And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was on the waters of the river, when he held up his right and his left hand to Heaven, and swore by Him who lives forever that it shall be for a time, times, and a half. And when they have made an end of scattering the power of the holy people, all these things shall be finished.

And she conceived again and bore a daughter. And God said to him, Call her name No-mercy, for I will no more have mercy on the house of Israel. But I will utterly take them away.

But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by Jehovah their God, and will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle, by horses, nor by horsemen.

And I will not have mercy on her sons, for they are the sons of adulteries.

And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, of which she has said, They 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 to Me in the earth. And I will have mercy on No-mercy. And I will say to Not-my-people, You are My people. And they shall say, My God.

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you from being priest to Me. Since you have forgotten the Law of your God, I will also forget your sons, even I.

For they shall eat and not have enough. They shall fornicate and not increase, because they have stopped taking heed to Jehovah.

My people seek advice from their wooden idols, and their rod declares to them. For the spirit of harlotry has caused them to go astray, and they have gone lusting away from under their God.

Hear this, O priests, and listen, house of Israel. And give ear, house of the king. For judgment is toward you, because you have been a snare on Mizpah and a net spread on Tabor.

And revolters have gone deep in slaughtering, and I chasten all of them.

I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hidden from me. For now, O Ephraim, you have fornicated; Israel is defiled.

Their doings will not allow them to turn to their God; for the spirit of fornication is in their midst, and they have not known Jehovah.

They have acted treacherously against Jehovah, for they have brought out strange sons. Now a new moon shall devour them with their portions.

Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke. Among the tribes of Israel I have made known that which is confirmed.

So I have cut them down by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of My mouth. And your judgments were as the light that goes forth.

But, like Adam, they have broken the covenant. They have acted like traitors against Me there.

I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel; the harlotry of Ephraim is there; Israel is defiled.

When I would have healed Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim was uncovered, and the wickedness of Samaria. For they have worked falsehood. And the thief comes in, the troop of robbers plunders outside.

And they do not say within their hearts that I remember all their evil. Now their own doings have hemmed them in; they are before My face.

In the day of our king, the rulers have sickened themselves with the heat of wine. He stretches out his hand with scorners.

For they have brought their heart near like an oven, while they lie in wait. Their baker sleeps at night; in the morning it burns like a flaming fire.

They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges. All their kings have fallen; there is none among them who calls to Me.

Strangers have eaten up his strength, and he does not know. Yea, gray hairs are here and there on him, yet he knows it not.

Woe to them! For they have fled from Me. Ruin to them! Because they have sinned against Me. Though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against Me.

And they have not cried to Me with their heart, when they howled on their beds; they gather themselves for grain and wine, and they rebel against Me.

Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet they think evil against Me.

Put a trumpet to your mouth. He comes like an eagle against the house of Jehovah, because they have broken My covenant and have sinned against My Law.

They have set up kings, but not by Me; they have made rulers, and I knew it not. They have made themselves idols with their silver and their gold, so that they may be cut off.

For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself. Ephraim has hired lovers.

Yea, though they have hired among the nations, now I will gather them. And they began to be few, from the burden of the king of rulers.

I have written to him the great things of My Law, but they were counted as a strange thing.

O Israel, rejoice not for joy, like the peoples. For you have gone lusting away from your God; you have loved a reward on every grain floor.

For lo, they have left because of destruction. Egypt shall gather them up; Memphis shall bury them. Nettles shall possess the desirable things of their silver; thorns shall be in their tents.

The days of her judgment have come; the days of vengeance have come; Israel shall know it. The prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is insane, because of the greatness of your iniquity and the great hatred.

They have deeply corrupted, as in days of Gibeah. He will remember their iniquity; He will punish their sins.

Israel is a luxuriant vine; he brings out fruit to himself. According to the multitude of his fruit, he has increased the altars. They have made beautiful images according to the goodness of his land.

For now they shall say, We have no king because we did not fear Jehovah; what then should a king do to us?

They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant. So judgment springs up like hemlock in the furrows of the field.

O Israel, you have sinned from the days of Gibeah. There they stood; the battle against the sons of iniquity did not overtake them in Gibeah.

You have plowed wickedness; you have reaped iniquity; you have eaten the fruit of lies, because you trusted in your way, in the multitude of your mighty men.

And Ephraim said, Yet I have become rich, I have found much wealth for myself. In all my labors they shall find in me no iniquity that is sin.

And I Jehovah, who have been your God from the land of Egypt, will yet make you to dwell in tents as in the days of the appointed feast.

I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions and have used parables by the hand of the prophets.

And now they sin more and more, and have made themselves a molten image of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves.

I have known you in the wilderness, in the land of great dryness.

According to their pasture, so were they filled. They were filled and their heart was lifted up. Therefore they have forgotten Me.

O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in Me is your help.

O Israel, return to Jehovah your God, for you have fallen by your iniquity.

Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him and watched him; I am like a green fir tree. Your fruit is found from Me.

How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are troubled because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are destroyed.

Who knows if He will turn and have pity and leave a blessing behind Him, a food offering and a drink offering to Jehovah your God?

Let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Have pity on Your people, O Jehovah, and give not Your inheritance to shame, for a proverb among those of the nations. Why should they say among the people, Where is their God?

I will also gather all nations and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will fight with them there for My people and for My inheritance Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and divided My land.

And they have cast lots for My people, and have given a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, so that they might drink.

Yea, and what have you to do with Me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the borders of Philistia? Will you give Me a reward? And if you reward Me, swiftly and speedily I will turn your reward on your own head,

because you have taken My silver and My gold, and have carried My good treasures into your temples.

You have also sold the sons of Judah and the sons of Jerusalem to the sons of the Greeks, that you might remove them far from their border.

Behold, I am raising them out of the place where you have sold them, and will turn your reward on your own head.

So says Jehovah: For three transgressions of Damascus, yea for four, I will not turn away from it; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron.

So says Jehovah: For three transgressions of the sons of Ammon, yea for four, I will not turn away from it. Because they have ripped up the pregnant women of Gilead, to make their own border larger.

So says Jehovah: For three transgressions of Judah, yea for four, I will not turn away from it; because they have despised the Laws of Jehovah, and have not kept His commandments. And their lies after which their fathers walked led them astray.

You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places, and you have not returned to Me, says Jehovah.

And I have also withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest. And I caused rain to fall on one city and caused it not to rain on another city; one piece was rained on, and the piece on which it did not rain dried up.

So two or three cities wandered to one city to drink water, but they were not satisfied; yet you have not returned to Me, says Jehovah.

I have stricken you with blasting and mildew. When your gardens and your vineyards, and your fig trees. and your olive trees increased, the creeping locust devoured them; yet you have not returned to Me, says Jehovah.

I have sent the plague among you in the way of Egypt; I have slain your young men with the sword, and have taken away your horses. And I have made the stench of your camps to come up into your nostrils; yet you have not returned to Me, says Jehovah.

I have overthrown some among you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a firebrand plucked out of the burning; yet you have not returned to Me, says Jehovah.

For thus says the Lord Jehovah: The city that went out by a thousand shall leave a hundred, and that which went out by a hundred shall have ten left in the house of Israel.

So, because of your trampling on the poor, and you take tribute of grain from him; you have built houses of carved stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted desirable vineyards, but you shall not drink wine from them.

Seek good and not evil, that you may live; and so Jehovah, the God of Hosts, shall be with you, as you have spoken.

Have you offered sacrifices and offerings to Me forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel?

But you have carried the booth of your king and Kiyyun, your images, the star of your gods which you made for yourselves.

Shall horses run on the rock? Will one plow there with oxen? For you have turned justice into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock;

you who rejoice in nothing, who say, Have we not taken horns to ourselves by our own strength?

Are you not like sons of the Ethiopians to Me, O sons of Israel, says Jehovah? Have I not brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?

And I will plant them on their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, says Jehovah your God.

The vision of Obadiah. So says the Lord God concerning Edom: We have heard a message from Jehovah, and a messenger is sent among the nations: Rise up, even let us rise up against her for battle.

Behold, I have given you to be small among the nations; you are greatly despised.

If thieves came to you, if destroyers by night (how you have been cut off!), would they not have stolen until they had enough? If the grape-gatherers came to you, would they not leave gleanings?

All the men of your covenant have dismissed you to the border; the men who were at peace with you have deceived you, and have overcome you. They are setting your bread as a snare under you; there is no understanding in them.

But you should not have looked on the day of your brother on the day of his alienation; nor should you have rejoiced over the sons of Judah in the day of their ruin; nor should you have enlarged your mouth in the day of distress.

You should not have entered into the gate of My people in the day of their calamity; also, you should not have looked on his evil in the day of their calamity. Nor should you have sent out against his force in the day of his calamity.

Nor should you have stood on the crossways to cut off those of him who escaped; nor should you have shut up his survivors in the day of distress.

For the day of Jehovah is near on all the nations; as you have done, it shall be done to you. Your reward shall return upon your head.

For as you have drunk upon My holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink forever. Yes, they shall drink, and they shall swallow, and they shall be as though they had not been.

Then the men were afraid with a great fear. And they said to him, What is this you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from before the face of Jehovah, because he had told them.

And they cried to Jehovah and said, We beg You, O Jehovah, we beg You, let us not perish for this man's life, and do not lay on us innocent blood. For You, O Jehovah, have done as it pleased You.

I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was around me forever; yet You have brought up my life from the pit, O Jehovah my God.

but I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving; I will fulfill that which I have vowed. Salvation belongs to Jehovah!

Who knows? He may repent, and God may have pity and turn away from the glow of His anger, so that we do not perish.

And Jehovah said, You have had pity on the plant, for which you had not labored, nor made it grow, which was a son of a night, and perished the son of a night.

You have thrown the wives of My people out from the house of her delight; from their children you have taken away My majesty forever.

The breaker has come up before them; they have broken up, and have passed through the gate, and have gone out of it. And their king shall pass before them, and Jehovah at the head of them.

Then they shall cry to Jehovah, but He will not answer them. He will even hide His face from them at that time, as they have done evil in their doings.

In that day, says Jehovah, I will gather the lame, and I will gather the banished, and the one I have afflicted.

Now why do you cry aloud? Is there no king among you? Has your counselor perished? For pangs have taken you like one giving birth.

And you, Bethlehem Ephratah, you being least among the thousands of Judah, out of you He shall come forth to Me, to become Ruler in Israel, He whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity.

And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury on the nations, such as they have not heard.