The locusts have no king, yet they go forth all of them by bands;

Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the justice of any of the afflicted.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from where the rivers come, there they return again.

I communed with my own heart, saying, Lo, I have come to greatness, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.

I sought in my heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting my heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was good for the sons of men, which they should do under heaven all the days of their life.

I said in my heart concerning the condition of the sons of men, that God might reveal them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts; the same thing befalls them: as the one dies, so dies the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man has no advantage over a beast: for all is vanity.

So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor.

For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falls; for he has not another to help him up.

Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?

There is no end of all the people, even of all that have been before them: they also that come after him shall not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and grasping after the wind.

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.

When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: so what good is there to the owners, except the beholding of them with their eyes?

Lo, this only have I found, that God has made man upright; but they have sought out many devices.

And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the holy place, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity.

This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in any thing that is done under the sun.

If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree falls toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it shall be.

In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening withhold not your hand: for you know not which shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both alike shall be good.

But if a man lives many years, and rejoices in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that comes is vanity.

In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows grow dim,

Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and terrors are in the way, and the almond tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goes to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets:

Look not upon me, because I am dark, because the sun has darkened me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.

They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man has his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night.

The watchmen that went about the city found me, they struck me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.

Turn away your eyes from me, for they have overcome me: your hair is as a flock of goats going down from Gilead.

My dove, my perfect one, is the only one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the favorite one of her that bore her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a descendant of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they have turned away backward.

From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither soothed with ointment.

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary of bearing them.

Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Your princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: everyone loves bribes, and follows after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither does the cause of the widow come before them.

And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed.

And the strong shall be as tinder, and the work of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them .

And he shall judge between the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Therefore you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled with customs from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they make bargains with the children of aliens.

Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:

And they shall go into the caves of the rocks, and into the holes of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he arises to shake mightily the earth.

In that day a man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made, each for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;

The look on their countenance does witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have brought evil unto themselves.

Say you to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths.

Moreover the LORD says, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with outstretched necks and wanton eyes, walking and tripping as they go, and making a jingling with their feet:

And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor dug; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may dwell alone in the midst of the earth!

Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflames them!

And the harp, and the lyre, the timbrel, and flute, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands.

Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.

Therefore as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

And he will lift up a banner to the nations from afar, and will whistle unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with speed, swiftly:

Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yea, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safely, and none shall deliver it.

And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one looks unto the land, behold, darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in its heavens.

Make the heart of this people dull, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return, and be healed.

But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be laid waste: as a terebinth tree, and as an oak, whose stump remains, when they are cut down: so the holy seed shall be its stump.

And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the clefts of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all pastures.

And it shall come to pass, from the abundance of milk that they shall give he shall eat curds: for curds and honey shall everyone eat that is left in the land.

And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that are mediums, and unto wizards that whisper, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? rather than the dead on behalf of the living?

To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

And they shall pass through it, hardpressed and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall be enraged, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.

And they shall look unto the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they shall be driven into darkness.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shined.

You have multiplied the nation, and increased the joy: they joy before you according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with an open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

For the people turn not unto him that strikes them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts.

For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led by them are destroyed.

For wickedness burns as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the rising of smoke.

And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall devour on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm:

Manasseh shall devour Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write misfortune which they have prescribed;

To turn aside the needy from justice, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!

Without me they shall bow down among the prisoners, and they shall fall among the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

And shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and they shall be as when a sick man wastes away.

They are gone over the pass: they have taken up their lodging at Geba; Ramah is afraid; Gibeah of Saul has fled.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

But they shall swoop down upon the shoulders of the Philistines in the west; they shall plunder together them of the east: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them.

Lift up a banner upon the high mountain, raise the voice unto them, wave the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles.

They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.

And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travails: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.

Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it.

Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children.

For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cling to the house of Jacob.

And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the LORD for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captive, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.

The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.

They all shall speak and say unto you, have you also become weak as we? have you become like unto us?

They that see you shall gaze upon you, and consider you, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;

Prepare slaughter for his children because of the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

In their streets they shall clothe themselves with sackcloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their streets, everyone shall wail, weeping abundantly.

My heart shall cry out for Moab; his fugitives shall flee unto Zoar, to Eglathshelishiyah: for by the ascent of Luhith with weeping shall they go up; for in the way of Horonaim they shall raise up a cry of destruction.

Therefore the abundance they have gotten, and that which they have laid up, shall they carry away to the brook of the willows.

Therefore shall Moab wail for Moab, everyone shall wail: for the foundations of Kirhareseth shall you mourn; surely they are stricken.

For the fields of Heshbon languish, and the vine of Sibmah: the lords of the nations have broken down its choicest vines, they have come even unto Jazer, they wandered through the wilderness: her branches are stretched out, they have gone over the sea.

The cities of Aroer are forsaken: they shall be for flocks, which shall lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, says the LORD of hosts.

In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation.

The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

They shall be left together for the fowls of the mountains, and for the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.

And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they shall fight everyone against his brother, and everyone against his neighbor; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.