Let them give praise to the name of the Lord: for he gave the order, and they were made.

For they will be a crown of grace for your head, and chain-ornaments about your neck.

If they say, Come with us; let us make designs against the good, waiting secretly for the upright, without cause;

For their feet are running after evil, and they are quick to take a man's life.

And they are secretly waiting for their blood and making ready destruction for themselves.

Then I will give no answer to their cries; searching for me early, they will not see me:

For they were haters of knowledge, and did not give their hearts to the fear of the Lord:

They had no desire for my teaching, and my words of protest were as nothing to them.

So the fruit of their way will be their food, and with the designs of their hearts they will be made full.

For they will give you increase of days, years of life, and peace.

So they will be life for your soul, and grace for your neck.

For they take no rest till they have done evil; their sleep is taken away if they have not been the cause of someone's fall.

The way of sinners is dark; they see not the cause of their fall.

For they are life to him who gets them, and strength to all his flesh.

They will keep you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the strange woman.

So that they may keep you from the strange woman, even from her whose words are smooth.

They are all true to him whose mind is awake, and straightforward to those who get knowledge.

When there is no helping suggestion the people will have a fall, but with a number of wise guides they will be safe.

Where there are no wise suggestions, purposes come to nothing; but by a number of wise guides they are made certain.

Unequal weights and unequal measures, they are all disgusting to the Lord.

By their violent acts the evil-doers will be pulled away, because they have no desire to do what is right.

A wise man goes up into the town of the strong ones, and overcomes its strength in which they put their faith.

The offering of evil-doers is disgusting: how much more when they give it with an evil purpose!

Do not take away the property of the poor man because he is poor, or be cruel to the crushed ones when they come before the judge:

They have overcome me, you will say, and I have no pain; they gave me blows without my feeling them: when will I be awake from my wine? I will go after it again.

The words of one who says evil of his neighbour secretly are like sweet food, they go down into the inner parts of the stomach.

With his lips the hater makes things seem what they are not, but deceit is stored up inside him;

Because of the sin of the land, its troubles are increased; but by a man of wisdom and knowledge they will be put out like a fire.

When evil men are in power, wrongdoing is increased; but the upright will have pleasure when they see their downfall.

There are four things which are little on the earth, but they are very wise:

The ants are a people not strong, but they put by a store of food in the summer;

The conies are only a feeble people, but they make their houses in the rocks;

The locusts have no king, but they all go out in bands;

For fear that through drinking they may come to have no respect for the law, wrongly judging the cause of those who are in trouble.

All the rivers go down to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the rivers go, there they go again.

I got men-servants and women-servants, and they gave birth to sons and daughters in my house. I had great wealth of herds and flocks, more than all who were in Jerusalem before me.

I said in my heart, It is because of the sons of men, so that God may put them to the test and that they may see themselves as beasts.

And again I saw all the cruel things which are done under the sun; there was the weeping of those who have evil done to them, and they had no comforter: and from the hands of the evil-doers there went out power, but they had no comforter.

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their work.

So again, if two are sleeping together they are warm, but how may one be warm by himself?

There was no end of all the people, of all those whose head he was, but they who come later will have no delight in him. This again is to no purpose and desire for wind.

If you see the poor under a cruel yoke, and law and right being violently overturned in a country, be not surprised, because one authority is keeping watch on another and there are higher than they.

This only have I seen, that God made men upright, but they have been searching out all sorts of inventions.

And then I saw evil men put to rest, taken even from the holy place; and they went about and were praised in the town because of what they had done. This again is to no purpose.

This is evil in all things which are done under the sun: that there is one fate for all, and the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; while they have life their hearts are foolish, and after that--to the dead.

The living are conscious that death will come to them, but the dead are not conscious of anything, and they no longer have a reward, because there is no memory of them.

Their love and their hate and their envy are now ended; and they have no longer a part for ever in anything which is done under the sun.

If the clouds are full of rain, they send it down on the earth; and if a tree comes down to the south, or the north, in whatever place it comes down, there it will be.

But even if a man's life is long and he has joy in all his years, let him keep in mind the dark days, because they will be great in number. Whatever may come is to no purpose.

The words of the wise are pointed, and sayings grouped together are like nails fixed with a hammer; they are given by one guide.

Take me to you, and we will go after you: the king has taken me into his house. We will be glad and full of joy in you, we will give more thought to your love than to wine: rightly are they your lovers.

Let not your eyes be turned on me, because I am dark, because I was looked on by the sun; my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vine-gardens; but my vine-garden I have not kept.

The keepers who go about the town overtook me; they gave me blows and wounds; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me.

Let your eyes be turned away from me; see, they have overcome me; your hair is as a flock of goats which take their rest on the side of Gilead.

My dove, my very beautiful one, is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the dearest one of her who gave her birth. The daughters saw her, and gave her a blessing; yes, the queens and the servant-wives, and they gave her praises.

Give ear, O heavens, and you, O earth, to the word which the Lord has said: I have taken care of my children till they became men, but their hearts have been turned away from me.

O nation full of sin, a people weighted down with crime, a generation of evil-doers, false-hearted children: they have gone away from the Lord, they have no respect for the Holy One of Israel, their hearts are turned back from him.

Your new moons and your regular feasts are a grief to my soul: they are a weight in my spirit; I am crushed under them.

Your chiefs have gone against the Lord, they have become friends of thieves; every one of them is looking for profit and going after rewards; they do not give right decisions for the child who has no father, and they do not let the cause of the widow come before them.

And the strong will be as food for the fire, and his work as a flame; and they will be burned together, with no one to put out the fire.

For you, O Lord, have given up your people, the family of Jacob, because they are full of the evil ways of the east, and make use of secret arts like the Philistines, and are friends with the children of strange countries.

Their land is full of images; they give worship to the work of their hands, even to that which their fingers have made.

In that day men will put their images of silver and of gold, which they made for worship, in the keeping of the beasts of the dark places;

Again, the Lord has said, Because the daughters of Zion are full of pride, and go with outstretched necks and wandering eyes, with their foot-chains sounding when they go:

Cursed are those who get up early in the morning to give themselves up to strong drink; who keep on drinking far into the night till they are heated with wine!

And corded instruments and wind-instruments and wine are in their feasts: but they give no thought to the work of the Lord, and they are not interested in what his hands are doing.

For this cause, as the waste of the grain is burned up by tongues of fire, and as the dry grass goes down before the flame, so their root will be like the dry stems of grain, and their flower will go up in dust: because they have gone against the law of the Lord of armies, and have given no honour to the word of the Holy One of Israel.

And he will let a flag be lifted up as a sign to a far-off nation, whistling to them from the ends of the earth: and they will come quickly and suddenly.

There is no weariness among them, and no man is feeble-footed: they come without resting or sleeping, and the cord of their shoes is not broken.

The sound of their armies will be like the voice of a lion, and their war-cry like the noise of young lions: with loud cries they will come down on their food and will take it away safely, and there will be no one to take it out of their hands.

Make the hearts of this people fat, and let their ears be stopped, and their eyes shut; for fear that they may see with their eyes, and be hearing with their ears, and their heart may become wise, and they may be turned to me and made well.

And they will come, covering all the waste valleys, and the holes of the rocks, and the thorns, and all the watering-places.

And they will give so much milk that he will be able to have butter for his food: for butter and honey will be the food of all who are still living in the land.

And they will send out the oxen and the sheep on all the hills which before were worked with the spade, ... fear of blackberries and thorns.

Let your designs be formed, and they will come to nothing; give your orders, and they will not be effected: for God is with us.

Do not say, It is holy, about everything of which this people says, It is holy; and do not be in fear of what they go in fear of.

And he will be for a holy place: but for a stone of falling and a rock of trouble to the two houses of Israel, and to the men of Jerusalem, for a net in which they may be taken.

And when they say to you, Make request for us to those who have control of spirits, and to those wise in secret arts, who make hollow bird-like sounds; is it not right for a people to make request to their gods, to make request for the living to the dead?

Then say to them, Put your faith in the teaching and the witness. ... If they do not say such things. ... For him there is no dawn. ...

You have made them very glad, increasing their joy. They are glad before you as men are glad in the time of getting in the grain, or when they make division of the goods taken in war.

The bricks have come down, but we will put up buildings of cut stone in their place: the sycamores are cut down, but they will be changed to cedars.

But the heart of the people was not turned to him who sent punishment on them, and they made no prayer to the Lord of armies.

For this cause the Lord will have no pleasure in their young men, and no pity on their widows and the children without fathers: for they are all haters of God and evil-doers, and foolish words come from every mouth. For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Manasseh was making a meal of Ephraim, and Ephraim of Manasseh; and together they were attacking Judah. For all this his wrath is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Who do wrong to the poor in their cause, and take away the right of the crushed among my people, so that they may have the property of widows, and get under their power those who have no father.

They have gone across the mountain; Geba will be our resting-place tonight, they say: Ramah is shaking with fear; Gibeah of Saul has gone in flight.

And they will be united in attacking the Philistines on the west, and together they will take the goods of the children of the east: their hand will be on Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon will be under their rule.

Put up a flag on a clear mountain-top, make a loud outcry to them, give directions with the hand, so that they may go into the doors of the great ones.

They come from a far country, from the farthest part of heaven, even the Lord and the instruments of his wrath, with destruction for all the land.

Their hearts will be full of fear; pains and sorrows will overcome them; they will be in pain like a woman in childbirth; they will be shocked at one another; their faces will be like flames.

And it will be that, like a roe in flight, and like wandering sheep, they will go every man to his people and to his land.

In their hands are bows and spears; they are cruel, violently putting the young men to death, and crushing the young women; they have no pity for children, and no mercy for the fruit of the body.

And the people will take them with them to their place: and the children of Israel will give them a heritage in the Lord's land as men-servants and women-servants, making them prisoners whose prisoners they were; and they will be rulers over their masters.

And it will be, in the day when the Lord gives you rest from your sorrow, and from your trouble, and from the hard yoke which they had put on you,

All the earth is at rest and is quiet: they are bursting into song.

They all make answer and say to you, Have you become feeble like us? have you been made even as we are?

Those who see you will be looking on you with care, they will be in deep thought, saying, Is this the troubler of the earth, the shaker of kingdoms?

Make ready a place of death for his children, because of the evil-doing of their father; so that they may not come up and take the earth for their heritage, covering the face of the world with waste places.

In their streets they are covering themselves with haircloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their public places, there is crying and bitter weeping.

My heart is crying out for Moab; her people go in flight to Zoar, and to Eglath-shelishiyah: for they go up with weeping by the slope of Luhith; on the way to Horonaim they send up a cry of destruction.