Because thou hast destroyed thy country, thou hast slain thy

people:

The seed of evil doers shall never be renowned.

21 Prepare ye slaughter for his children, for the iniquity of their fathers;

Lest they rise, and possess the earth; and fill the face of the world with cities.

22 For I will arise against them, saith JEHOVAH God of Hosts: And I will cut off from Babylon the name, and the remnant; And the son, and the son's son, saith JEHOVAH.

23 And I will make it an inheritance for the porcupine, and pools of water;

24

And I will plunge it in the miry gulph of destruction, saith JEHOVAH God of Hosts.

JEHOVAH God of Hosts hath sworn, saying:

Surely as I have devised, so shall it be;

And as I have purposed, that thing shall stand:

25 To crush the Assyrian in my land, and to trample him on my

mountains,

Then shall his yoke depart from off them;

And his burthen shall be removed from off their shoulder. 26 This is the decree, which is determined on the whole earth; And this the hand, which is stretched out over all the nations 27 For JEHOVAH God of Hosts hath decreed; and who shall dişannul it ?

:

And it is his hand, that is stretched out; and who shall turn it back ?

28

29

IN THE YEAR, IN WHICH AHAZ THE KING DIED, THIS

ORACLE WAS DELIVERED.

REJOICE not, O Philistia, with one consent,

Because the rod, that smote thee, is broken:

For from the root of the serpent shall come forth a basilisk
And his fruit shall be a flying fiery serpent.

30 For the poor shall feed on my choice first-fruits;
And the needy shall lie down in security:
But he will kill thy root with drought;
And thy remnant he will slay.

$1

Howl, O gate; cry out, O city!

O Philistia, thou art altogether sunk in consternation!
For from the north cometh a smoke

;

And there shall not be a straggler among his levies.

32 And what answer shall be given to the ambassadors of the nations ?

That JEHOVAH hath laid the foundation of Sion;

And the poor of his people shall take refuge in her.

CHAP. XV.

1 THE ORACLE CONCERNING MOAB.

BECAUSE in the night Ar is destroyed, Moab is undone! Because in the night Kir is destroyed, Moab is undone ! 2 He goeth up to Beth-Dibon, to the high-places to weep: Over Nebo, and over Medeba, shall Moab howl:

On every head there is baldness; every beard is shorn. 3 In her streets they gird themselves with sackcloth : On her house tops, and to her open places,

Every one howleth, descendeth with weeping. 4 And Heshbon and Elealeh cry out aloud; Unto Jahats is their voice heard:

Yea the very loins of Moab cry out;
Her life is grievous unto her.

5 The heart of Moab crieth within her;

To Tsoar [she crieth out] like the lowing of a young heifer: Yea the ascent of Luhith with weeping shall they ascend; Yea in the way of Horonaim they raise a cry of destruction. 6 For the waters of Nimrim shall become desolate :

For the pasture is withered, the tender plant faileth, the green herb is no more.

7 Wherefore the riches, which they have gained, shall perish; And what they have deposited, to the valley of willows shall be. carried away.

8 For the cry encompasseth the border of Moab :

To Eglaim reacheth her moan; and to Beer-Elim her howling. 9 Yea the waters of Dimon are full of blood:

Yet will I bring more evils upon Dimon;

Upon the escaped of Moab and Ariel, and the remnant of Admah,

CHAP. XVI. 1 I will send forth the son of the ruler of the land, From Selah of the desert to the mount of the daughter of Sion 2 And as wandering birds, driven from the nest,

So shall be the daughters of Moab at the fords of Arnon. 3 Impart counsel; interpose with equity;

Make thy shadow as the night in the midst of noon-day.
Hide the outcasts; discover not the fugitive.

4 Let the outcasts of Moab sojourn with thee, [O Sion ;]
Be thou to them a covert from the destroyer.

For the oppressor is no more, the destroyer ceaseth; He that trampled you under foot is perished from the land. 5 And the throne shall be established in mercy,

And in truth shall one sit theron ;

In the tabernacle of David a judge;

Carefully searching out the right, and despatching justice. 6 We have heard the pride of Moab ; he is very proud;

His haughtiness, and his pride, and his anger: vain are his lies. 7 Therefore shall Moab lament aloud;

For the whole people of Moab shall he lament; For the men of Kirhares shall ye make a moan. 8 For the fields of Heshbon are put to shame; The vine of Sibmah languisheth,

Whose generous shoots overpowered the mighty Lords of the nations;

They reached unto Jazer; they strayed to the desert;

Her branches extended themselves, they passed over the sea. 9 Wherefore I will weep, as with the weeping of Jazer, for the vine of Sibmah 1;

I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh! For upon thy summer fruits, and upon thy vintage, the destroy, er hath fallen.

10 And joy and gladness is taken away from the fruitful field; And in the vineyards they shall not sing, they shall not shout; In the vats the treader shall not tread out the wine;

An end is put to the shouting.

11 Wherefore my bowels for Moab like a harp shall sound; And mine entrails for Kirhares.

12

And it shall be when Moab shall see,

That he hath wearied himself out on the high place,
That he shall enter his sanctuary,

To intercede but he shall not prevail.

13 This is the word, which JEHOVAH spake concerning
14 Moab long ago; but now JEHOVAH hath spoken, saying:
After three years, as the years of an hireling,

The glory of Moab shall be debased, in all his great multitude;

And the remnant shall be few, small, and without strength.

CHAP. XVII.

1 THE ORACLE CONCERNING DAMASCUS.

BEHOLD Damascus is removed, so as to be no more a city: It shall even become a ruinous heap.

2 The cities are deserted for ever:

They shall be given up to the flocks,

And they shall lie down, and none shall scare them away. 3 And the fortress shall cease from Ephraim,

And the kingdom from Damascus :

And the pride of Syria shall be as the glory of the sons of Israel; Saith JEHOVAH the God of hosts.

4 And it shall come to pass in that day,

The glory of Jacob shall be diminished,

And the fatness of his flesh shall become lean.

5 And it shall be, as when one gathereth the standing harvest, And his arm reapeth the ears of corn:

Or as when one gleaneth ears in the valley of Rephaim.

6 A gleaning shall be left in it, as in the shaking of the olive tree; Two or three berries on the top of the uppermost bough; Four or five on the straggling fruitful branches;

Saith JEHOVAH the God of Israel.

7 In that day shall a man regard his Maker,

And toward the Holy One of Israel shall his eyes look:

8 And he shall not regard the altars dedicated to the work of his hands;

And what his fingers have made, he shall not respect;

Nor the groves, nor the solar statues.

9 In that day shall his strongly fenced cities become

Like the desertion of the Hivites and the Amorites,

When they deserted the land before the face of the sons of Israel;
And the land shall become a desolation.

10 Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation,
And hast not remembered the rock of thy strength;
Therefore, when thou shalt have planted pleasant plants,
And shalt have set shoots from a foreign soil;

11 In the day when thou shalt have made thy plants to grow,

12

And in the morning, when thou shalt have made thy shoots to

spring forth:

Even in the day of possession shall the harvest be taken away. And there shall be sorrow without hope.

WO to the multitude of the numerous peoples, Who make a sound like the sound of the seas:

And to the roaring of the nations,

Who make a roaring like the roaring of mighty waters. 13 Like the roaring of mighty waters do the nations roar; But He shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far away; And they shall be driven like the chaff of the hills before the

wind,

And like the gossamer before the whirlwind,

14 At the season of evening, behold terror!
Before the morning, and he is no more!
This is the portion of those that spoil us ;
And the lot of those that plunder us.

CHAP. XVIII. 1 HO! to the land of the winged cymbal,
Which borders on the rivers of Cush;

2 Which sendeth ambassadors on the sea:

And in vessels of papyrus on the face of the waters.
Go, ye swift messengers,

To a nation stretched out in length and smoothed;
To a people terrible from the first, and hitherto ;
A nation meted out by line, and trodden down;
Whose land the rivers have nourished.

3 Yea, all ye that inhabit the world, and that dwell on the earth,
When the standard is lifted up on the mountains, behold!
And when the trumpet is sounded, hear!

4 For thus hath JEHOVAH said unto me:

I will sit still, and regard my fixed habitation;
Like the clear heat after rain,

Like the dewy cloud in the day of harvest.

5 Surely before the vintage, when the bud is perfect : And the blossom is become a swelling grape ;

He shall cut off the shoots with pruning hooks,

And the branches he shall take away, he shall cut down,

6 They shall be left together to the rapacious bird of the moun

tains ;

And to the wild beasts of the earth :