Chapter 4

¹If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the Lord, return to me: if thou wilt take away thy stumblingblocks out of my sight, thou shalt not be moved. ²And thou shalt swear: As the Lord liveth, in truth, and in judgement, and in justice: and the Gentiles shall bless him, and shall praise him. ³For thus saith the Lord to the men of Juda and Jerusalem: Break up anew your fallow ground, and sow not upon thorns: ⁴Be circumcised to the Lord, and take away the foreskins of your hearts, ye men of Juda, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my indignation come forth like fire, and burn, and there be none that can quench it: because of the wickedness of your thoughts. ⁵Declare ye in Juda, and make it heard in Jerusalem: speak, and sound with the trumpet in the land: cry aloud, and say: Assemble yourselves, and let us go into strong cities. ⁶Set up the standard in Sion. Strengthen yourselves, stay not: for I bring evil from the north, and great destruction. ⁷The lion is come up out of his den, and the robber of nations hath roused himself: he is come forth out of his place, to make thy land desolate: thy cities shall be laid waste, remaining without an inhabitant. ⁸For this gird yourselves with haircloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned away from us. ⁹And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord: That the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes: and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall be amazed ¹⁰And I said: Alas, alas, alas, O Lord God, hast thou then deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying: You shall have peace: and behold the sword reacheth even to the soul? ¹¹At that time it shall be said to this people, and to Jerusalem: A burning wind is in the ways that are in the desert of the way of the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse. ¹²A full wind from these places shall come to me: and now I will speak my judgments with them. ¹³Behold he shall come up as a cloud, and his chariots as a tempest: his horses are swifter than eagles: woe unto us, for we are laid waste. ¹⁴Wash thy heart from wickedness, O Jerusalem, that thou mayst be saved: how long shall hurtful thoughts abide in thee? ¹⁵For a voice of one declaring from Dan, and giving notice of the idol from mount Ephraim. ¹⁶Say ye to the nations: Behold it is heard in Jerusalem, that guards are coming from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Juda. ¹⁷They are set round about her, as keepers of fields: because she hath provoked me to wrath, saith the Lord. ¹⁸They ways, and thy devices have brought these things upon thee: this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it hath touched thy heart. ¹⁹My bowels, my bowels are in pain, the senses of my heart are troubled within me, I will not hold my peace, for my soul hath heard the sound of the trumpet, the cry of battle. ²⁰Destruction upon destruction is called for, and all the earth is laid waste: my tents are destroyed on a sudden, and my pavilions in a moment. ²¹How long shall I see men fleeing away, how long shall I hear the sound of the trumpet? ²²For my foolish people have not known me: they are foolish and senseless children: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge. ²³I beheld the earth, and lo it was void, and nothing: and the heavens, and there was no light in them. ²⁴I looked upon the mountains, and behold they trembled: and all the hills were troubled. ²⁵I beheld, and lo there was no man: and all the birds of the air were gone. ²⁶I looked, and behold Carmel was a wilderness: and all its cities were destroyed at the presence of the Lord, and at the presence of the wrath of his indignation. ²⁷For thus saith the Lord: All the land shall be desolate, but yet I will not utterly destroy. ²⁸The earth shall mourn, and the heavens shall lament from above: because I have spoken, I have purposed, and I have not repented, neither am I turned away from it. ²⁹At the voice of the horsemen, and the archers, all the city is fled away; they have entered into thickets and have climbed up the rocks: all the cities are forsaken, and there dwelleth not a man in them. ³⁰But when thou art spoiled what wilt thou do? though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, and paintest thy eyes with stibic stone, thou shalt dress thyself out in vain: thy lovers have despised thee, they will seek thy life. ³¹For I have heard the voice as of a woman in travail, anguishes as of a woman in labor of a child. The voice of the daughter of Sion, dying away, spreading her hands: Woe is me, for my soul hath fainted because of them that are slain.