A man of good faith will have great blessing, but one attempting to get wealth quickly will not go free from punishment.

He who takes from his father or his mother what is theirs by right, and says, It is no sin; is the same as a taker of life.

If a servant is gently cared for from his early years, he will become a cause of sorrow in the end.

The approval of a ruler is desired by great numbers: but the decision in a man's cause comes from the Lord.

The words of Agur, the son of Jakeh, from Massa. The man says: I am full of weariness, O God, I am full of weariness; O God, I have come to an end:

I have made request to you for two things; do not keep them from me before my death:

Put far from me all false and foolish things: do not give me great wealth or let me be in need, but give me only enough food:

There is a generation who seem to themselves to be free from sin, but are not washed from their unclean ways.

There is a generation whose teeth are like swords, their strong teeth like knives, for the destruction of the poor from the earth, and of those who are in need from among men.

The lion, which is strongest among beasts, not turning from his way for any;

The words of Lemuel, king of Massa: the teaching which he had from his mother.

Let him have drink, and his need will go from his mind, and the memory of his trouble will be gone.

She is like the trading-ships, getting food from far away.

And nothing which was desired by my eyes did I keep from them; I did not keep any joy from my heart, because my heart took pleasure in all my work, and this was my reward.

Of the wise man, as of the foolish man, there is no memory for ever, seeing that those who now are will have gone from memory in the days to come. See how death comes to the wise as to the foolish!

There is nothing better for a man than taking meat and drink, and having delight in his work. This again I saw was from the hand of God.

A time to take stones away and a time to get stones together; a time for kissing and a time to keep from kissing;

He has made everything right in its time; but he has made their hearts without knowledge, so that man is unable to see the works of God, from the first to the last.

And for every man to take food and drink, and have joy in all his work, is a reward from God.

I am certain that whatever God does will be for ever. No addition may be made to it, nothing may be taken from it; and God has done it so that man may be in fear before him.

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.

It is one who is by himself, without a second, and without son or brother; but there is no end to all his work, and he has never enough of wealth. For whom, then, am I working and keeping myself from pleasure? This again is to no purpose, and a bitter work.

As a dream comes from much business, so the voice of a foolish man comes with words in great number.

Because much talk comes from dreams and things of no purpose. But let the fear of God be in you.

As he came from his mother at birth, so does he go again; he gets from his work no reward which he may take away in his hand.

Say not, Why were the days which have gone by better than these? Such a question comes not from wisdom.

Wisdom keeps a man from danger even as money does; but the value of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to its owner.

It is good to take this in your hand and not to keep your hand from that; he who has the fear of God will be free of the two.

There is no man on earth of such righteousness that he does good and is free from sin all his days.

All this I have put to the test by wisdom; I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me.

And I saw a thing more bitter than death, even the woman whose heart is full of tricks and nets, and whose hands are as bands. He with whom God is pleased will get free from her, but the sinner will be taken by her.

I say to you, Keep the king's law, from respect for the oath of God.

Be not quick to go from before him. Be not fixed in an evil design, because he does whatever is pleasing to him.

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.

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, like an error which comes by chance from a ruler:

He who gets out stones from the earth will be damaged by them, and in the cutting of wood there is danger.

So put away trouble from your heart, and sorrow from your flesh; because the early years and the best years are to no purpose.

The fig-tree puts out her green fruit and the vines with their young fruit give a good smell. Get up from your bed, my beautiful one, and come away.

I was but a little way from them, when I came face to face with him who is the love of my soul. I took him by the hands, and did not let him go, till I had taken him into my mother's house, and into the room of her who gave me birth.

Your teeth are like a flock of sheep whose wool is newly cut, which come up from the washing; every one has two lambs, and there is not one without young.

Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, with me from Lebanon; see from the top of Amana, from the top of Senir and Hermon, from the places of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards.

You are a fountain of gardens, a spring of living waters, and flowing waters from Lebanon.

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.

Your teeth are like a flock of sheep which come up from the washing; every one has two lambs, and there is not one without young.

Oh that you were my brother, who took milk from my mother's breasts! When I came to you in the street, I would give you kisses; yes, I would not be looked down on.

Who is this, who comes up from the waste places, resting on her loved one? It was I who made you awake under the apple-tree, where your mother gave you birth; there she was in pain at your birth.

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.

The body, from head to foot, is all diseased; it is a mass of open wounds, marks of blows, and broken flesh: the flow of blood has not been stopped, and no oil has been put on the wounds.

Your country has become waste; your towns are burned with fire; as for your land, it is overturned before your eyes, made waste and overcome by men from strange lands.

And when your hands are stretched out to me, my eyes will be turned away from you: even though you go on making prayers, I will not give ear: your hands are full of blood.

Be washed, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes; let there be an end of sinning;

But a common destruction will overtake sinners and evil-doers together, and those who have gone away from the Lord will be cut off.

And the peoples will say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: and he will give us knowledge of his ways, and we will be guided by his word; for out of Zion the law will go out, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

For the Lord, the Lord of armies, is about to take away from Jerusalem and from Judah all their support; their store of bread and of water;

And it will come about that the rest of the living in Zion, and of those who have been kept from destruction in Jerusalem, will be named holy, even everyone who has been recorded for life in Jerusalem:

When Zion has been washed from her sin by the Lord, and Jerusalem made clean from her blood by a judging and a burning wind.

And a shade in the daytime from the heat, and a safe cover from storm and from rain.

Who for a reward give support to the cause of the sinner, and who take away the righteousness of the upright from him.

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.

Then a winged one came to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from off the altar with the fire-spoon.

And after touching my mouth with it, he said, See, your lips have been touched with this; and your evil is taken away, and you are made clean from sin.

Then the Lord said to Isaiah, Go out now, you and Shear-jashub, your son, and you will come across Ahaz at the end of the stream flowing from the higher pool, in the highway of the washerman's field;

For the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin (and in sixty-five years from now Ephraim will be broken, and will no longer be a people):

The Lord is about to send on you, and on your people, and on your father's house, such a time of trouble as there has not been from the days of the separating of Ephraim from Judah; even the coming of the king of Assyria.

In that day will the Lord take away the hair of the head and of the feet, as well as the hair of the face, with a blade got for a price from the other side of the River; even with the king of Assyria.

And it will come on into Judah; rushing on and overflowing, till the waters are up to the neck; *** and his outstretched wings will be covering the land from side to side: for God is with us.

And I will be waiting for the Lord, whose face is veiled from the house of Jacob, and I will be looking for him.

See, I and the children whom the Lord has given me, are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of armies, whose resting-place is in Mount Zion.

For this cause the Lord took away from Israel head and tail, high and low, in one day.

For the guides of this people are the cause of their wandering from the right way, and those who are guided by them come to destruction.

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.

And what will you do in the day of punishment, and in the destruction which is coming from far? to whom will you go for help, and what will become of your glory?

And I have put my hands on the wealth of the peoples, as on the place where a bird has put her eggs; and as a man may take the eggs from which a bird has gone, so I have taken all the earth for myself: and not a wing was moved, and not a mouth gave out a sound.

And in that day the weight which he put on your back will be taken away, and his yoke broken from off your neck.

He has gone up from Pene-Rimmon, he has come to Aiath; he has gone past Migron, at Michmash he puts his forces in order.

And in that day the hand of the Lord will be stretched out the second time to get back the rest of his people, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the sea-lands.

And he will put up a flag as a sign to the nations, and he will get together those of Israel who had been sent away, and the wandering ones of Judah, from the four ends of the earth.

And there will be a highway for the rest of his people from Assyria; as there was for Israel in the day when he came up out of the land of Egypt.

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.

Send out a cry of grief; for the day of the Lord is near; it comes as destruction from the Most High.

People will never be living in it again, and it will have no more men from generation to generation: the Arab will not put up his tent there; and those who keep sheep will not make it a resting-place for their flocks.

For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will again make Israel his special people, and will put them in their land; and the man from a strange country will take his place among them and be joined to the family of Jacob.

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,

Even the trees of the wood are glad over you, the trees of Lebanon, saying, From the time of your fall no wood-cutter has come up against us with an axe.

The underworld is moved at your coming: the shades of the dead are awake before you, even the strong ones of the earth; all the kings of the world have got up from their seats.

How great is your fall from heaven, O shining one, son of the morning! How are you cut down to the earth, low among the dead bodies!

Who made the world a waste, overturning its towns; who did not let his prisoners loose from the prison-house.

For I will come up against them, says the Lord of armies, cutting off from Babylon name and offspring, son and son's son, says the Lord.

To let the Assyrian be broken in my land, and crushed under foot on my mountains: there will his yoke be taken away from them, and his rule over them come to an end.

For the daughters of Moab will be like wandering birds, like a place from which the young birds have gone in flight, at the ways across the Arnon.

Let those who have been forced out of Moab have a resting-place with you; be a cover to them from him who is making waste their land: till the cruel ones are cut off, and wasting has come to an end, and those who take pleasure in crushing the poor are gone from the land.

The strong tower has gone from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: the rest of Aram will come to destruction, and be made like the glory of the children of Israel, says the Lord of armies.

For this is what the Lord has said to me: I will be quiet, watching from my place; like the clear heat when the sun is shining, like a mist of dew in the heat of summer.

In that time an offering will be made to the Lord of armies from a people tall and smooth, causing fear through all their history; a strong nation, crushing down its haters, whose land is cut through by rivers, an offering taken to the place of the name of the Lord of armies, even Mount Zion.

At that time the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saying, Go, and take off your robe, and your shoes from your feet; and he did so, walking unclothed and without shoes on his feet.

And those living by the sea will say in that day, See the fate of our hope to whom we went for help and salvation from the king of Assyria: what hope have we then of salvation?

The word about the waste land. As storm-winds in the South go rushing through, it comes from the waste land, from the land greatly to be feared.

O my crushed ones, the grain of my floor! I have given you the word which came to me from the Lord of armies, the God of Israel.