Why dost Thou shew me iniquity, And perversity dost cause to behold? And spoiling and violence are before me, And there is strife, and contention doth lift itself up,

For, lo, I am raising up the Chaldeans, The bitter and hasty nation, That is going to the broad places of earth, To occupy tabernacles not its own.

Wholly for violence it doth come in, Their faces swallowing up the east wind, And it doth gather as the sand a captivity.

And at kings it doth scoff, And princes are a laughter to it, At every fenced place it doth laugh, And it heapeth up dust, and captureth it.

Each of them with a hook he hath brought up, He doth catch it in his net, and gathereth it in his drag, Therefore he doth joy and rejoice.

Do not these -- all of them -- against him a simile taken up, And a moral of acute sayings for him, And say, Woe to him who is multiplying what is not his? Till when also is he multiplying to himself heavy pledges?

Do not thy usurers instantly rise up, And those shaking thee awake up, And thou hast been for a spoil to them?

Woe to him who is saying to wood, 'Awake,' 'Stir up,' to a dumb stone, It a teacher! lo, it is overlaid -- gold and silver, And there is no spirit in its midst.

Seen thee -- pained are mountains, An inundation of waters hath passed over, Given forth hath the deep its voice, High its hands it hath lifted up.

I have heard, and my belly trembleth, At the noise have my lips quivered, Rottenness doth come into my bones, And in my place I do tremble, That I rest for a day of distress, At the coming up of the people, he overcometh it.