When the wicked rise, men hide themselves: but when they perish, the righteous increase.

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

The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their food in the summer;

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

The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands;

Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; to the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

I communed with my own heart, saying, Lo, I have come to great estate, and have gained more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: and my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.

I sought in my heart, to give myself to wine, yet acquainting my heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life.

I said in my heart concerning the state of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yes, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.

Yes, better is he than both they, who hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor.

For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him to rise.

Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?

There is no end of all the people, even of all that have been before them: they also that come after shall not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.

If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perversion of judgment and justice in a province, wonder not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there are higher than they.

When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners of them, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?

Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity.

This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event to all: yes, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, hath now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

If the clouds are full of rain, they empty themselves upon the earth: and if the tree falleth towards the south, or towards the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.

In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.

But if a man shall live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness; for they shall be many. All that cometh is vanity.

In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows shall be darkened,

Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:

Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.

They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night.

The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my vail from me.

Turn away thy eyes from me, for they have overcome me: thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead.

My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bore her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yes, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they are gone away backward.

From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them.

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow, though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come to them.

And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed.

For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen.

And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

And he will judge among the nations, and will rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they are replenished from the east, and are sooth-sayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.

Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:

And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.

In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats;

The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe to their soul! for they have rewarded evil to themselves.

Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they who lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.

Moreover the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with extended necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:

And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

Woe to them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there is no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth!

Woe to them that rise early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflameth them!

And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands.

Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.

Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from afar, and will hiss to them from the end of the earth: and behold, they shall come with speed swiftly:

Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yes, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey, and shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it.

And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea: and if one looketh to the land, behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened in its heavens.

Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.

But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten: as a teil-tree, and as an oak whose substance is in them, when they cast their leaves: so the holy seed shall be the substance of it.

And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes.

And it shall come to pass, for the abundance of milk that they shall give, he shall eat butter: for butter and honey shall every one eat that is left in the land.

And when they shall say to you, Seek to them that have familiar spirits, and to wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek to their God? for the living to the dead?

To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

And they shall pass through it, distressed and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall fret themselves, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.

And they shall look to the earth; and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and they shall be driven to darkness.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shades of death, upon them hath the light shined.

Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

The Syrians before, and the Philistines behind; and they shall devour Israel with open mouth. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

For the people turn not to him that smiteth them, neither do they seek the LORD of hosts.

For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led by them are destroyed.

For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briers and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest, and they shall mount up like the rising of smoke.

And he shall snatch on the right hand, and be hungry; and he shall eat on the left hand, and they shall not be satisfied: they shall eat every man the flesh of his own arm:

Manasseh, Ephraim; and Ephraim, Manasseh: and they together shall be against Judah. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Woe to them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;

To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!

Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

And shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body: and they shall be as when a standard-bearer fainteth.

They have gone over the passage: they have taken up their lodging at Geba; Ramah is afraid; Gibeah of Saul hath fled.

They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines towards the west; they shall spoil them of the east together: they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them.

Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice to them, shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles.

They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.

And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.

And it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one to his own land.

Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it.

Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children.

For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.

And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the LORD for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.

The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.

All they shall speak and say to thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like us?

They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that shook kingdoms:

Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they may not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

In their streets they shall gird themselves with sackcloth: on the tops of their houses, and in their streets, every one shall howl, weeping abundantly.

My heart shall cry out for Moab; his fugitives shall flee to Zoar, a heifer of three years old: for they shall go up the ascent of Luhith with weeping; for in the way of Horonaim they shall raise a cry of destruction.

Therefore the abundance they have gained, and that which they have laid up, shall they carry away to the brook of the willows.