Chapter 3

¹ Hear ye this word, O house of Israel, which the Lord has spoken concerning you, and against the whole family whom I brought up out of the land of Egypt, saying, ² You especially have I known out of all the families of the earth: therefore will I take vengeance upon you for all your sins.

³ Shall two walk together at all, if they do not know ¹one another? ⁴ Will a lion roar out of his thicket if he has no prey? will a lion's whelp utter his voice at all out of his lair, if he have taken nothing? ⁵ Will a bird fall on the earth without a fowler? will a snare be taken up from the earth without having taken anything? ⁶ Shall the trumpet sound in the city, and the people not be alarmed? shall there be evil in a city which the Lord has not wrought? ⁷ For the Lord God will do nothing, without revealing instruction to his servants the prophets. ⁸ A lion shall roar, and who will not be alarmed? the Lord God has spoken, and who will not prophesy?

⁹ Proclaim it to the regions among the Assyrians, and to the regions of Egypt, and say, Gather yourselves to the mountain of Samaria, and behold many wonderful things in the midst of it, and the oppression that is in it. ¹⁰ And she knew not what things ²would come against her, saith the Lord, even those that store up wrong and misery

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in their countries. ¹¹ Therefore thus saith the Lord God; O Tyre, thy land shall be made desolate round about thee; and he shall bring down thy strength out of thee, and thy countries shall be spoiled. ¹² Thus saith the Lord; As when a shepherd rescues from the mouth of a lion two legs or a piece of an ear, so shall be drawn forth the children of Israel who dwell in Samaria in the presence of a foreign tribe, and in Damascus.

¹³ Hear, O ye priests, and testify to the house of Jacob, saith the Lord God Almighty. ¹⁴ For in the day wherein I shall take vengeance of the sins of Israel upon him, I will also take vengeance on the altars of Bæthel: and the horns of the altar shall be broken down, and they shall fall upon the ground. ¹⁵ I will ³crush and smite the turreted-house upon the summer-house; and the ivory-houses shall be destroyed, and many other houses also, saith the Lord.

Chapter 4

¹ Hear ye this word, ye heifers of the land of Basan that are in the mountain of Samaria, that oppress the poor, and trample on the needy, which say to their masters, Give us that we may drink.

² The Lord swears by his ⁴holiness, that, behold, the days come upon you, when they shall take you with weapons, and fiery destroyers shall cast those with you into boiling caldrons. ³ And ye shall be brought forth naked in the presence of each other; and ye shall be cast forth on the mountain Romman, saith the Lord.

⁴ Ye went into Bæthel, and sinned, and ye multiplied sin at Galgala; and ye brought your meat-offerings in the morning, and your tithes every third day. ⁵ And they read the law without, and called for public professions: proclaim aloud that the children of Israel have loved these things, saith the Lord.

⁶ And I will give you ⁵dulness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet ye returned not to me, saith the Lord. ⁷ Also I withheld from you the rain three months before the harvest: and I will rain upon one city, and on another city I will not rain: one part shall be rained upon, and the part on which I shall not rain shall be dried up. ⁸ And the inhabitants of two or three cities shall be gathered to one city to drink water, and they shall not be satisfied: yet ye have not returned to me, saith the Lord. ⁹ I smote you with parching, and with blight: ye multiplied your gardens, your vineyards, and your fig-grounds, and the cankerworm devoured your olive-yards: yet not even thus did ye return to me, saith the Lord. ¹⁰ I sent pestilence among you by the way of Egypt, and slew your young men with the sword, together with thy horses that were taken captive; and in ⁶my wrath against you I set fire to your camps: yet not even thus did ye return to me, saith the Lord. ¹¹ I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodoma and Gomorrha, and ye became as a brand plucked out of the fire: yet not even thus did ye return to me, saith the Lord.

¹² Therefore thus will I do to thee, O Israel: nay because I will do thus to thee,

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prepare to call on thy God, O Israel. ¹³ For, behold, I am he that strengthens the thunder, and creates the wind, and proclaims to men his Christ, forming the morning and the ⁷darkness, and mounting on the high places of the earth, The Lord God Almighty is his name.