Be uncovered and go away, you who are living in Shaphir: the one living in Zaanan has not come out of her town; Beth-ezel is taken away from its base, even from its resting-place.

Let the war-carriage be yoked to the quick-running horse, you who are living in Lachish: she was the first cause of sin to the daughter of Zion; for the wrongdoings of Israel were seen in you.

Even now will the taker of your heritage come to you, you who are living in Mareshah: the glory of Israel will come to destruction for ever.

They have a desire for fields and take them by force; and for houses and take them away: they are cruel to a man and his family, even to a man and his heritage.

Is the Lord quickly made angry? are these his doings? do not his words do good to his people Israel?

The women of my people you have been driving away from their dearly loved children; from their young ones you are taking my glory for ever.

You who are haters of good and lovers of evil, pulling off their skin from them and their flesh from their bones;

They are building up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with evil-doing.

Now why are you crying so loudly? is there no king in you? has destruction come on your wise helper? so that pains have taken you like the pains of a woman in childbirth:

But they have no knowledge of the thoughts of the Lord, their minds are not able to see his purpose: for he has got them together like stems of grain to the crushing-floor.

And this will be our peace: when the Assyrian comes into our country and his feet are in our land, then we will put up against him seven keepers of the flocks and eight chiefs among men.

Your hand is lifted up against those who are against you, and all your haters will be cut off.

For its men of wealth are cruel, and its people have said what is not true, and their tongue is false in their mouth.

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.

Their hands are made ready to do evil; the ruler makes requests for money, and the judge is looking for a reward; and the great man gives decisions at his pleasure, and the right is twisted.

The best of them is like a waste plant, and their upright ones are like a wall of thorns. Sorrow! the day of their fate has come; now will trouble come on them.

For the son puts shame on his father, the daughter goes against her mother and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's haters are those of his family.

The Lord is a God who takes care of his honour and gives punishment for wrong; the Lord gives punishment and is angry; the Lord sends punishment on those who are against him, being angry with his haters.

The Lord is slow to get angry and great in power, and will not let the sinner go without punishment: the way of the Lord is in the wind and the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

The mountains are shaking because of him, and the hills flowing away; the earth is falling to bits before him, the world and all who are in it.

Who may keep his place before his wrath? and who may undergo the heat of his passion? his wrath is let loose like fire and the rocks are broken open by him.

What are you designing against the Lord? he will put an end to it: his haters will not come up again a second time.

For though they are like twisted thorns, and are overcome as with drink, they will come to destruction like stems of grass fully dry.

One has gone out from you who is designing evil against the Lord, whose purposes are of no value.

This is what the Lord has said: The days of my cause against you are ended; they are cut off and past. Though I have sent trouble on you, you will no longer be troubled.

The Lord has given an order about you, that no more of your name are to be planted: from the house of your gods I will have the pictured and metal images cut off; I will make your last resting-place a place of shame; for you are completely evil.

The body-covers of his fighting men have been made red, the men of war are clothed in bright red: the war-carriages are like flames of fire in the day when he gets ready, the horses are shaking.

The war-carriages are rushing through the streets, pushing against one another in the wide ways, looking like burning lights, running like thunder-flames.

The river doorways are forced open, and the king's house is flowing away.

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

But Nineveh is like a pool of water whose waters are flowing away; Keep your place, they say; but no one is turning back.

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.

Horsemen driving forward, and the shining sword and the bright spear: and a great number of wounded, and masses of dead bodies; they are falling over the bodies of the dead:

Are you better than No-amon, seated on the Nile streams, with waters all round her; whose wall was the sea and her earthwork the waters?

But even she has been taken away, she has gone away as a prisoner: even her young children are smashed to bits at the top of all the streets: the fate of her honoured men is put to the decision of chance, and all her great men are put in chains.

And you will be overcome with wine, you will become feeble; you will be looking for a safe place from those who are fighting against you.

See, the people who are in you are women; the doorways of your land are wide open to your attackers: the locks of your doors have been burned away in the fire.

Get water for the time when you are shut in, make strong your towns: go into the potter's earth, stamping it down with your feet, make strong the brickworks.

Your crowned ones are like the locusts, and your scribes like the clouds of insects which take cover in the walls on a cold day, but when the sun comes up they go in flight, and are seen no longer in their place.

Sorrow! how are the keepers of your flock sleeping, O king of Assyria! your strong men are at rest; your people are wandering on the mountains, and there is no one to get them together.

Your pain may not be made better; you are wounded to death: all those hearing the news about you will be waving their hands in joy over you: for who has not undergone the weight of your evil-doing again and again?

Why do you make me see evil-doing, and why are my eyes fixed on wrong? for wasting and violent acts are before me: and there is fighting and bitter argument.

For this reason the law is feeble and decisions are not effected: for the upright man is circled round by evil-doers; because of which right is twisted.

For see, I am sending the Chaldaeans, that bitter and quick-moving nation; who go through the wide spaces of the earth to get for themselves living-places which are not theirs.

They are greatly to be feared: their right comes from themselves.

And their horses are quicker than leopards and their horsemen more cruel than evening wolves; they come from far away, like an eagle in flight rushing on its food.

They are coming all of them with force; the direction of their faces is forward, the number of their prisoners is like the sands of the sea.

He makes little of kings, rulers are a sport to him; all the strong places are to be laughed at; for he makes earthworks and takes them.

Are you not eternal, O Lord my God, my Holy One? for you there is no death. O Lord, he has been ordered by you for our punishment; and by you, O Rock, he has been marked out to put us right.

Before your holy eyes sin may not be seen, and you are unable to put up with wrong; why, then, are your eyes on the false? why do you say nothing when the evil-doer puts an end to one who is more upright than himself?

Because you have taken their goods from great nations, all the rest of the peoples will take your goods from you; because of men's blood and violent acts against the land and the town and all who are living in it.

See, is it not the pleasure of the Lord of armies that the peoples are working for the fire and using themselves up for nothing?

You are full of shame in place of glory: take your part in the drinking, and let your shame be uncovered: the cup of the Lord's right hand will come round to you and your glory will be covered with shame.

For the violent acts against Lebanon will come on you, and the destruction of the cattle will be a cause of fear to you, because of men's blood and the violent acts against the land and the town and all who are living in it.

From his high place he sent shaking on the earth; he saw and nations were suddenly moved: and the eternal mountains were broken, the unchanging hills were bent down; his ways are eternal.

And those who are turned back from going after the Lord, and those who have not made prayer to the Lord or got directions from him.

And it will come about in the day of the Lord's offering, that I will send punishment on the rulers and the king's sons and all who are clothed in robes from strange lands.

Even their silver and their gold will not be able to keep them safe in the day of the Lord's wrath; but all the land will be burned up in the fire of his bitter wrath: for he will put an end, even suddenly, to all who are living in the land.

Her rulers are like loud-voiced lions in her; her judges are wolves of the evening, crushing up the bones before the morning.

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.

I have had the nations cut off, their towers are broken down; I have made their streets a waste so that no one goes through them: destruction has overtaken their towns, so that there is no man living in them.

See, at that time I will put an end to all who have been troubling you: I will give salvation to her whose steps are uncertain, and get together her who has been sent in flight; and I will make them a cause of praise and an honoured name in all the earth, when I let their fate be changed.

These are the words of the Lord of armies: These people say, The time has not come for building the Lord's house.

Much has been planted, but little got in; you take food, but have not enough; you take drink, but are not full; you are clothed, but no one is warm; and he who gets payment for his work, gets it to put it into a bag full of holes.

The agreement which I made with you when you came out of Egypt, and my spirit, are with you still; have no fear.

These are the words of the Lord of armies: Put now a point of law to the priests, saying,

Overturning the power of kingdoms; and I will send destruction on the strength of the kingdoms of the nations; by me war-carriages will be overturned with those who are in them; and the horses and the horsemen will come down, everyone by the sword of his brother.

And you are to say to them, These are the words of the Lord of armies: Come back to me, says the Lord of armies, and I will come back to you.

Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they go on living for ever?

Then I said, O my lord, what are these? And the angel who was talking to me said to me, I will make clear to you what they are.

And the man who was between the mountains, answering me, said, These are those whom the Lord has sent to go up and down through the earth.

And the angel who was talking to me said to me, Let your voice be loud and say, These are the words of the Lord of armies: I am greatly moved about the fate of Jerusalem and of Zion.

And I am very angry with the nations who are living untroubled: for when I was only a little angry, they made the evil worse.

And I said to the angel who was talking to me, What are these? And he said to me, These are the horns which have sent Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem in flight.

Then I said, What have these come to do? And he said, These are the horns which sent Judah in flight, and kept him from lifting up his head: but these men have come to send fear on them and to put down the nations who are lifting up their horns against the land of Judah to send it in flight.

And I said to him, Where are you going? And he said to me, To take the measure of Jerusalem, to see how wide and how long it is.

Ho! Zion, go in flight from danger, you who are living with the daughter of Babylon.

These are the words of the Lord of armies: If you will go in my ways and keep what I have put in your care, then you will be judge over my Temple and have the care of my house, and I will give you the right to come in among those who are there.

Give ear now, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your friends who are seated before you; for these are men who are a sign: for see, I will let my servant the Branch be seen.

For see, the stone which I have put before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes: see, the design cut on it will be my work, says the Lord of armies, and I will take away the sin of that land in one day.

And he said to me, What do you see? And I said, I see a light-support, made all of gold, with its cup on the top of it and seven lights on it; and there are seven pipes to every one of the lights which are on the top of it;

And I made answer and said to the angel who was talking to me, What are these, my lord?

Then the angel who was talking to me, answering me, said, Have you no knowledge of what these are? And I said, No, my lord.

Who are you, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel you will become level: and he will let all see the headstone, with cries of Grace, grace, to it.

For who has had a poor opinion of the day of small things? for they will be glad when they see the weighted measuring-line in the hand of Zerubbabel. Then he said in answer to me, These seven lights are the eyes of the Lord which go quickly up and down through all the earth.

And I made answer and said to him, What are these two olive-trees on the right side of the light-support and on the left?

And answering a second time, I said to him, What are these two olive branches, through whose gold pipes the oil is drained out?

And he said in answer to me, Have you no knowledge what these are? And I said, No, my lord.

And he said, These are the two sons of oil, whose place is by the Lord of all the earth.

And I said to the angel who was talking to me, Where are they taking the ephah?

And I made answer and said to the angel who was talking to me, What are these, my lord?

The carriage in which are the black horses goes in the direction of the north country; the white go to the west; and those of mixed colour go in the direction of the south country.

Then crying out to me, he said, See, those who are going to the north country have given rest to the spirit of the Lord in the north country.

And say to him, These are the words of the Lord of armies: See, the man whose name is the Branch, under whom there will be fertile growth.

And those who are far away will come and be builders in the Temple of the Lord, and it will be clear to you that the Lord of armies has sent me to you.

And when you are feasting and drinking, are you not doing it only for yourselves?

Are not these the words which the Lord said to you by the earlier prophets, when Jerusalem was full of people and wealth, and the towns round about her and the South and the Lowland were peopled?

These are the words of the Lord of armies: I am angry about the fate of Zion, I am angry about her with great wrath.

This is what the Lord of armies has said: Let your hands be strong, you who are now hearing these words from the mouths of the prophets, that is to say, in the days when the base of the house of the Lord of armies has been put in place for the building of the house, that is the Temple.

These are the things which you are to do: Let every man say what is true to his neighbour; and let your judging give peace in your towns.