Isaiah 5:4–12

³⁷O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

³O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me.

⁴For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

⁵¹¶ Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.

⁵²Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers:

⁵³Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.

⁵⁴¶ When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth.

⁵⁵But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,

⁵⁶And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.

⁵⁷Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord,

⁵⁸And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul.

⁵⁹And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.

⁶⁰And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep.

⁵¶ Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?

¹³In thy filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee.

⁵¶ Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

³⁰In vain have I smitten your children; they received no correction: your own sword hath devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

³¹¶ O generation, see ye the word of the Lord. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? wherefore say my people, We are lords; we will come no more unto thee?

²⁹The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away.

³⁰Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them.

¹⁴¶ Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.

¹⁵And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place:

¹⁶But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.

¹⁸¶ And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.

¹⁵The Lord hath trodden under foot all my mighty men in the midst of me: he hath called an assembly against me to crush my young men: the Lord hath trodden the virgin, the daughter of Judah, as in a winepress.

²⁴And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

⁴⁹The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;

⁵⁰A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favour to the young:

⁵¹And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee.

⁵²And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.

⁴And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

⁷Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

⁶I will send him against an hypocritical 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.

³The crown of pride, the drunkards of Ephraim, shall be trodden under feet:

²But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.

⁴And the king of Egypt made Eliakim his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem, and turned his name to Jehoiakim. And Necho took Jehoahaz 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.

⁶Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.

⁷Nebuchadnezzar also carried of the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babylon, and put them in his temple at Babylon.

⁸Now 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.

¹⁰And when the year was expired, 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.

¹³¶ Then I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that certain saint which spake, How long shall be the vision concerning the daily sacrifice, and the transgression of desolation, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden under foot?

¹⁰For in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under him, even as straw is trodden down for the dunghill.

¹⁰Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof.

¹¹When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour.

²She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies.

³Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits.

⁴The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

⁵Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy.

⁶And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.

⁷Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.

⁸Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.

⁹Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O Lord, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.

¹²The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

³¹And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.

³²And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.

³³And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

³⁴Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.

³⁵As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

¹O GOD, why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture?

²Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed; this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt.

³Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary.

⁴Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs.

⁵A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees.

⁶But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers.

⁷They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground.

⁸They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.

⁹We see not our signs: there is no more any prophet: neither is there among us any that knoweth how long.

¹⁰O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?

¹²Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her?

¹³The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.

¹⁴Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine;

¹⁵And the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself.

¹⁶It is burned with fire, it is cut down: they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance.

³And said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?

²³And it shall come to pass in that day, that every place shall be, where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silverlings, it shall even be for briers and thorns.

²⁴With arrows and with bows shall men come thither; because all the land shall become briers and thorns.

²⁵And on all hills that shall be digged with the mattock, there shall not come thither the fear of briers and thorns: but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of lesser cattle.

¹¹And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

¹BEHOLD, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.

²And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.

³The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word.

¹AND Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.

¹⁹And 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.

²⁰And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia:

²¹To fulfil 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 fulfil threescore and ten years.

⁷And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered.

²³And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron.

²⁴The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.

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

⁶If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.

⁷For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God:

⁸But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.

⁴For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim:

¹²In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction.

²³Then shall he give the rain of thy seed, that thou shalt sow the ground withal; and bread of the increase of the earth, and it shall be fat and plenteous: in that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures.

¹³Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city:

¹⁴Because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks;

⁹In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, Of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.

¹⁰Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.

¹¹Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,

¹²And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.

¹THE word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth.

²²Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not thou he, O Lord our God? therefore we will wait upon thee: for thou hast made all these things.

⁴¶ Thus shalt thou say unto him, The Lord saith thus; Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up, even this whole land.

³³And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

³⁴Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.

³⁵As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

²⁴And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.

⁶These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.

¹⁶¶ And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.

¹⁷And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.

⁸Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it.

⁹Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land.

¹⁰The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars.

¹¹She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river.

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.

¹⁰Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.

⁸Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:

⁹And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

¹⁰And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

⁸Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.

⁹Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

¹⁰Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

¹¹And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

⁹Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee.

⁷¶ And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

⁶From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

¹⁴The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

¹⁷Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts.

²And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

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

⁷Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

⁸¶ Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy rereward.

⁵¶ For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.

³⁸If my land cry against me, or that the furrows likewise thereof complain;

³⁹If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life:

²⁸So that they cause the cry of the poor to come unto him, and he heareth the cry of the afflicted.

²Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

⁷And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?

²³Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

⁸He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

¹AND there was a great cry of the people and of their wives against their brethren the Jews.

²For there were that said, We, our sons, and our daughters, are many: therefore we take up corn for them, that we may eat, and live.

³Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth.

⁴There were also that said, We have borrowed money for the king’s tribute, and that upon our lands and vineyards.

⁵Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and vineyards.

¹³Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.

¹¹The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.

⁴For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people: he will beautify the meek with salvation.

¹⁵And the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that thou madest strong for thyself.

⁶How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!

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.

¹²Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts.

¹³Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts:

¹⁴But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them, that no man passed through nor returned: for they laid the pleasant land desolate.

¹⁷The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

²³¶ And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.

²⁴And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

²¹¶ Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

²²¶ Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child.

²³If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry;

²⁴And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.

²⁵¶ If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.

²⁶If thou at all take thy neighbour’s raiment to pledge, thou shalt deliver it unto him by that the sun goeth down:

²⁷For that is his covering only, it is his raiment for his skin: wherein shall he sleep? and it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious.

¹⁰And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.

⁷Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.

⁸He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

²And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

⁹¶ Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil!

¹⁰Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul.

¹¹For 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¶ Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbour’s service without wages, and giveth him not for his work;

¹⁴That saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is cieled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.

¹⁵Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him?

¹⁶He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me? saith the Lord.

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.

¹⁶And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:

¹⁷And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?

¹⁸And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.

¹⁹And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

²⁰But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

²¹So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

²²¶ And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.

²³The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.

²⁴Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?

¹⁶And it came to pass, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.

¹⁷¶ And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,

¹⁸Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, which is in Samaria: behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it.

¹⁹And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.

²⁰And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹⁵Son of man, thy brethren, even thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and all the house of Israel wholly, are they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the Lord: unto us is this land given in possession.

²⁴Son of man, they that inhabit those wastes of the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance.

¹³¶ But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

³⁸Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

⁷Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.

¹¹Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

¹⁴And it was revealed in mine ears by the Lord of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord God of hosts.

²¹To fulfil 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 fulfil threescore and ten years.

¹¹For, behold, the Lord commandeth, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts.

¹⁰Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilderness: there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and consume the branches thereof.

⁶And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

¹¹Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate,

¹²And the Lord have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.

⁷But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.

²⁶And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.

⁶Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.

¹⁶Since those days were, when one came to an heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the pressfat for to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty.

⁹Ye looked for much, and, lo, it came to little; and when ye brought it home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the Lord of hosts. Because of mine house that is waste, and ye run every man unto his own house.

¹⁰Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed from her fruit.

¹¹And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon that which the ground bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labour of the hands.

¹⁰Ye shall have just balances, and a just ephah, and a just bath.

¹¹The ephah and the bath shall be of one measure, that the bath may contain the tenth part of an homer, and the ephah the tenth part of an homer: the measure thereof shall be after the homer.

¹⁷The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the corn is withered.

¹⁶And if a man shall sanctify unto the Lord some part of a field of his possession, then thy estimation shall be according to the seed thereof: an homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver.

²⁹Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes?

³⁰They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.

¹³Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.

¹WINE is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.

²²Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:

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

¹⁷Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!

⁷¶ But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.

⁸For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean.

¹⁰Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

⁶Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

⁷For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.

²¹Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

¹⁵¶ Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness!

⁵In the day of our king the princes have made him sick with bottles of wine; he stretched out his hand with scorners.

⁶For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire.

¹WOE to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading flower, which are on the head of the fat valleys of them that are overcome with wine!

³⁴¶ And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

³²At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.

⁵Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up.

⁴That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;

⁵That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David;

⁶That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

¹¹They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.

¹²They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.

¹³They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.

¹⁴Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.

²⁷Because they turned back from him, and would not consider any of his ways:

²³But 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:

¹²These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

¹BELSHAZZAR the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand.

²Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein.

³Then 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 princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them.

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

²⁷Wherefore didst thou flee away secretly, and steal away from me; and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away with mirth, and with songs, with tabret, and with harp?

¹⁰For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase: because they have left off to take heed to the Lord.

¹¹Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.

¹³And behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die.

¹⁹That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!

¹⁹¶ There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

⁵O Lord, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep.

⁶A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this.