To the Chief Musician. Concerning the Lilies, for the sons of Korah, a contemplation; A Song of Loves. My heart is overflowing with a good matter; I speak of my works to the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.

Fear took hold on them there, and pain, like a woman in labor.

But I will sing of Your power; yes, I will sing aloud of Your mercy in the morning; for You have been my strong tower and hiding-place in the day of my trouble.

For You have been a shelter for me, a strong tower before the enemy.

Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice.

For all the day long I have been plagued, and chastened every morning.

How have they been brought into grief, as in a moment! They are fully eaten up with terrors,

The stouthearted have been stripped; they slept their sleep; and none of the men of might have found their hands.

The haters of Jehovah would have been found liars to Him, and their time would have lasted forever.

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm for the sons of Korah. O Jehovah, You have been gracious to Your land; You have brought back the captivity of Jacob.

I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up; while I suffer Your terrors, I pine away.

But You have cast off and rejected us; You have been angry with Your anointed.

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. O Jehovah, You have been our dwelling-place in all generations.

Unless Jehovah had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.

Jehovah has been mindful of us; He will bless us; He will bless the house of Israel; He will bless the house of Aaron.

Your Precepts have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage.

It is good for me that I have been afflicted, so that I might learn Your Precepts.

Unless Your Law had been my delight, I should then have perished in my affliction.

when your fear comes as a wasting away, and your ruin comes like a tempest when trouble and pain come upon you.

For she has cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men have been slain by her.

In being slow to anger a ruler is won over, and a soft tongue breaks the bone.

That which has been is that which shall be; and that which has been done is that which shall be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it may be said, See, this is new? It has already been in days of old, which were before us.

I spoke within my own heart, saying, Lo, I have become great and have gathered more wisdom than all that have been before me in Jerusalem; yea, my heart has seen much of wisdom and knowledge.

That which has been is now; and that which is to be has already been; and God requires that which is past.

Yea, better than both is he who has not yet been, who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

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

That which has been is named already, and it is known that he is man. And he is not able to contend with Him who is mightier than he.

From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it; only a wound and a stripe and a fresh blow; they have not been closed, nor bound up, nor soothed with oil.

What more could have been done to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Who knows? I looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded rotten grapes.

And Jehovah said to me, Take a great scroll and write in it with a man's pen: Make Haste to Plunder! Hasten to the Prey!

and they shall be afraid. Pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them. They shall be in pain like a woman who travails. They shall be amazed at one another, their faces like flames.

Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not been mindful of the Rock of your strength, therefore you shall plant pleasant plants and shall sow it a fresh shoot.

In the day of your planting you fence it in; and in the morning you make your seed sprout. But the harvest shall be a heap in that day of grief and dying pain.

Therefore my loins are filled with pain; pangs have taken hold on me like the pangs of a woman who travails; I was bowed down from hearing; I was troubled from seeing.

Take a harp, go about the city, O harlot who has been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs so that you may be remembered.

As a woman with child draws near to bear, she is in pain and cries out in her pangs; so have we been in Your sight, O Jehovah.

We conceived; we have been in pain, we gave birth to wind. We have not brought about any salvation in the earth; nor have the people of the world fallen.

Also the oxen and the young asses that plow the ground shall eat clean fodder, which has been winnowed with the shovel and with the fork.

Woe to the destroyer, and you who have not been destroyed; and betrayer, and they have not betrayed you. When you stop destroying, you shall be destroyed. When you stop betraying, they shall betray you.

The writing of Hezekiah king of Judah, when he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:

At that time Merodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah; for he had heard that he had been sick, and had recovered.

Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

I will plant the cedar in the wilderness, the acacia tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree. I will set the fir tree in the desert, and the pine, and the box tree together;

I have kept silence from forever; I have been still and refrained Myself. Now I will cry like a woman in pangs of labor, I will pant and gasp at once.

But this is a people robbed and spoiled; all of them snared in holes, and they are hidden in prison-houses; they have been taken, and none delivers them; a prize, and none says, Give back.

Since you were precious in My sight, you have been honored, and I have loved you; therefore I will give men for you, and people for your life.

But you have not called on Me, O Jacob; but you have been weary of Me, O Israel.

Oh that you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

And your seed would have been like the sand, and the offspring of your bowels like its grain; his name would not have been cut off nor destroyed from before Me.

For the Lord Jehovah will help Me; therefore I have not been ashamed. On account of this I have set My face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.

And of whom have you been afraid or feared, that you have lied and have not remembered Me, nor laid it to your heart? Have I not been silent, even from forever, and you did not fear Me?

The glory of Lebanon will come to you, the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box tree together, to beautify the place of My sanctuary; and I will make the place of My feet glorious.

Before she travailed, she gave birth; before her pain came, she delivered a man child.

O generation, see the Word of Jehovah. Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of darkness? Why do My people say, We roam freely; we will come no more to You?

Lift up your eyes to the high places, and see. Where have you not been lain with? By the highways you have sat for them, like the Arabian in the wilderness; and you have defiled the land with your fornications and with your wickedness.

Therefore the showers have been withheld, and there has been no latter rain; and you had a harlot's forehead, you refused to be ashamed.

My bowels, my bowels! I convulse in pain. O walls of my heart! My heart is restless within me; I cannot be silent because you have heard, O my soul, the sound of the ram's horn, the alarm of war.

We have heard the rumor of it; our hands become feeble; anguish has taken hold of us, and pain, like a woman in labor.

How do you say, We are wise, and the Law of Jehovah is with us? Lo, certainly the lying pen of the scribes has written falsely.

How long shall the land mourn, and the grass of every field wither from the evil of those who dwell in it? The beasts and the birds have been destroyed, because they said, He shall not see our last end.

The cities of the south have been shut up, and none are opening; Judah has been exiled, all of it has been peacefully exiled.

She who bore seven languishes; she has breathed out her life; her sun has gone down while it was yet day. She has been ashamed and humiliated; and I will deliver the rest of them to the sword before their enemies, says Jehovah.

And I will make you pass with your enemies into a land which you do not know. For a fire has been kindled in My anger; it shall burn against you.

Why has my pain been without end, and why is my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? You surely are to me like a deceitful brook, waters that cannot be trusted.

For whenever I speak, I cry out, I cry violence and ruin; for the Word of Jehovah has been a reproach and a cause of mocking to me all day.

because he did not kill me from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.

I spoke to you in your prosperity; but you said, I will not hear. This has been your way from your youth, for you have not obeyed My voice.

O dweller in Lebanon, nested in the cedars, how you will groan when pangs come to you, the pain as one giving birth?

The prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of plague.

For so says Jehovah, When according to My Word seventy years have been fulfilled for Babylon, I will visit you and confirm My good Word to you, to bring you back to this place.

Why do you cry over your crushing? Your pain is incurable, for the greatness of your iniquity; because your sins are many, I have done these things to you.

Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of Jehovah, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the sons of the flock and the herd. And their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not pine away any more at all.

For this city has been to Me as a cause of My anger and of My fury from the day that they built it even to this day; that I should remove it from before My face;

At the end of seven years each man should let go his brother, a Hebrew, and who has been sold to him. And when he has served you six years, you shall let him go free from you. But your fathers did not listen to me, nor bow down their ears.

And the king sat in the winter house in the ninth month; also with the burning fire-pan before him.

And it happened when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the scribe's knife and threw it into the fire in the fire-pan, until all the scroll was burned up in the fire-pan.

For so says Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel: As My anger and My fury has been poured forth on the people of Jerusalem, so shall My fury be poured forth on you when you shall enter into Egypt. And you shall be a curse, and a wonder, and a shame, and a reproach; and you shall see this place no more.

But Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the commanders of the forces, took all the remnant of Judah who had returned from all the nations (where they had been driven) to dwell in the land of Judah;

But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked all things, and have been devoured by the sword and by the famine.

Moab has been at ease from his youth, and he has settled on his lees and has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, nor has he gone into exile. Therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.

And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall burn up the palaces of Ben-hadad.

My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have caused them to go astray; they have turned them away on the mountains. They have gone from mountain to hill; they have forgotten their resting place.

Shout against her all around. She has given her hand; her foundations have fallen, her walls have been thrown down; for it is the vengeance of Jehovah. Take vengeance on her. As she has done, do to her.

Make the archers hear against Babylon. All you who tread a bow, camp against it all around; let none of them escape. Repay her according to her work; according to all that she has done, do to her. For she has been proud against Jehovah, against the Holy One of Israel.

For neither Israel nor Judah has been forsaken by his God, by Jehovah of Hosts, though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel.

Babylon has been a golden cup in Jehovah's hand, which made all the earth drunk. The nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations rage.

Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed. Wail for her; take balm for her pain, if perhaps she may be healed.

Jerusalem has grievously sinned, therefore she has been removed. All knowing her despise her because they saw her nakedness; yea, she sighs and turns backward.

Her Nazarites were purer than snow, whiter than milk; they were redder of bone than corals; their cuttings as lapis lazuli, azure blue.

Better are the ones slain by the sword than the ones slain by hunger; those who pine away, pierced because the fruits of my fields failed.

Remember, O Jehovah, what has been to us; look down and see our shame.

And they, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear; for they are a rebellious house. Yea, they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.

Then I said, Ah Lord Jehovah! Behold, my soul has not been defiled. For from my youth up, even till now, I have not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither did there come any unclean flesh into my mouth.

And the Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the eastern gate of Jehovah's house, which faces eastward. And behold, twenty-five men were at the opening of the gate; among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, rulers of the people.

And it happened when I prophesied, Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. And I fell on my face and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah Lord Jehovah! Will You make a full end of the remnant of Israel?

in that you build your mound at the head of every way, and make your high place in every street. Yet you have not been as a harlot, scorning wages.

behold, therefore I will gather all your lovers, with whom you have been pleased, even all whom you loved, with all whom you have hated; I will even gather them against you from all around, and will uncover your nakedness to them, and they will see all your nakedness.

I will receive you with your sweet aroma when I bring you out from the people and gather you out of the lands into which you have been scattered among them. And I will be sanctified in you in the eyes of the nations.

And there you shall remember your ways and all your doings in which you have been defiled. And you shall despise yourselves in your own sight for all your evils which you have committed.