Then again one having the form of a man put his hand on me and gave me strength.

But out of a branch from her roots one will come up to take his place, who will come against the army, forcing his way into the strong place of the king of the north, and he will take them in hand and overcome them:

And their gods and their metal images and their fair vessels of silver and gold he will take away into the south; and for some years he will keep away from the king of the north.

And his forces will be completely taken away from before him and broken; and even the ruler of the agreement will have the same fate.

And from the time when they make an agreement with him, he will be working falsely: for he will take up arms suddenly with a small force,

For those who go out from the west will come against him, and he will be in fear and will go back, full of wrath against the holy agreement; and he will do his pleasure: and he will go back and be united with those who have given up the holy agreement.

And he will come into the beautiful land, and tens of thousands will be overcome: but these will be kept from falling into his hands: Edom and Moab and the chief of the children of Ammon.

And his hand will be stretched out on the countries: and the land of the south will not be safe from him.

But he will be troubled by news from the east and from the north; and he will go out in great wrath, to send destruction on, and put an end to, great numbers.

And at that time Michael will take up his place, the great angel, who is the supporter of the children of your people: and there will be a time of trouble, such as there never was from the time there was a nation even till that same time: and at that time your people will be kept safe, everyone who is recorded in the book.

And from the time when the regular burned offering is taken away, and an unclean thing causing fear is put up, there will be a thousand, two hundred and ninety days.

Now when Lo-ruhamah had been taken from the breast, the woman gave birth to a son.

And the children of Israel and the children of Judah will come together and take for themselves one head, and will go up from the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

Take up the cause against your mother, take it up, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband; let her put away her loose ways from her face, and her false ways from between her breasts;

For fear that I may take away her robe from her, making her uncovered as in the day of her birth; making her like a waste place and a dry land, causing her death through need of water.

And I will give her vine-gardens from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will give her answer there as in the days when she was young, and as in the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt.

My people get knowledge from their tree, and their rod gives them news; for a false spirit is the cause of their wandering, and they have been false to their God.

I have knowledge of Ephraim, and Israel is not secret from me; for now, O Ephraim, you have been false to me, Israel has become unclean.

They are all untrue; they are like a burning oven; the bread-maker does not make up the fire from the time when the paste is mixed till it is leavened.

Men from other lands have made waste his strength, and he is not conscious of it; grey hairs have come on him here and there, and he has no knowledge of it.

May trouble be theirs! for they have gone far away from me; and destruction, for they have been sinning against me; I was ready to be their saviour, but they said false words against me.

As I have seen a beast whose young have been taken from her, so Ephraim will give birth to children only for them to be put to death.

O Israel, you have done evil from the days of Gibeah; there they took up their position, so that the fighting against the children of evil might not overtake them in Gibeah.

So a great outcry will go up from among your people, and all your strong places will be broken, as Beth-arbel was broken by Shalman in the day of war, as the mother was broken on the rocks with her children.

When I sent for them, then they went away from me; they made offerings to the Baals, burning perfumes to images.

I made them come after me with the cords of a man, with the bands of love; I was to them as one who took the yoke from off their mouths, putting meat before them.

They will go after the Lord; his cry will be like that of a lion; his cry will be loud, and the children will come from the west, shaking with fear;

But I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt; I will give you tents for your living-places again as in the days of the holy meeting.

When the words of my law came from Ephraim, he was lifted up in Israel; but when he did evil through the Baal, death overtook him.

And now their sins are increased; they have made themselves a metal image, false gods from their silver, after their designs, all of them the work of the metal-workers; they say of them, Let them give offerings, let men give kisses to the oxen.

So they will be like the morning cloud, like the dew which goes early away, like the dust of the grain which the wind is driving out of the crushing-floor, like smoke going up from the fireplace.

But I am the Lord your God, from the land of Egypt; you have knowledge of no other God and there is no saviour but me.

I will come face to face with them like a bear whose young ones have been taken from her, and their inmost hearts will be broken; there the dogs will make a meal of them; they will be wounded by the beasts of the field.

I will give the price to make them free from the power of the underworld, I will be their saviour from death: O death! where are your pains? O underworld! where is your destruction? my eyes will have no pity.

Though he gives fruit among his brothers, an east wind will come, the wind of the Lord coming up from the waste land, and his spring will become dry, his fountain will be without water: it will make waste the store of all the vessels of his desire.

I will put right their errors; freely will my love be given to them, for my wrath is turned away from him.

As for Ephraim, what has he to do with false gods any longer? I have given an answer and I will keep watch over him; I am like a branching fir-tree, from me comes your fruit.

Come out of your sleep, you who are overcome with wine, and give yourselves to weeping; give cries of sorrow, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it has been cut off from your mouths.

The meal offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord's servants, are sorrowing.

The vine has become dry and the fig-tree is feeble; the pomegranate and the palm-tree and the apple-tree, even all the trees of the field, are dry: because joy has gone from the sons of men.

Put haircloth round you and give yourselves to sorrow, you priests; give cries of grief, you servants of the altar: come in, and, clothed in haircloth, let the night go past, you servants of my God: for the meal offering and the drink offering have been kept back from the house of your God.

Sorrow for the day! for the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Ruler of all it will come.

Is not food cut off before our eyes? joy and delight from the house of our God?

What sounds of pain come from the beasts! the herds of cattle are at a loss because there is no grass for them; even the flocks of sheep are no longer to be seen.

For a day of dark and deep shade is near, a day of cloud and black night: like a black cloud a great and strong people is covering the mountains; there has never been any like them and will not be after them again, from generation to generation.

Before them fire sends destruction, and after them flame is burning: the land is like the garden of Eden before them, and after them an unpeopled waste; truly, nothing has been kept safe from them.

Their form is like the form of horses, and they are running like war-horses.

But even now, says the Lord, come back to me with all your heart, keeping from food, with weeping and with sorrow:

Let your hearts be broken, and not your clothing, and come back to the Lord your God: for he is full of grace and pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, ready to be turned from his purpose of punishment.

Get the people together, make the mass of the people holy, send for the old men, get together the children and babies at the breast: let the newly married man come out of his room and the bride from her tent.

I will send the one from the north far away from you, driving him into a dry and waste land, with his front to the sea of the east and his back to the sea of the west, and the smell of him will go up, even his evil smell will go up.

And the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem you have given for a price to the sons of the Greeks, to send them far away from their land:

See, I will have them moved from the place where you have sent them, and will let what you have done come back on your head;

And the Lord will be thundering from Zion, and his voice will be sounding from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth will be shaking: but the Lord will be a breastplate for his people and a strong place for the children of Israel.

And it will come about in that day that the mountains will be dropping sweet wine, and the hills will be flowing with milk, and all the streams of Judah will be flowing with water; and a fountain will come out from the house of the Lord, watering the valley of acacia-trees.

But Judah will be peopled for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.

And he said, The Lord will give a lion's cry from Zion, his voice will be sounding from Jerusalem; and the fields of the keepers of sheep will become dry, and the top of Carmel will be wasted away.

And I will have the locks of the door of Damascus broken, and him who is seated in power cut off from the valley of Aven, and him in whose hand is the rod from the house of Eden; and the people of Aram will go away as prisoners into Kir, says the Lord.

Him who is seated in power I will have cut off from Ashdod, and him in whose hand is the rod from Ashkelon; and my hand will be turned against Ekron, and the rest of the Philistines will come to destruction, says the Lord God.

And I will have the judge cut off from among them, and all their captains I will put to death with him, says the Lord.

By every altar they are stretched on clothing taken from those who are in their debt, drinking in the house of their god the wine of those who have made payment for wrongdoing.

Though I sent destruction on the Amorite before them, who was tall as the cedar and strong as the oak-tree, cutting off his fruit from on high and his roots from under the earth.

Will a lion give his loud cry in the woodland when no food is there? will the voice of the young lion be sounding from his hole if he has taken nothing?

Is it possible for a bird to be taken in a net on the earth where no net has been put for him? will the net come up from the earth if it has taken nothing at all?

But in all your towns I have kept food from your teeth, and in all your places there has been need of bread: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.

And I have kept back the rain from you, when it was still three months before the grain-cutting: I sent rain on one town and kept it back from another: one part was rained on, and the part where there was no rain became a waste.

I have sent disease among you, as it was in Egypt: I have put your young men to the sword, and have taken away your horses; I have made the evil smell from your tents come up to your noses: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord.

For see, he who gave form to the mountains and made the wind, giving knowledge of his purpose to man, who makes the morning dark, and is walking on the high places of the earth: the Lord, the God of armies, is his name.

So because the poor man is crushed under your feet, and you take taxes from him of grain: you have made for yourselves houses of cut stone, but you will not take your rest in them; the fair vine-gardens planted by your hands will not give you wine.

As if a man, running away from a lion, came face to face with a bear; or went into the house and put his hand on the wall and got a bite from a snake.

Take away from me the noise of your songs; my ears are shut to the melody of your instruments.

Go on to Calneh and see; and from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines: are you better than these kingdoms? or is your land wider than theirs?

Who are resting on beds of ivory, stretched out on soft seats, feasting on lambs from the flock and young oxen from the cattle-house;

For see, I will send against you a nation, O Israel, says the Lord, the God of armies, ruling you cruelly from the way into Hamath as far as the stream of the Arabah.

And the Lord took me from the flock, and the Lord said to me, Go, be a prophet to my people Israel.

And they will go wandering from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, running here and there in search of the word of the Lord, and they will not get it.

In that day the fair virgins and the young men will be feeble from need of water.

Even if they go deep into the underworld, my hand will take them up from there; if they go up to heaven, I will get them down:

Though they take cover on the top of Carmel, I will go in search of them and get them out; though they keep themselves from my eyes in the bed of the sea, I will give orders to the great snake there and he will give them a bite:

Are you not as the children of the Ethiopians to me, O children of Israel? says the Lord. Have I not taken Israel up out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Aramaeans from Kir?

See, the days will come, says the Lord, when the ploughman will overtake him who is cutting the grain, and the crusher of the grapes him who is planting seed; and sweet wine will be dropping from the mountains, and the hills will be turned into streams of wine.

And I will have them planted in their land, and never again will they be uprooted from their land which I have given them, says the Lord your God.

The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Lord has said about Edom: We have had word from the Lord, and a representative has been sent among the nations, saying, Up! and let us make war against her.

Though you go up on high like an eagle, though your house is placed among the stars, I will make you come down from there, says the Lord.

And your men of war, O Teman, will be overcome with fear, so that every one of them may be cut off from the mountain of Esau.

Because you were there watching when men from other lands took away his goods, and strange men came into his doors, and put the fate of Jerusalem to the decision of chance; you were like one of them.

And those of the children of Israel who were the first to be taken away as prisoners, will have their heritage among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath; and those who were taken away from Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad, will have the towns of the South.

And those who have been kept safe will come up from Mount Zion to be judges of the mountain of Esau; and the kingdom will be the Lord's.

And Jonah got up to go in flight to Tarshish, away from the Lord; and he went down to Joppa, and saw there a ship going to Tarshish: so he gave them the price of the journey and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the Lord.

Then they said to him, Now make clear to us what is your work, and where you come from? what is your country, and who are your people?

And the men were in great fear, and they said to him, What is this you have done? For the men had knowledge of his flight from the Lord because he had not kept it from them.

Then Jonah made prayer to the Lord his God from the inside of the fish, and said,

And I said, I have been sent away from before your eyes; how may I ever again see your holy Temple?

I went down to the bases of the mountains; as for the earth, her walls were about me for ever: but you have taken up my life from the underworld, O Lord my God.

So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh as the Lord had said. Now Nineveh was a very great town, three days' journey from end to end.

And the people of Nineveh had belief in God; and a time was fixed for going without food, and they put on haircloth, from the greatest to the least.

And the word came to the king of Nineveh, and he got up from his seat of authority, and took off his robe, and covering himself with haircloth, took his seat in the dust.

And let man and beast be covered with haircloth, and let them make strong prayers to God: and let everyone be turned from his evil way and the violent acts of their hands.

Who may say that God will not be turned, changing his purpose and turning away from his burning wrath, so that destruction may not overtake us?

And God saw what they did, how they were turned from their evil way; and God's purpose was changed as to the evil which he said he would do to them, and he did it not.