These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Damascus, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they have been crushing Gilead with iron grain-crushing instruments.

See, I am crushing you down, as one is crushed under a cart full of grain.

And I have kept back the rain from you, when it was still three months before the grain-cutting: I sent rain on one town and kept it back from another: one part was rained on, and the part where there was no rain became a waste.

So because the poor man is crushed under your feet, and you take taxes from him of grain: you have made for yourselves houses of cut stone, but you will not take your rest in them; the fair vine-gardens planted by your hands will not give you wine.

Saying, When will the new moon be gone, so that we may do trade in grain? and the Sabbath, so that we may put out in the market the produce of our fields? making the measure small and the price great, and trading falsely with scales of deceit;

Getting the poor for silver, and him who is in need for the price of two shoes, and taking a price for the waste parts of the grain.

For see, I will give orders, and I will have Israel moved about among all the nations, as grain is moved about by the shaking of the tray, but not the smallest seed will be dropped on the earth.

See, the days will come, says the Lord, when the ploughman will overtake him who is cutting the grain, and the crusher of the grapes him who is planting seed; and sweet wine will be dropping from the mountains, and the hills will be turned into streams of wine.