Who doth make thee as a brother to me, Sucking the breasts of my mother? I find thee without, I kiss thee, Yea, they do not despise me,

I would lead thee, and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.

Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? I raised thee up under the apple tree: there thy mother brought thee forth: there she brought thee forth that bare thee.

W I am a wall
and my breasts like towers.
So in his eyes I have become
like one who finds peace.

The Beloved to Her Lover: Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-Hamon; he leased out the vineyard to those who maintained it. Each was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit.

“My very own vineyard is at my disposal;
The thousand [shekels of silver] are for you, O Solomon,
And two hundred are for those who tend the fruit.”

(The Bridegroom)
“O you who sit in the gardens,
My companions are listening for your voice—
Let me hear it.”

Ah, sinful nation,
A people loaded down with wickedness [with sin, with injustice, with wrongdoing],
Offspring of evildoers,
Sons who behave corruptly!
They have abandoned (rejected) the Lord,
They have despised the Holy One of Israel [provoking Him to anger],
They have turned away from Him.

If the Lord who commands armies had not left us a few survivors, we would have quickly become like Sodom, we would have become like Gomorrah.

When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?

Take pleasure in well-doing; let your ways be upright, keep down the cruel, give a right decision for the child who has no father, see to the cause of the widow.

How the faithful city has become a prostitute [idolatrous, despicable],
She who was full of justice!
Right standing with God once lodged in her,
But now murderers.

Your chiefs have gone against the Lord, they have become friends of thieves; every one of them is looking for profit and going after rewards; they do not give right decisions for the child who has no father, and they do not let the cause of the widow come before them.

For this reason the Lord, the Lord of armies, the Strong One of Israel, has said, I will put an end to my haters, and send punishment on those who are against me;

Zion will be redeemed by justice, and those of her who repent, by righteousness.

But rebels and sinners will be crushed and destroyed together,
And those who abandon (turn away from) the Lord will be consumed (perish).

Most certainly [Lord] You have abandoned your people, the house of Jacob,
Because they are filled with influences from the east,
And they are soothsayers [who foretell] like the Philistines;
Also they strike bargains with the children of foreigners (pagans).

For the Lord of hosts will have a day of reckoning
Against all who are proud and arrogant
And against all who are lifted up,
That they may be degraded.

Turn away from humanity, who [has] breath in its nostrils, for by what [is] it esteemed?

Look, the sovereign Lord who commands armies is about to remove from Jerusalem and Judah every source of security, including all the food and water,

The brave man and the warrior [He is also removing],
The judge and the prophet,
The diviner and the elder,

The captain of fifty, and the man of high position, and the wise guide, and the wonder-worker, and he who makes use of secret powers.

The people will treat each other harshly; men will oppose each other; neighbors will fight. Youths will proudly defy the elderly and riffraff will challenge those who were once respected.

He will protest on that day, saying,
“I will not be a governor;
For in my house there is neither bread nor clothing;
You should not make me a judge and ruler of the people.”

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

Yahweh will enter into judgment with the elders of his people, and their leaders: "It is you who have eaten up the vineyard. The spoil of the poor is in your houses.

Why do you crush my people and grind the faces of the poor?" The sovereign Lord who commands armies has spoken.

And Jerusalem’s gates will lament (cry out in grief) and mourn [as those who wail for the dead];
And she, being ruined and desolate, will sit upon the ground.

In that day the Branch of the Lord will be splendid and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be excellent and lovely to those of Israel who have survived.

And it shall come to pass that he who remaineth in Zion, and he that is left in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem;

Then the LORD will create over the entire site of Mount Zion including over those who assemble there a cloud by day

What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Who knows? I looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded rotten grapes.

Indeed Israel is the vineyard of the Lord who commands armies, the people of Judah are the cultivated place in which he took delight. He waited for justice, but look what he got -- disobedience! He waited for fairness, but look what he got -- cries for help!

Woe (judgment is coming) to those who join house to house and join field to field [to increase their holdings by depriving others],
Until there is no more room [for others],
So that you have to live alone in the midst of the land!

The Lord who commands armies told me this: "Many houses will certainly become desolate, large, impressive houses will have no one living in them.

Woe (judgment is coming) to those who rise early in the morning to pursue intoxicating drink,
Who stay up late in the night till wine inflames them!

Therefore Sheol (the realm of the dead) has increased its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure;
And Jerusalem’s splendor, her multitude, her [boisterous] uproar and her [drunken] revelers descend into it.

The Lord who commands armies will be exalted when he punishes, the sovereign God's authority will be recognized when he judges.

Woe (judgment is coming) to those who drag along wickedness with cords of falsehood,
And sin as if with cart ropes [towing their own punishment];

who say, Let him hasten, let him speed his work, that we may see it; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!

Woe unto them who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Woe (judgment is coming) to those who are wise in their own eyes
And clever and shrewd in their own sight!

Woe (judgment is coming) to those who are heroes at drinking wine
And men of strength in mixing intoxicating drinks,

who justify the wicked for a bribe, and turn away the righteousness of the righteous from them!

Therefore, as flaming fire devours straw, and dry grass disintegrates in the flames, so their root will rot, and their flower will blow away like dust. For they have rejected the law of the Lord who commands armies, they have spurned the commands of the Holy One of Israel.

They called out to one another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord who commands armies! His majestic splendor fills the entire earth!"

And the posts of the thresholds are moved by the voice of him who is calling, and the house is full of smoke.

I said, "Too bad for me! I am destroyed, for my lips are contaminated by sin, and I live among people whose lips are contaminated by sin. My eyes have seen the king, the Lord who commands armies."

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Listen carefully, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will call his name Immanuel (God with us).

For before the child will know enough to refuse evil and choose good, the land (Canaan) whose two kings you dread will be deserted [both Ephraim and Aram].

And it hath come to pass, From the abundance of the yielding of milk he eateth butter, For butter and honey doth every one eat Who is left in the heart of the land.

Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.

Yahweh of Armies is who you must respect as holy. He is the one you must fear. He is the one you must dread.

“Then He shall be a sanctuary [a sacred, indestructible shelter for those who fear and trust Him];
But to both the houses of Israel [both the northern and southern kingdoms—Israel and Judah, He will be] a stone on which to stumble and a rock on which to trip,
A trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

And I will wait for Jehovah, who hideth his face from the house of Jacob; and I will look for him.

Behold, I and the children whom the LORD hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the LORD of hosts, which dwelleth in mount Zion.

And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto the necromancers and unto the soothsayers, who chirp and who mutter, say, Shall not a people seek unto their God? Will they go for the living unto the dead?

for teaching and for testimony?" {surely they [who] speak like this have no dawn}.

They [who consult mediums and soothsayers] will pass through the land deeply distressed and hungry, and when they are hungry, they will become enraged and will curse their king and their God as they look upward.

But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish [for with judgment comes the promise of salvation]. In earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He will make them honored [by the presence of the Messiah], by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

The people who are walking in darkness Have seen a great light, Dwellers in a land of death-shade, Light hath shone upon them.

And all the people know it,
That is, Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samaria [its capital],
Who say in pride and arrogance of heart:

Aram on the east, and the Philistines on the west, who have come against Israel with open mouths. For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

And the people hath not turned back unto Him who is smiting it, And Jehovah of Hosts they have not sought.

The elderly and honorable man, he is the head;
And the prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.

For those who lead this people are causing them to go astray;
And those who are led [astray] by them are swallowed up.

The land was dark with the wrath of the Lord of armies: the people were like those who take men's flesh for food.

Woe to those decreeing decrees of iniquity, And writers who have prescribed perverseness.

Who do wrong to the poor in their cause, and take away the right of the crushed among my people, so that they may have the property of widows, and get under their power those who have no father.

And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?

You will have no place to go, except to kneel with the prisoners, or to fall among those who have been killed. Despite all this, his anger does not subside, and his hand is ready to strike again.

I will send him against a profane nation, and against the people who anger me will I give him a command to take the spoil and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

As who say, "I were able to win the kingdom of the Idolaters and their gods, but not Jerusalem and Samaria.

For the Assyrian king has said,

“I have done this by the power of my [own] hand and by my wisdom,
For I have understanding and skill.
I have removed the boundaries of the peoples
And have plundered their treasures;
Like a bull I have brought down those who sat on thrones.

My hand has found the riches of the peoples like a nest, and like one gathers eggs that are abandoned, have I gathered all the earth. There was no one who moved their wing, or that opened their mouth, or chirped."

Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? shall the saw magnify itself against him that wieldeth it? As if the rod should wield them that lift it up; as if the staff should lift up him who is not wood!

For this reason the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, will make his healthy ones emaciated. His majestic glory will go up in smoke.

And he will destroy the glory of his forest and orchard {completely}, and it will be like the wasting away of one who is sick.

Now in that day the remnant of Israel, and those of the house of Jacob who have escaped, will never again rely on the one who struck them, but will truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel.

The sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, is certainly ready to carry out the decreed destruction throughout the land.

Therefore, the Lord God of hosts says this, “O My people who dwell in Zion, do not be afraid of the Assyrian who strikes you with a rod and lifts up his staff against you, as [the king of] Egypt did.

The Lord who commands armies is about to beat them with a whip, similar to the way he struck down Midian at the rock of Oreb. He will use his staff against the sea, lifting it up as he did in Egypt.

Behold! the Lord, Yahweh of hosts, is about to lop off a tree-crown, with a crash, - Then shall, they who are lifted on high, be hewn down, And, the lofty, be laid low;

But he will do right in the cause of the poor, and give wise decisions for those in the land who are in need; and the rod of his mouth will come down on the cruel, and with the breath of his lips he will put an end to the evil-doer.

It will happen in that day that the nations will seek the root of Jesse, who stands as a banner of the peoples; and his resting place will be glorious.

On that day the Lord will extend His hand a second time to recover—from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, and the coasts and islands of the west—the remnant of His people who survive.

And he will put up a flag as a sign to the nations, and he will get together those of Israel who had been sent away, and the wandering ones of Judah, from the four ends of the earth.

Then the jealousy of Ephraim will depart,
And those who harass Judah will be cut off;
Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah,
And Judah will not harass Ephraim.

There will be a highway for the remnant of His people
who will survive from Assyria,
as there was for Israel
when they came up from the land of Egypt.

Shout aloud, and sing for joy, you who live in Zion, because great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel."

I [the Lord] have commanded My consecrated ones,
I have even called My great warriors,
My proudly exulting ones [the Medes and the Persians who triumph for My honor]—
To execute My anger.

A voice of a multitude in the mountains, A likeness of a numerous people, A voice of noise from the kingdoms of nations who are gathered, Jehovah of Hosts inspecting a host of battle!

They panic -- cramps and pain seize hold of them like those of a woman who is straining to give birth. They look at one another in astonishment; their faces are flushed red.

So I will shake the heavens, and the earth will shake loose from its foundation, because of the fury of the Lord who commands armies, in the day he vents his raging anger.

Every one who is found is thrust through, And every one who is added falleth by sword.

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

People will never be living in it again, and it will have no more men from generation to generation: the Arab will not put up his tent there; and those who keep sheep will not make it a resting-place for their flocks.

For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob (the captives in Babylon) and will again choose Israel, and will settle them in their own land. Foreigners (Gentiles) will join them [as proselytes] and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob (Israel).

The peoples will take them along and bring them to their own place (Judea), and the house of Israel will possess them as an inheritance in the land of the Lord as male and female servants; and they will take captive those whose captives they have been, and they will rule over their [former] oppressors.