I will come face to face with them like a bear whose young ones have been taken from her, and their inmost hearts will be broken; there the dogs will make a meal of them; they will be wounded by the beasts of the field.

I will be as the dew to Israel; he will put out flowers like a lily, and send out his roots like Lebanon.

They will come back and have rest in his shade; their life will be made new like the grain, and they will put out flowers like the vine; his name will be like the wine of Lebanon.

As for Ephraim, what has he to do with false gods any longer? I have given an answer and I will keep watch over him; I am like a branching fir-tree, from me comes your fruit.

Make sounds of grief like a virgin dressed in haircloth for the husband of her early years.

For a day of dark and deep shade is near, a day of cloud and black night: like a black cloud a great and strong people is covering the mountains; there has never been any like them and will not be after them again, from generation to generation.

Before them fire sends destruction, and after them flame is burning: the land is like the garden of Eden before them, and after them an unpeopled waste; truly, nothing has been kept safe from them.

Their form is like the form of horses, and they are running like war-horses.

Like the sound of war-carriages they go jumping on the tops of the mountains; like the noise of a flame of fire burning up the grain-stems, like a strong people lined up for the fight.

They are running like strong men, they go over the wall like men of war; every man goes straight on his way, their lines are not broken.

They make a rush on the town, running on the wall; they go up into the houses and in through the windows like a thief.

And I have sent destruction among you, as when God sent destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick pulled out of the fire: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.

Go to the Lord for help so that you may have life; for fear that he may come like fire bursting out in the family of Joseph, causing destruction, and there will be no one to put it out in Beth-el.

But let the right go rolling on like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Making foolish songs to the sound of corded instruments, and designing for themselves instruments of music, like David;

Will not the land be shaking with fear because of this, and everyone in it have sorrow? and all of it will be overflowing like the River; and it will be troubled and go down again like the River of Egypt.

Your feasts will be turned into sorrow and all your melody into songs of grief; everyone will be clothed with haircloth, and the hair of every head will be cut; I will make the weeping like that for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.

For the Lord, the God of armies, is he at whose touch the land is turned to water, and everyone in it will be given up to sorrow; all of it will be overflowing like the River, and will go down again like the River of Egypt;

Though you go up on high like an eagle, though your house is placed among the stars, I will make you come down from there, says the Lord.

Because you were there watching when men from other lands took away his goods, and strange men came into his doors, and put the fate of Jerusalem to the decision of chance; you were like one of them.

And the mountains will be turned to water under him, and the deep valleys will be broken open, like wax before the fire, like waters flowing down a slope.

For this I will be full of sorrow and give cries of grief; I will go uncovered and unclothed: I will give cries of grief like the jackals and will be in sorrow like the ostriches.

Let your head be uncovered and your hair cut off in sorrow for the children of your delight: let the hair be pulled from your head like an eagle's; for they have been taken away from you as prisoners.

Let not words like these be dropped, they say: Shame and the curse will not come to the family of Jacob!

I will certainly make all of you, O Jacob, come together; I will get together the rest of Israel; I will put them together like the sheep in their circle: like a flock in their green field; they will be full of the noise of men.

Like meat they take the flesh of my people for their food, skinning them and crushing their bones, yes, cutting them up as if for the pot, like flesh inside the cooking-pot.

For this reason, Zion will be ploughed like a field because of you, and Jerusalem will become a mass of broken walls, and the mountain of the house like a high place in the woods.

Now why are you crying so loudly? is there no king in you? has destruction come on your wise helper? so that pains have taken you like the pains of a woman in childbirth:

Be in pain, make sounds of grief, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in childbirth: for now you will go out of the town, living in the open country, and will come even to Babylon; there you will have salvation; there the Lord will make you free from the hands of your haters.

But they have no knowledge of the thoughts of the Lord, their minds are not able to see his purpose: for he has got them together like stems of grain to the crushing-floor.

And the rest of Jacob will be among the mass of peoples like dew from the Lord, like showers on the grass, which may not be kept back by man, or be waiting for the sons of men.

And the rest of Jacob will be among the nations, in the middle of the mass of peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the woods, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep: if he goes through, they will be crushed under foot and pulled to bits, and there will be no saviour.

Sorrow is mine! for I am as when they have got in the summer fruits, like the last of the grapes: there is nothing for food, not even an early fig for my desire.

The best of them is like a waste plant, and their upright ones are like a wall of thorns. Sorrow! the day of their fate has come; now will trouble come on them.

And my hater will see it and be covered with shame; she who said to me, Where is the Lord your God? my eyes will see their desire effected on her, now she will be crushed under foot like the dust of the streets.

They will take dust as their food like a snake, like the things which go flat on the earth; they will come shaking with fear out of their secret places: they will come with fear to the Lord our God, full of fear because of you.

Who is a God like you, offering forgiveness for evil-doing and overlooking the sins of the rest of his heritage? he does not keep his wrath for ever, because his delight is in mercy.

Who may keep his place before his wrath? and who may undergo the heat of his passion? his wrath is let loose like fire and the rocks are broken open by him.

But like water overflowing he will take them away; he will put an end to those who come up against him, driving his haters into the dark.

For though they are like twisted thorns, and are overcome as with drink, they will come to destruction like stems of grass fully dry.

The body-covers of his fighting men have been made red, the men of war are clothed in bright red: the war-carriages are like flames of fire in the day when he gets ready, the horses are shaking.

The war-carriages are rushing through the streets, pushing against one another in the wide ways, looking like burning lights, running like thunder-flames.

And the queen is uncovered, she is taken away and her servant-girls are weeping like the sound of doves, hammering on their breasts.

But Nineveh is like a pool of water whose waters are flowing away; Keep your place, they say; but no one is turning back.

All your walled places will be like fig-trees and your people like the first figs, falling at a shake into the mouth which is open for them.

Your crowned ones are like the locusts, and your scribes like the clouds of insects which take cover in the walls on a cold day, but when the sun comes up they go in flight, and are seen no longer in their place.

And their horses are quicker than leopards and their horsemen more cruel than evening wolves; they come from far away, like an eagle in flight rushing on its food.

They are coming all of them with force; the direction of their faces is forward, the number of their prisoners is like the sands of the sea.

He has made men like the fishes of the sea, like the worms which have no ruler over them.

A curse on the cruel and false one! the man full of pride, who never has enough; who makes his desires wide as the underworld! he is like death; he is never full, but he makes all nations come to him, getting all peoples together to himself.

Will not your creditors suddenly be moved against you, and your troublers get up from their sleep, and you will be to them like goods taken in war?

He was shining like the light; he had rays coming out from his hand: there his power was kept secret.

You have put your spears through his head, his horsemen were sent in flight like dry stems; they had joy in driving away the poor, in making a meal of them secretly.

The Lord God is my strength, and he makes my feet like roes' feet, guiding me on my high places. For the chief music-maker on corded instruments.

And it will come about at that time, that I will go searching through Jerusalem with lights; and I will send punishment on the men who have become like wine stored over-long, who say to themselves, The Lord will not do good and will not do evil.

And I will send trouble on men so that they will go about like the blind, because they have done evil against the Lord: and their blood will be drained out like dust, and their strength like waste.

Before the Lord sends you violently away in flight like the waste from the grain; before the burning wrath of the Lord comes on you, before the day of the Lord's wrath comes on you.

For this cause, by my life, says the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, truly Moab will become like Sodom and the children of Ammon like Gomorrah, given up to waste plants and salt pools and unpeopled for ever: the rest of my people will take their property, the overflow of my nation will take their heritage.

And his hand will be stretched out against the north, for the destruction of Assyria; and he will make Nineveh unpeopled and dry like the waste land.

Her rulers are like loud-voiced lions in her; her judges are wolves of the evening, crushing up the bones before the morning.

Be not like your fathers, to whom the voice of the earlier prophets came, saying, Be turned now from your evil ways and from your evil doings: but they did not give ear to me or take note, says the Lord.

And lifting up my eyes I saw two women coming out, and the wind was in their wings; and they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they took the ephah, lifting it up between earth and heaven.

And they made their hearts like the hardest stone, so that they might not give ear to the law and the words which the Lord of armies had said by the earlier prophets: and there came great wrath from the Lord of armies.

And Tyre made for herself a strong place, and got together silver like dust and the best gold like the earth of the streets.

For I have made Judah a bow bent for my use, I have made Ephraim the arrows of the bow; I will make your sons, O Zion, take up arms against your sons, O Greece, and will make you like the sword of a man of war.

And the Lord will be seen over them, and his arrow will go out like the thunder-flame: and the Lord God, sounding the war-horn, will go in the storm-winds of the South.

The Lord of armies will be a cover for them; and they will overcome, crushing under foot the armed men; they will take their blood for drink like wine: they will be full like the sides of the altar.

And the Lord their God will be their saviour in that day, giving them food like the flock of his people: for they will be like the jewels of a crown shining over his land.

For the images have said what is not true, and the readers of signs have seen deceit; they have given accounts of false dreams, they give comfort to no purpose: so they go out of the way like sheep, they are troubled because they have no keeper.

My wrath is burning against the keepers of the flock, and I will send punishment on the he-goats: for the Lord of armies takes care of his flock, the people of Judah, and will make them like the horse of his pride in the fight.

Together they will be like men of war, crushing down their haters into the earth of the streets in the fight; they will make war because the Lord is with them: and the horsemen will be shamed.

And Ephraim will be like a man of war, and their hearts will be glad as with wine; and their children will see it with joy; their hearts will be glad in the Lord.

In that day I will make the families of Judah like a pot with fire in it among trees, and like a flaming stick among cut grain; they will send destruction on all the peoples round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem will be living again in the place which is hers, that is, in Jerusalem.

And I will send down on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of prayer; and their eyes will be turned to the one who was wounded by their hands: and they will be weeping for him as for an only son, and their grief for him will be bitter, like the grief of one sorrowing for his oldest son.

In that day there will be a great weeping in Jerusalem, like the weeping of Hadad-rimmon in the valley of Megiddon.

And all the land will become like the Arabah, from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; and she will be lifted up and be living in her place; from the doorway of Benjamin to the place of the first doorway, to the doorway of the angle, and from the tower of Hananel to the king's wine-crushing places, men will be living in her.

On that day all the bells of the horses will be holy to the Lord, and the pots in the Lord's house will be like the basins before the altar.

But by whom may the day of his coming be faced? and who may keep his place when he is seen? for he is like the metal-tester's fire and the cleaner's soap.

For see, the day is coming, it is burning like an oven; all the men of pride and all who do evil will be dry stems of grass: and in the day which is coming they will be burned up, says the Lord of armies, till they have not a root or a branch.

But to you who give worship to my name, the sun of righteousness will come up with new life in its wings; and you will go out, playing like young oxen full of food.

And when you make your prayers, be not like the false-hearted men, who take pleasure in getting up and saying their prayers in the Synagogues and at the street turnings so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, They have their reward.

So be not like them; because your Father has knowledge of your needs even before you make your requests to him.

But I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

Everyone, then, to whom my words come and who does them, will be like a wise man who made his house on a rock;

And everyone to whom my words come and who does them not, will be like a foolish man who made his house on sand;

But when he saw all the people he was moved with pity for them, because they were troubled and wandering like sheep without a keeper.

But what comparison may I make of this generation? It is like children seated in the market-places, crying out to one another,

Take my yoke on you and become like me, for I am gentle and without pride, and you will have rest for your souls;

And he gave them another story, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a man who put good seed in his field:

He put another story before them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and put in his field:

Another story he gave to them: The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took, and put in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.

The kingdom of heaven is like a secret store of wealth in a field, which a man came across and put back again; and in his joy he goes and gives all he has, to get that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a trader searching for beautiful jewels.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net, which was put into the sea and took in every sort of fish:

And he said to them, For this reason every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house, who gives out from his store things new and old.

And he said, Are you, like them, still without wisdom?

And he was changed in form before them; and his face was shining like the sun, and his clothing became white as light.

And said, Truly, I say to you, If you do not have a change of heart and become like little children, you will not go into the kingdom of heaven.

For this reason the kingdom of heaven is like a king, who went over his accounts with his servants.

For the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a house, who went out early in the morning to get workers into his vine-garden.