Chapter 7

¹ Alas for me! for I am become as one gathering straw in harvest, and as one gathering grape-gleanings in the vintage, when there is no cluster for me to eat the first-ripe fruit: alas my soul! ² For the godly is perished from the earth; and there is none among men that orders his way aright: they all quarrel even to blood: they grievously afflict every one his neighbour: ³ they prepare their hands for mischief, the prince asks a reward, and the judge speaks flattering words; it is the desire of their soul: ⁴ therefore I will take away their goods as a devouring moth, and as one who ¹acts by a rigid rule in a day of ²visitation. Woe, woe, thy times of vengeance are come; now shall be their lamentations. ⁵ Trust not in friends, and confide not in guides: beware of thy wife, so as not to commit anything to her. ⁶ For the son dishonours his father, the daughter will rise up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law: those in his house shall be all a man's enemies.

⁷ But I will look to the Lord; I will wait upon God my Saviour: my God will hearken to me.

⁸ Rejoice not against me, mine enemy; for I have fallen yet shall arise; for though I should sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light to me. ⁹ I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he make good my cause: he also shall ³maintain my right, and shall bring me out to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness. ¹⁰ And she that is mine enemy shall see it, and shall clothe herself with shame, who says, Where is the Lord thy God? mine eyes shall look upon her: now shall she be for trampling as mire in the ways.

¹¹ It is the day of ⁴making of brick; that day shall be thine utter destruction, and that day shall utterly abolish thine ordinances. ¹² And thy cities shall be levelled, and parted among the Assyrians; and thy strong cities shall be parted from Tyre to the river, and from sea to sea, and from mountain to mountain. ¹³ And the land shall be utterly desolate together with them that inhabit it, because of the fruit of their doings.

¹⁴ Tend thy people with thy rod, the sheep of thine inheritance, those that inhabit by themselves the thicket in the midst of Carmel: they shall feed in the land of Basan, and in the land of Galaad, as in the days of old.

¹⁵ And according to the days of thy departure out of Egypt shall ye see marvellous things. ¹⁶ The nations shall see and be ashamed; and at all their might they shall lay their hands upon their mouth, their ears shall be deafened. ¹⁷ They shall lick the dust as serpents crawling on the earth, they shall be confounded in their ⁵holes; they shall be amazed at the Lord our God, and will be afraid of thee.

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¹⁸ Who is a God like thee, cancelling iniquities, and passing over the sins of the remnant of his inheritance? and he has not kept his anger ⁶for a testimony, for he delights in mercy. ¹⁹ He will return and have mercy upon us; he will sink our iniquities, and they shall be cast into the depth of the sea, even all our sins. ²⁰ He shall give blessings truly to Jacob, and mercy to Abraam, as thou swarest to our fathers, according to the former days.