Harness the horses to the chariot,
you residents of Lachish.
This was the beginning of sin for Daughter Zion,
because Israel’s acts of rebellion can be traced to you.

Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children; enlarge thy baldness as the eagle; for they are gone into captivity from thee.

"Therefore this is what the LORD says, "I'm crafting evil against this family, from which you can't escape. You won't strut around arrogantly, because the times are evil.'

Does the family of Jacob say, 'The Lord's patience can't be exhausted -- he would never do such things'? To be sure, my commands bring a reward for those who obey them,

"Get up and go, because there's no rest for you here! Since everything is polluted, it can only cause destruction, even heavy destruction.

The breaker is come up before them: they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their king shall pass before them, and the LORD on the head of them.

Therefore a night ye have without vision, And darkness ye have without divination, And gone in hath the sun on the prophets, And black over them hath been the day.

The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.

And gone have many nations and said, Come and we go up to the mount of Jehovah, And unto the house of the God of Jacob, And He doth teach us of His ways, And we do walk in His paths, For from Zion doth go forth a law, And a word of Jehovah from Jerusalem.

And he will be judge between great peoples, and strong nations far away will be ruled by his decisions; their swords will be hammered into plough-blades and their spears into vine-knives: nations will no longer be lifting up their swords against one another, and knowledge of war will have gone for ever.

Be pained, and bring forth, O daughter of Zion, As a travailing woman, For now, thou goest forth from the city, And thou hast dwelt in the field, And thou hast gone unto Babylon, There thou art delivered, There redeem thee doth Jehovah from the hand of thine enemies.

Many nations have now assembled against you. They say, "Jerusalem must be desecrated, so we can gloat over Zion!"

Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the LORD, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.

And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver.

"I will not overlook, O sinful house, the dishonest gain you have hoarded away, or the smaller-than-standard measure I hate so much.

“Can I [be guiltless and] justify deceptive scales
And a bag of dishonest weights?

The good man is gone from the earth, there is no one upright among men: they are all waiting secretly for blood, every man is going after his brother with a net.

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.

What can ye devise against Yahweh? A full end, is he making, - Distress, shall not rise up twice:

There is one gone forth out of thee, that deviseth evil against Jehovah, that counselleth wickedness.

Therefore thus sayeth the LORD, "Let them be as well prepared, yea and as many as they can, yet shall they be hewn down, and pass away. And as for thee, I will vex thee, but not utterly destroy thee;

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

Everything has been taken from her, all is gone, she has nothing more: the heart is turned to water, the knees are shaking, all are twisted in pain, and colour has gone from all faces.

Then all who see you will recoil from you, saying,
“Nineveh is devastated;
who will show sympathy to her?”
Where can I find anyone to comfort you?

Even she doth become an exile, She hath gone into captivity, Even her sucklings are dashed to pieces At the top of all out-places, And for her honoured ones they cast a lot, And all her great ones have been bound in fetters.

Your officials [are] like locusts; your commanders [are] like a swarm of locusts. They encamp on the walls on a cold day; when the sun rises, they fly away-- no one knows where they have gone.

Your shepherds are sleeping, king of Assyria! Your nobles slumber. Your people are scattered on the mountains; no one can gather them.

for the law is torn in pieces, and there can no right judgment go forth. And why? The ungodly is more set by than the righteous: this is the cause that wrong judgment proceedeth.

Your eyes are too pure to approve evil,
And You cannot look favorably on wickedness.
Why then do You look favorably
On those who act treacherously?
Why are you silent when the wicked (Chaldean oppressors) destroy
Those more righteous than they?

I will stand at my watch post; I will remain stationed on the city wall. I will keep watching, so I can see what he says to me and can know how I should answer when he counters my argument.

Yes, moreover, wine is treacherous. A haughty man who doesn't stay at home, who enlarges his desire as Sheol, and he is like death, and can't be satisfied, but gathers to himself all nations, and heaps to himself all peoples.

Woe to him that getteth an evil gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of evil!

"Woe to the one who supplies his neighbor with a drink! You are forcing your bottle on him, making him drunk so you can see them naked.

Woe to [him who] says to the wood, 'Wake up!' [And] to a lifeless stone, 'Arise!' Can he teach? Look, it is covered [with] gold and silver, and there is no breath within it.

Thou hast gone forth for the salvation of Thy people, For salvation with Thine anointed, Thou hast smitten the head of the house of the wicked, Laying bare the foundation unto the neck. Pause!

Howl, ye that dwell in the mill! For all the merchant people are gone, and all they that were laden with silver, are rooted out.

Before the decree takes effect [and the time for repentance is lost]—
The day passes like the chaff [whirled by the wind]—
Before the burning and fierce anger of the Lord comes upon you,
Before the day of the wrath of the Lord comes upon you.

This is how the once-proud city will end up -- the city that was so secure. She thought to herself, "I am unique! No one can compare to me!" What a heap of ruins she has become, a place where wild animals live! Everyone who passes by her taunts her and shakes his fist.

Her prophets are good-for-nothing persons, full of deceit: her priests have made the holy place unclean and have gone violently against the law.

Therefore you must wait patiently for me," says the Lord, "for the day when I attack and take plunder. I have decided to gather nations together and assemble kingdoms, so I can pour out my fury on them -- all my raging anger. For the whole earth will be consumed by my fiery anger.

The Lord your God is in your midst; he is a warrior who can deliver. He takes great delight in you; he renews you by his love; he shouts for joy over you."

"Ye yourselves can find time to dwell in sealed houses: and shall this house lie waste?

"Who is left among you who saw this house in its former glory? And what does it look like now? From what you can see, it seems like nothing, doesn't it?

And now, I pray you, consider from this day forth, and how it hath gone with you afore - before there was laid one stone upon another in the temple of the LORD -

from that time when one came to a grain heap expecting twenty measures, there would be only ten; and when one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty measures, there would be only twenty.

And the man who was between the mountains, answering, said to the angel of the Lord, We have gone up and down through the earth, and all the earth is quiet and at rest.

And he said unto me, What canst thou see? So I said, I, can see a flying volume, the length thereof, twenty by the cubit, and, the breadth thereof, ten by the cubit.

And he said to me, "This [is] the curse going out over the surface of the whole earth. For everyone who steals has gone unpunished according to it, and [likewise] everyone who swears [falsely] has gone unpunished according to it.

He answered me, "To the land of Shinar, so they can build a temple to the woman in the basket. Then when its preparations are complete, the basket will be set there in its place."

They in whose chariot are the black horses, are going forth into the land of the North, and, the white, have gone forth after them, - and, the spotted, have gone forth into the land of the South;

“but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after they had gone, so that no one passed through or returned, for they [by their sins] had made the pleasant land desolate and deserted.”

Moreover, the Lord who rules over all says, 'Old men and women will once more live in the plazas of Jerusalem, each one leaning on a cane because of advanced age.

"This is what the LORD of the Heavenly Armies says: "Be strong so the Temple can be built, you who are now listening to this message spoken by the prophets when the foundation was laid to the Temple of the LORD of the Heavenly Armies.

Yea, gone have inhabitants of one To another, saying: We go diligently, To appease the face of Jehovah, To seek Jehovah of Hosts -- I go, even I.

And Jehovah doth appear for them, And gone forth as lightning hath His arrow, And the Lord Jehovah with a trumpet bloweth, And He hath gone with whirlwinds of the south.

For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false dreams: they comfort in vain. Therefore they have gone away as a flock, they are in distress, because there is no shepherd.

“I will bring them back from the land of Egypt
And gather them from Assyria;
And I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon
Until no room can be found for them.

At that time, a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for those who live in Jerusalem so they can be cleansed from sin and ceremonial impurity.

And I have gathered all the nations unto Jerusalem to battle, And captured hath been the city, And spoiled have been the houses, And the women are lain with, Gone forth hath half the city in a removal, And the remnant of the people are not cut off from the city.

And gone forth hath Jehovah, And He hath fought against those nations, As in the day of His fighting in a day of conflict.

Now this will be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth.

And it hath come to pass, in that day, A great destruction from Jehovah is among them, And they have seized each the hand of his neighbour, And gone up hath his hand against the hand of his neighbour.

And it hath come to pass, Every one who hath been left of all the nations, Who are coming in against Jerusalem, They have also gone up from year to year, To bow themselves to the King, Jehovah of Hosts, And to celebrate the feast of the booths.

But now plead for God's favor that he might be gracious to us. "With this kind of offering in your hands, how can he be pleased with you?" asks the Lord who rules over all.

Who is there, even among you, that will shut the doors, so as not to set light to mine altar, for nothing? I can take no pleasure in you, saith Yahweh of hosts, and, your present, can I not accept at your hand.

But as for you, ye are gone clean out of the way, and have caused the multitude to be offended at the law: ye have broken the covenant of Levi, sayeth the LORD of Hosts.

But who can abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap:

And the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will please the Lord as in days of old and years gone by.

Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts. But ye said, Wherein shall we return?

Can a person rob God? You indeed are robbing me, but you say, 'How are we robbing you?' In tithes and contributions!

Ye have said, 'A vain thing to serve God! And what gain when we kept His charge? And when we have gone in black, Because of Jehovah of Hosts?

And risen to you, ye who fear My name, Hath the sun of righteousness -- and healing in its wings, And ye have gone forth, and have increased as calves of a stall.

Josiah became the father of Jeconiah [also called Coniah and Jehoiachin] and his brothers, at the time of the deportation (exile) to Babylon.

and having sent them to Beth-Lehem, he said, 'Having gone -- inquire ye exactly for the child, and whenever ye may have found, bring me back word, that I also having come may bow to him.'

So having heard the king, they went on; and lo, the star, which they had seen in the East, had gone before them, till it came and stood over the place where the infant was.

Now when they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod intends to search for the Child in order to destroy Him.”

"A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud wailing, Rachel weeping for her children, and she did not want to be comforted, because they were gone."

and do not imagine that you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our forefather,' for I tell you that God can raise up descendants for Abraham from these stones.

His winnowing-fork is in His hand, and He will clean out His threshing-floor and store His wheat in His barn, but He will burn up the chaff with fire that never can be put out."

But he answered, "The Scripture says, 'Not on bread alone can man live, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

Then saith Jesus to him, Be gone, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

And, having gone on thence, He saw other two brothers: James a son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He called them;

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has lost its taste (purpose), how can it be made salty? It is no longer good for anything, but to be thrown out and walked on by people [when the walkways are wet and slippery].

You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill can't be hidden.

Neither does a person light an [olive oil] lamp and place it under a bushel-sized container, but on a stand where it can illuminate everything in the house.

In the [same] way let your light shine before people, so that they can see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

For truly I say unto you, Until heaven and earth may pass away, one jot or tittle can not pass from the law, until all things may be accomplished.

For I say unto you, that if your righteousness may not abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you can not enter into the kingdom of the heavens.

It is true when I say to you, you will not be released from there until you have paid the last coin. [Note: The coin mentioned here amounted to about ten minutes' worth of a farm laborer's pay, or a little over one dollar in 1994].

Neither shall you swear by your head, for you can't make one hair white or black.

For if you love [only] those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do that?

"Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward.

"While praying do not say the same words over and over again, as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that by their much speaking they will gain attention.

"Do not store your valuables [here] on earth, where moths can eat them and where rust can corrode them, and where burglars can break in and steal [them].

But [rather] store up your valuables in heaven [i.e., by investing your life in spiritual things], where neither moths can eat nor rust corrode, nor burglars break in and steal,

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

That is why I say to you, Do not be anxious about your life here--what you can get to eat or drink; nor yet about your body-- what you can get to wear. Is not life more than food, and the body than its clothing?

Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

Therefore be not solicitous, saying, What can we eat? or what can we drink? or with what can we be clothed?

Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me get the speck out of your eye,’ when there is a log in your own eye?