Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.

Then was Daniel brought in before the king. And the king spoke and said unto Daniel, Are you that Daniel, who is of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought out of Judah?

I have even heard of you, that the spirit of the gods is in you, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you.

But have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you, and your lords, your wives, and your concubines, have drunk wine in them; and you have praised the gods of silver, and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, have you not glorified:

TEKEL; you are weighed in the balances, and are found wanting.

These great beasts, which are four, are four kings, which shall arise out of the earth.

And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.

The ram which you saw having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia.

O Lord, righteousness belongs unto you, but unto us shame of face, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries where you have driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against you.

O Lord, according to all your righteousness, I beseech you, let your anger and your fury be turned away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all that are about us.

O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for your own sake, O my God: for your city and your people are called by your name.

At the beginning of your supplications the commandment came forth, and I have come to show you; for you are greatly beloved: therefore understand the matter, and consider the vision.

Seventy weeks are determined upon your people and upon your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and its end shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

And, behold, one in the likeness of the sons of men touched my lips: then I opened my mouth, and spoke, and said unto him that stood before me, O my lord, because of the vision my sorrows are turned upon me, and I have retained no strength.

And they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.

And he said, Go your way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.

Then said God, Call his name Loammi: for you are not my people, and I will not be your God.

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured nor numbered; and it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, you are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, you are the sons of the living God.

And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they are the children of harlotry.

And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she has said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.

And I will sow her for myself in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them who were not my people, you are my people; and they shall say, you are my God.

Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another: for your people are as they that strive with the priest.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you shall be no priest to me: because you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.

I will not punish your daughters when they commit harlotry, nor your spouses when they commit adultery: for the men themselves are gone apart with harlots, and they sacrifice with prostitutes: therefore the people that do not understand shall fall.

And the revolters are deeply involved in slaughter, though I have been a rebuker of them all.

Therefore have I hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and your judgments are as the light that goes forth.

And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own deeds have surrounded them; they are before my face.

They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker, who ceases to stir the fire after he has kneaded the dough, until it is leavened.

They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings have fallen: there is none among them that calls unto me.

Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knows it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knows not.

They return, but not to the most High: they are like a treacherous bow: their princes shall fall by the sword for the insolence of their tongue: this shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.

For, lo, they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them: the precious things of their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns shall be in their tents.

All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them: for the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house, I will love them no more: all their princes are rebels.

And my people are bent to backsliding from me: though they called them to the most High, none at all would exalt him.

He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loves to oppress.

Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity: they sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal; yea, their altars are like heaps in the furrows of the fields.

The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unwise son; for he should not stay long where children are born.

Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, you are our gods: for in you the fatherless finds mercy.

Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the LORD are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall stumble in them.

For a nation has come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness.

He has laid my vine waste, and splintered my fig tree: he has stripped it bare, and cast it away; its branches are made white.

The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languishes; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy has withered away from the sons of men.

The seed shrivels under the clods, the storehouses are laid desolate, the barns are broken down; for the grain has withered.

How the beasts groan! the herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture; yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.

The beasts of the field cry also unto you: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Before their face the people shall be in great pain: all faces are drained of color.

Can two walk together, except they are agreed?

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord, says thus: Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the farmer to mourning, and such as are skilful in lamentation to wailing.

Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, who are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

Pass you unto Calneh, and see; and from there go to Hamath the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines: are they better than these kingdoms? or their borders greater than your borders?

That drink wine in bowls, and anoint yourselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

And though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, I will search and take them from there; and though they are hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there will I command the serpent, and it shall bite them:

Are you not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? says the LORD. Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?

Behold, the eyes of the Lord GOD are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the LORD.

That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and of all the nations, who are called by my name, says the LORD that does this.

Behold, I have made you small among the nations: you are greatly despised.

If thieves came to you, if robbers by night, (how are you cut off!) would they not have stolen till they had enough? if the grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some grapes?

How are the things of Esau searched out! how are his treasures sought out!

And the captives of this host of the children of Israel shall possess the land of the Canaanites, even unto Zarephath; and the captives of Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the south.

Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray you, for whose cause this evil is upon us; What is your occupation? and from where come you? what is your country? and of what people are you?

And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray you, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that you are a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and you relent from the destruction.

And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also many cattle?

And the mountains shall be melted under him, and the valleys shall be split, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place.

For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?

In that day shall one take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We are utterly ruined: he has changed the portion of my people: how he has removed it from me! turning away he has divided our fields.

O you that are named the house of Jacob : Is the spirit of the LORD restricted? are these his doings? do not my words do good to him that walks uprightly?

In that day, says the LORD, will I assemble those that are lame, and I will gather those that are driven out, and those that I have afflicted;

And I will make them that are lame a remnant, and those that were cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from that time forth, even forever.

Now also many nations are gathered against you, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion.

Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the short measure that is abominable?

For her rich men are full of violence, and her inhabitants have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.

For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and you walk in their counsels; that I should make you a desolation, and your inhabitants a hissing: therefore you shall bear the reproach of my people.

For the son dishonors the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house.

In the day that your walls are to be built, in that day shall your boundaries be far extended.

The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? his fury is poured out like fire, and the rocks are thrown down by him.

For while they are entangled together as thorns, and while they are drunk as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry.

And the LORD has given a commandment concerning you: No more shall your name be perpetuated: out of the house of your gods will I cut off the graven image and the molten image: I will make your grave; for you are vile.

The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet: the chariots shall be with flaming torches in the day of his preparation, and the cypress trees shall be terribly shaken.

Are you better than No Amon, that was situated among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was the sea?

All your strongholds shall be like fig trees with the first ripe figs: if they are shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater.

Behold, your troops in the midst of you are women: the gates of your land shall be set wide open unto your enemies: the fire shall devour the bars of your gates.

Your princes are like the locusts, and your officials like the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges on the cold day, but when the sun arises they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.

Your shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: your nobles shall dwell in the dust: your people are scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathers them.

Why do you show me iniquity, and cause me to behold trouble? for plundering and violence are before me: and there are those that raise up strife and contention.

For, lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the earth, to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.

They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed from themselves.

Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen press proudly on, their horsemen shall come from afar; they shall fly as the eagle that hastens to eat.

They shall all come for violence: their faces are set like the east wind, and they shall gather captives as the sand.

Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? we shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, you have established them for correction.

You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and can not look on iniquity: why do you look upon them that deal treacherously, and hold your tongue when the wicked devours the man that is more righteous than he?

They take up all of them with the hook, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their dragnet: therefore they rejoice and are glad.

Shall they not rise up suddenly that are your creditors, and awake that shall oppress you, and you shall be for booty unto them?

You are filled with shame instead of glory: drink you also, and let your shame be exposed: the cup of the LORD'S right hand shall be turned against you, and utter shame shall be upon your glory.

He stood, and measured the earth: he beheld, and drove asunder the nations; and the everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow: his ways are everlasting.

And those that are turned back from the LORD; and those that have not sought the LORD, nor inquired for him.

And it shall come to pass in the day of the LORD'S sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with foreign apparel.

Wail, you inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down; all they that trade with silver are cut off.