When one layeth hold on his brother, Of the house of his father, by the garment, 'Come, a ruler thou art to us, And this ruin is under thy hand.'

And a covering may be, For a shadow by day from drought, And for a refuge, and for a hiding place, From inundation and from rain!

And I make it a waste, It is not pruned, nor arranged, And gone up have brier and thorn, And on the thick clouds I lay a charge, From raining upon it rain.

We go up into Judah, and we vex it, And we rend it unto ourselves, And we cause a king to reign in its midst -- The son of Tabeal.

'Bricks have fallen, and hewn work we build, Sycamores have been cut down, and cedars we renew.'

The burden of Damascus. Lo, Damascus is taken away from being a city, And it hath been a heap -- a ruin.

Lo, the land of the Chaldeans -- this people was not, Asshur founded it for the Ziim, They raised its watch-towers, They lifted up her palaces, -- He hath appointed her for a ruin!

For Thou didst make of a city a heap, Of a fenced city a ruin, A high place of strangers from being a city, To the age it is not built.

And He hath given rain for thy seed, With which thou dost sow the ground, And bread, the increase of the ground, And it hath been fat and plenteous, Enjoy do thy cattle in that day an enlarged pasture.

Lo, for righteousness doth a king reign, As to princes, for judgment they rule.

But those expecting Jehovah pass to power, They raise up the pinion as eagles, They run and are not fatigued, They go on and do not faint!

In righteousness thou establishest thyself, Be far from oppression, for thou fearest not, And from ruin, for it cometh not near unto thee.

Lo, a nation thou knowest not, thou callest, And a nation who know thee not unto thee do run, For the sake of Jehovah thy God, And for the Holy One of Israel, Because He hath beautified thee.

Their feet to evil do run, And they haste to shed innocent blood, Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, Spoiling and destruction are in their highways.