For behold the sovereign Lord of hosts shall take away from Jerusalem, and from Juda the valiant and the strong, the whole strength of bread, and the whole strength of water.

²The strong man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet and the cunning man, and the ancient.

³The captain over fifty, and the honourable in countenance, and the counsellor, and the architect, and the skilful in eloquent speech.

⁴And I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate shall rule over them.

⁵And the people shall rush one upon another, and every man against his neighbour: the child shall make a tumult against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.

⁶For a man shall take hold of his brother, one of the house of his father, saying: Thou hast a garment, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand.

⁷In that day he shall answer, saying: I am no healer, and in my house there is no bread, nor clothing: make me not ruler of the people.

⁸For Jerusalem is ruined, and Juda is fallen: because their tongue, and their devices are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his majesty.

⁹The shew of their countenance hath answered them: and they have proclaimed abroad their sin as Sodom, and they have not hid it: woe to their souls, for evils are rendered to them.

¹⁰Say to the just man that it is well, for he shall eat the fruit of his doings.

¹¹Woe to the wicked unto evil: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.

¹²As for my people, their oppressors have stripped them, and women have ruled over them. O my people, they that call thee blessed, the same deceive thee, and destroy the way of thy steps.

¹³The Lord standeth up to judge, and he standeth to judge the people.

¹⁴The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and its princes: for you have devoured the vineyard, and the spoil of the poor is in your house.

¹⁵Why do you consume my people, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord the God of hosts.

¹⁶And the Lord said: Because the daughters of Sion are haughty, and have walked with stretched out necks, and wanton glances of their eyes, and made a noise as they walked with their feet and moved in a set pace:

¹⁷The Lord will make bald the crown of the head of the daughters of Sion, and the Lord will discover their hair.

¹⁸In that day the Lord will take away the ornaments of shoes, and little moons,

¹⁹And chains and necklaces, and bracelets, and bonnets,

²⁰And bodkins, and ornaments of the legs, and tablets, and sweet balls, and earrings,

²¹And rings, and jewels hanging on the forehead,

²²And changes of apparel, and short cloaks, and fine linen, and crisping pins,

²³And lookingglasses, and lawns, and headbands, and fine veils.

²⁴And instead of a sweet smell there shall be stench, and instead of a girdle, a cord, and instead of curled hair, baldness, and instead of a stomacher, haircloth.

²⁵Thy fairest men also shall fall by the sword, and thy valiant ones in battle.

²⁶And her gates shall lament and mourn, and she shall sit desolate on the ground.

Chapter 4

And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying: We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, take away our reproach.

²In that day the bud of the Lord shall be in magnificence and glory, and the fruit of the earth shall be high, and a great joy to them that shall have escaped of Israel.

³And it shall come to pass, that every one that shall be left in Sion, and that shall remain in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, every one that is written in life in Jerusalem.

⁴If the Lord shall wash away the filth of the daughters of Sion, and shall wash away the blood of Jerusalem out of the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

⁵And the Lord will create upon every place of mount Sion, and where he is called upon, a cloud by day, and a smoke and the brightness of a flaming fire in the night: for over all the glory shall be a protection.

⁶And there shall be a tabernacle for a shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a security and covert from the whirlwind, and from rain.

Chapter 5

I will sing to my beloved the canticle of my cousin concerning his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a hill in a fruitful place.

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

³And now, O ye inhabitants of Jerusalem, and ye men of Juda, judge between me and my vineyard.

⁴What is there that I ought to do more to my vineyard, that I have not done to it? was it that I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it hath brought forth wild grapes?

⁵And now I will shew you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted: I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down.

⁶And I will make it desolate: it shall not be pruned, and it shall not be digged: but briers and thorns shall come up: and I will command the clouds to rain no rain upon it.

⁷For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel: and the man of Juda, his pleasant plant: and I looked that he should do judgment, and behold iniquity: and do justice, and behold a cry.

⁸Woe to you that join house to house and lay field to field, even to the end of the place: shall you alone dwell in the midst of the earth?

⁹These things are in my ears, saith the Lord of hosts: Unless many great and fair houses shall become desolate, without an inhabitant.

¹⁰For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one little measure, and thirty bushels of seed shall yield three bushels.

¹¹Woe to you that rise up early in the morning to follow drunkenness, and to drink in the evening, to be inflamed with wine.

¹²The harp, and the lyre, and, the timbrel and the pipe, and wine are in your feasts: and the work of the Lord you regard not, nor do you consider the works of his hands.

¹³Therefore is my people led away captive, because they had not knowledge, and their nobles have perished with famine, and their multitude were dried up with thirst.

¹⁴Therefore hath hell enlarged her soul, and opened her mouth without any bounds, and their strong ones, and their people, and their high and glorious ones shall go down into it.

¹⁵And man shall be brought down, and man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be brought low.

¹⁶And the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and the holy God shall be sanctified in justice.

¹⁷And the lambs shall feed according to their order, and strangers shall eat the deserts turned into fruitfulness.

¹⁸Woe to you that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as the rope of a cart.

¹⁹That say: Let him make haste, and let his work come quickly, that we may see it: and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know it.

²⁰Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.

²¹Woe to you that are wise in your own eyes, and prudent in your own conceits.

²²Woe to you that are mighty to drink wine, and stout men at drunkenness.

²³That justify the wicked for gifts, and take away the justice of the just from him.

²⁴Therefore as the tongue of the fire devoureth the stubble, and the heat of the flame consumeth it: so shall their root be as ashes, and their bud shall go up as dust: for they have cast away the law of the Lord of hosts, and have blasphemed the word of the Holy One of Israel.

²⁵Therefore is the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched out his hand upon them, and struck them: and the mountains were troubled, and their carcasses became as dung in the midst of the streets. For after this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

²⁶And he will lift up a sign to the nations afar off, and will whistle to them from the ends of the earth: and behold they shall come with speed swiftly.

²⁷There is none that shall faint, nor labour among them: they shall not slumber nor sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken.

²⁸Their arrows are sharp, and all their bows are bent. The hoofs of their horses shall be like the flint, and their wheels like the violence of a tempest.

²⁹Their roaring like that of a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea they shall roar, and take hold of the prey, and they shall keep fast hold of it, and there shall be none to deliver it.

³⁰And they shall make a noise against them that day, like the roaring of the sea; we shall look towards the land, and behold darkness of tribulation, and the light is darkened with the mist thereof.

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