There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is great among men:

For wisdom is a defense, and money is a defense; but the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it.

All things I have seen in the days of my vanity; there is a just one who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked one who prolongs life in his wickedness.

For also your own heart knows that you yourself have also cursed others many times.

All this I have proved by wisdom; I said, I will be wise; but it was far from me.

Behold, this I have found, says the Preacher, counting one by one, to find out the sum,

which my soul still sought, but I find not: one man among a thousand I have found, but a woman among all those I have not found.

Lo, this only I have found, that God has made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions.

All this I have seen, and I gave my heart to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man rules over another to his own hurt.

For the living know that they shall die; but the dead do not know anything, nor do they have any more a reward; for their memory is forgotten.

Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; nor do they any longer have a part forever in all that is done under the sun.

This wisdom I have seen also under the sun, and it seemed great to me.

There is an evil I have seen under the sun, like a sin which comes from a ruler's presence;

I have seen servants on horses and princes walking as servants on the earth.

Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, while the evil days do not come, nor the years draw near, when you shall say, I have no pleasure in them.

For Your ointments have a lovely fragrance; Your name is as oil poured out; therefore the virgins love You.

Do not look on me, that I am black, that the sun has looked on me. My mother's sons were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my vineyard I have not kept.

O My love, I have compared you to My mares among Pharaoh's chariots.

Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful; you have doves' eyes.

Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines; for our vines have tender grapes.

The watchmen going about the city found me. I said, Have you seen Him whom my soul loves?

You have ravished My heart, My sister, My spouse; you have ravished My heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck.

I have come into My garden, My sister, My spouse; I have gathered My myrrh with My spice; I have eaten My honeycomb with My honey; I have drunk My wine with My milk. Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O Beloved.

I have put off My coat; How shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?

Turn away your eyes from Me, for they have overcome Me; your hair is like a flock of goats that appears from Gilead.

The love-apples give a scent, and over our doors are all pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for You, O my Beloved.

We have a little sister, and she has no breasts; what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?

My vineyard, which is mine, is before me; you, O Solomon, must have a thousand, and for the keepers of its fruit, two hundred.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for Jehovah has spoken, I have nursed and brought up sons, and they have rebelled against Me.

Woe, sinful nation, a people heavy with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, sons who corrupt! They have forsaken Jehovah; they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger; they have gone away backward.

From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it; only a wound and a stripe and a fresh blow; they have not been closed, nor bound up, nor soothed with oil.

For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which you have desired, and you shall be ashamed for the gardens which you have chosen.

For You have forsaken Your people the house of Jacob, because they have become full from the east, and are fortune-tellers like the Philistines. And they clap their hands with the children of strangers.

And their land is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.

When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, saying, You have clothing, you be our ruler, and let this ruin be under your hand;

The look of their faces witnesses against them; and they declare their sin like Sodom. They do not hide it! Woe to their soul! For they have rewarded evil to themselves.

Jehovah will enter into judgment with the elders of His people, and their kings; for you have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

And Jehovah says, Because the daughters of Zion are proud, and have walked with stretched out necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet;

In that day shall the Branch of Jehovah be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth excellent and comely for those who have escaped from Israel.

when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from its midst by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Who knows? I looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded rotten grapes.

So, as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame burns up the chaff; their root shall be like rottenness, and their blossoms shall go up like dust, because they have cast away the Law of Jehovah of Hosts, and despised the Word of the Holy One of Israel.

Then I said, Woe is me! For I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of Hosts.

because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah have plotted against you, saying,

Jehovah shall bring on you, and on your people, and on your father's house, days that have not come, since the days that Ephraim departed from Judah, the king of Assyria.

For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and, My mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; they who dwell in the land of the shadow of death, on them the light has shined.

You have multiplied the nation. You have not increased the joy. They rejoice before You according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

For You have broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his taskmaster, as in the day of Midian.

The bricks have fallen down, but we will build with cut stones; the sycamores are cut down, but we use cedars instead.

For this the Lord shall not rejoice over their young men, nor shall He have mercy on their orphans and widows; for everyone is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks foolishness. In all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still.

Through the wrath of Jehovah of Hosts is the land scorched, and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire; no man shall have pity on his brother.

shall I not do to Jerusalem and her idols as I have done to Samaria and her idols?

For he says, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am wise. And I have removed the bounds of the people, and have robbed their treasures, and I have put down the people like a strong man.

And my hand has found as a nest the riches of the people; and as one gathers eggs that are left, I have gathered all the earth; and there was none who moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped.

And it shall be in that day, the remnant of Israel, and those who have escaped from the house of Jacob, shall never again lean on him who struck them; but truly lean on Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel.

they have gone over the passage; they have bedded down at Geba; Ramah is afraid, Gibeah of Saul has fled.

I have commanded My holy ones, I have also called My mighty ones for anger, those who rejoice in My highness.

And bows shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not pity sons.

For Jehovah will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel and set them in their own land; and the stranger shall be joined with them, and they shall cling to the house of Jacob.

Yea, the fir trees rejoice at you, the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since you have fallen, no woodcutter will come up against us.

For you have said in your heart, I will go up to the heavens, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.

Jehovah of Hosts has sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so it shall come to pass; and as I have purposed, it shall stand;

We have heard of the pride of Moab; very proud; even of his vanity, and his pride, and his rage; not so are his babblings.

For Heshbon's fields droop, the vine of Sibmah. The lords of the nations have crushed its choice plants, they have come to Jazer, they wander in the desert; her branches are stretched out, they have crossed the sea.

And gladness and joy are gathered out of the plentiful field; and in the vineyards there is no singing and no shouting. The treader shall tread out no wine in the presses; I have made their shouting to cease.

In that day a man shall look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.

And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, nor respect that which his fingers have made, either the Asherahs or the images.

Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not been mindful of the Rock of your strength, therefore you shall plant pleasant plants and shall sow it a fresh shoot.

which sends ambassadors by the sea, even in ships of papyrus on the waters, saying, Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a terrifying people from it and onwards; a mighty nation and trampling down, whose land the rivers have divided!

In that time shall be brought to Jehovah of Hosts the present from a terrifying, a tall and smooth people, from it and onward; a mighty and trampling nation whose land the rivers have divided, to the place of the name of Jehovah of Hosts, Mount Zion.

The rulers of Zoan have become fools, the rulers of Noph are deceived; they have also caused Egypt to go astray, the chief of her tribes.

Jehovah has mixed a perverse spirit in its midst; and they have caused Egypt to go astray in all its work, like a drunkard staggers in his vomit.

And Egypt shall have no work that the head or tail, branch or rush, may do.

A harsh vision is revealed to me; the deceiver deceives, and the plunderer plunders. Go up, O Elam; besiege, O Media! I have caused all her sighing to cease.

Therefore my loins are filled with pain; pangs have taken hold on me like the pangs of a woman who travails; I was bowed down from hearing; I was troubled from seeing.

O my threshing, and the grain of my floor! That which I have heard of Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.

The burden against the valley of vision. What ails you now, that you have gone up to the housetops?

All your rulers fled together; they were bound without the bow; all found in you are bound together; they have fled from afar.

You have seen also the breaks in the city of David, that they are many; and you gathered the waters of the lower pool.

And you have counted the houses of Jerusalem, and you have broken down the houses to fortify the wall.

You also made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool; but you have not looked to its Maker, nor saw Him who formed it long ago.

What is to you here? And who is here to you, that you have carved out a tomb for yourself here, as one who cuts himself out a tomb on high, who cuts out a home for himself in a rock?

Be still, inhabitants of the coast, merchant of Sidon, who pass over the sea. They have filled you.

Be ashamed, O Sidon; for the sea has spoken, the strength of the sea, saying, I have not travailed nor brought forth. I have not nourished young men nor raised up virgins.

And He said, You shall rejoice no more, O crushed one, virgin daughter of Sidon. Arise, pass over to Chittim; also there you shall have no rest.

And the land is defiled under its people; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, and have broken the everlasting covenant.

From the ends of the earth we have heard songs, glory to the righteous. But I said, Leanness to me! Leanness to me! Woe to me! Deceivers deceive, even with treachery. Deceivers deceive!

O Jehovah, You are my God; I will exalt You, I will praise Your name; for You have done a wonder; Counsels from afar; faithful faithfulness.

For You have made a heap from a city; a fortified city into a ruin; a citadel of foreigners to be no city; it shall never be built.

And one shall say in that day, Lo, this is our God. We have waited for Him, and He will save us. This is Jehovah; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.

In that day this song shall be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; He sets up salvation as our walls and banks.

Jehovah, You will ordain peace for us; for You also have worked all our works in us.

O Jehovah our God, lords besides You have had the rule over us; but by You only will we make mention of Your name.

Dead ones do not live; departed spirits do not rise. Therefore You have visited and destroyed them, and made all memory of them to perish.

You have increased the nation, O Jehovah, You have increased the nation; You are glorified; You have extended all the ends of the land.

Jehovah, in trouble they have visited You; they poured out a prayer; Your chastening was on them.

As a woman with child draws near to bear, she is in pain and cries out in her pangs; so have we been in Your sight, O Jehovah.

We conceived; we have been in pain, we gave birth to wind. We have not brought about any salvation in the earth; nor have the people of the world fallen.

When its branches are dried up, they shall be broken off; the women come and set them on fire; for it is a people of no understanding. Therefore His Maker will not have mercy on them, and He who formed them will not favor them.