"Thus sayeth the LORD, 'For three and four wickednesses of Damascus, I will not spare her: because they have threshed Gilead with iron stales.

Thus sayeth the LORD, 'For three and four wickednesses of Gaza, I will not spare her: because they make the prisoners yet more captive, and have driven them into the land of Edom.

Thus sayeth the LORD, 'For three and four wickednesses of the city of Tyre, I will not spare her: because they have increased the captivity of the Edomites, and have not remembered the brotherly covenant.

Again: I brought you out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, that ye might have the Amorites' land in possession.

'You only have I accepted from all the generations of the earth: therefore will I visit you in all your wickednesses.

Doth a lion roar in the woods, except he have prey? Or crieth a Lion's whelp out of his den, except he have gotten something?

'Ye came to Bethel for to work ungraciousness, and have increased your sins at Gilgal: ye brought your sacrifices in the morning, and your tithes unto the third day.

"'Therefore have I given you idle teeth in all your cities, and scarceness of bread in all your places: yet will ye not turn unto me,' sayeth the LORD.

'I have smitten you with drought and blasting: and look how many orchards, vineyards, fig trees, and olive trees ye had: the caterpillar hath eaten them up. But yet will ye not turn unto me,' sayeth the LORD.

'Pestilence have I sent among you, as I did in Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and caused your horses be taken captive: I made the stinking savour of your tents to come up into your nostrils: yet will ye not turn unto me,' sayeth the LORD.

'Some of you have I overthrown as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah: so that ye were as a brand plucked out of the fire. Yet will ye not turn unto me,' sayeth the LORD.

Forsomuch then as ye oppress the poor, and rob him of his best sustenance: therefore, where as ye have builded houses of square stone, ye shall not dwell in them. Marvelous pleasant vineyards shall ye plant; but the wine of them shall ye not drink. And why?

'Woe be unto them that desire the day of the LORD: Wherefore would ye have it? As for that day of the LORD, it shall be dark and not clear.

And though ye offer me burnt offerings and meat offerings, yet have I no pleasure therein. As for your fat thank offerings, I will not look upon them.

Yet have ye set up tabernacles to your Moloch, and images of your Idols, yea and the star of your god Rempha: figures which ye made to worship them.

Who can run with horses, or plow with oxen upon the hard rocks of stone? For why? Ye have turned true judgment into bitterness, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood.

Yea, even ye that rejoice in vain things: ye that say, 'Have not we obtained horns in our own strength?'

"When will the new month be gone, that we may sell victuals; and the Sabbath, that we may have scarceness of corn; to make the bushel less, and the Sicle greater?

Your high feasts will I turn to sorrow, and your songs to mourning: I will bring sackcloth upon all backs, and baldness on every head. Yea, such a mourning will I send them, as is made upon an only begotten son, and they shall have a miserable end.

O ye children of Israel, are ye not unto me, even as the Ethiopian?" sayeth the LORD, "Have not I brought Israel out of the land of Egypt, the Philistines from Caphthor, and the Syrians from Kir?

And I will plant them their own land, and they shall not be any more plucked out of their land which I have given them," saith the LORD thy God.