter riseth up against her mother, the daughter in law against her mother in law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.