The words of the wise are as goads, and the collections of them as nails fastened in: they are given from one shepherd.

I am black, but comely, daughters of Jerusalem, As the tents of Kedar, As the curtains of Solomon.

Tell me, thou whom my soul loveth, Where thou feedest thy flock, Where thou makest it to rest at noon; For why should I be as one veiled Beside the flocks of thy companions?

As the lily among thorns, So is my love among the daughters.

As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, So is my beloved among the sons: In his shadow have I rapture and sit down; And his fruit is sweet to my taste.

Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; Thine eyes are doves behind thy veil; Thy hair is as a flock of goats, On the slopes of mount Gilead.

Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, And thy speech is comely; As a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples Behind thy veil.

Thy lips, my spouse, drop as the honeycomb; Honey and milk are under thy tongue; And the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

His head is as the finest gold; His locks are flowing, black as the raven;

His cheeks are as a bed of spices, raised beds of sweet plants; His lips lilies, dropping liquid myrrh.

His legs, pillars of marble, set upon bases of fine gold: His bearing as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars;

Thou art fair, my love, as Tirzah, Comely as Jerusalem, Terrible as troops with banners:

Turn away thine eyes from me, For they overcome me. Thy hair is as a flock of goats On the slopes of Gilead.

As a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples Behind thy veil.

Who is she that looketh forth as the dawn, Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, Terrible as troops with banners?

Return, return, O Shulamite; Return, return, that we may look upon thee. What would ye look upon in the Shulamite? As it were the dance of two camps.

Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; Thine eyes, like the pools in Heshbon, By the gate of Bath-rabbim; Thy nose like the tower of Lebanon, Which looketh toward Damascus;

Oh that thou wert as my brother, That sucked the breasts of my mother! Should I find thee without, I would kiss thee; And they would not despise me.

Set me as a seal upon thy heart, As a seal upon thine arm: For love is strong as death; Jealousy is cruel as Sheol: The flashes thereof are flashes of fire, Flames of Jah.

I am a wall, and my breasts like towers; Then was I in his eyes as one that findeth peace.

The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; Israel doth not know, my people hath no intelligence.

Your country is desolate; your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers eat it up in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

And the daughter of Zion is left, as a booth in a vineyard, as a night-lodge in a cucumber-garden, as a besieged city.

Unless Jehovah of hosts had left us a very small residue, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

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

and I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning. Afterwards thou shalt be called, Town of righteousness, Faithful city.

For ye shall be as a terebinth whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water.

And I will appoint youths as their princes, and children shall rule over them.

The look of their face doth witness against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom: they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have brought evil upon themselves.

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. My people! they that guide thee mislead thee, and destroy the way of thy paths.

And the lambs shall feed as on their pasture, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat.

Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as with cart-ropes!

Therefore as a tongue of fire devoureth the stubble, and dry grass sinketh down in the flame, their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; for they have rejected the law of Jehovah of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore is the anger of Jehovah kindled against his people, and he hath stretched out his hand against them and hath smitten them; and the mountains trembled, and their carcases are become as dung in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.

their arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent; their horses' hoofs are reckoned as the flint, and their wheels as a whirlwind.

Their roaring is like a lioness, they roar as the young lions; yea, they growl, and snatch the prey, and carry it away safe, and there is none to deliver;

But a tenth part shall still be therein, and it shall return and be eaten; as the terebinth and as the oak whose trunk remaineth after the felling: the holy seed shall be the trunk thereof.

And it was told the house of David saying, Syria is allied with Ephraim. Then his heart and the heart of his people shook, as the trees of the forest are shaken with the wind.

Inasmuch as Syria hath taken evil counsel against thee, Ephraim also and the son of Remaliah, saying,

for the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within sixty-five years shall Ephraim be broken, so as to be no more a people;

Ask for thee a sign from Jehovah thy God; ask for it in the deep, or in the height above.

And Ahaz said, I will not ask, and will not tempt Jehovah.

Forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah which flow softly, and rejoiceth in Rezin and in the son of Remaliah,

Nevertheless the darkness shall not be as when the distress was in the land, at the time he at first lightly, and afterwards heavily, visited the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations:

Thou hast multiplied the nation, hast increased its joy: they joy before thee like to the joy in harvest; as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian.

For wickedness burneth as a fire: it devoureth briars and thorns, and kindleth in the thickets of the forest, and they go rolling up like a pillar of smoke.

Through the wrath of Jehovah of hosts is the land burned up, and the people is as fuel for fire: a man spareth not his brother;

Is not Calno as Karkemish? Is not Hamath as Arpad? Is not Samaria as Damascus?

As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and their graven images exceeded those of Jerusalem and Samaria,

shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria And her idols, so do to Jerusalem And her images?

and my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the peoples, and as one gathereth forsaken eggs, have I gathered all the earth; and there was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or chirped.

Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? shall the saw magnify itself against him that wieldeth it? As if the rod should wield them that lift it up; as if the staff should lift up him who is not wood!

and it shall consume the glory of his forest, and of his fruitful field, both soul and body; and they shall be as when a sick man fainteth.

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel and such as are escaped of the house of Jacob shall no more again rely upon him that smote them; but they shall rely upon Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, in truth.

For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them shall return: the consumption determined shall overflow in righteousness.

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

And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, standing as a banner of the peoples: the nations shall seek it; and his resting-place shall be glory.

And there shall be a highway for the remnant of his people which will be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day when he went up out of the land of Egypt.

The noise of a multitude on the mountains, as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations assembled together: Jehovah of hosts mustereth the host of the battle.

Howl, for the day of Jehovah is at hand; it cometh as destruction from the Almighty.

and they shall be terrified: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them, they shall writhe as a woman that travaileth; they shall be amazed one at another, their faces shall be as flames.

And it shall be as with a chased roe, and as with a flock that no man gathereth together; every one shall turn to his own people, and every one flee into his own land.

Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who do not regard silver, and as for gold, they have no delight in it.

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

All of them shall answer and say unto thee, Art thou also become powerless as we; art thou become like unto us!

that made the world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof; that dismissed not his prisoners homewards?

Jehovah of hosts hath sworn saying, Assuredly as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, it shall stand:

And it shall be that as a wandering bird, as a scattered nest, so shall the daughters of Moab be at the fords of the Arnon.

Bring in counsel, execute justice; make thy shadow as the night in the midst of noonday; hide the outcasts, discover not the fugitive.

And now Jehovah speaketh saying, Within three years, as the years of a hired servant, and the glory of Moab shall be brought to nothing, with all that great multitude; and the remnant shall be small, few, of no account.

The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus, and the remnant of Syria: they shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith Jehovah of hosts.

And it shall be as when the reaper gathereth the corn, and reapeth the ears with his arm; yea, it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim.

And a gleaning shall be left in it, as at the shaking of an olive-tree: two, three berries above, in the tree-top; four, five in its fruitful boughs, saith Jehovah, the God of Israel.

In that day shall his strong cities be as the forsaken tract in the woodland, and the mountain-top which they forsook before the children of Israel; and there shall be desolation.

Ha! a tumult of many peoples! they make a noise as the noise of the seas; and the rushing of nations! they rush as the rushing of mighty waters.

The nations rush as the rushing of many waters; but he will rebuke them, and they shall flee far away, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a whirling of dust before the whirlwind:

Jehovah hath mingled a spirit of perverseness in the midst thereof; and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunkard staggereth in his vomit.

And Jehovah said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years, a sign and a wonder concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia,

The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through, so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land.

Therefore are my loins filled with pain; anguish hath taken hold upon me, as the anguish of a woman in travail: I am bowed down so as not to hear, I am dismayed so as not to see.

And he cried as a lion, Lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights.

What hast thou here? and whom hast thou here, that thou hast hewn thee out a sepulchre here, as he that heweth out his sepulchre on high, cutting out in the rock a habitation for himself?

Rolling thee up completely, he will roll thee as a ball into a wide country: there shalt thou die, and there shall be the chariots of thy glory, O shame of thy lord's house!

And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a throne of glory to his father's house:

and they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father's house, the offspring and the issue, all the small vessels, as well the vessels of cups as all the vessels of flagons.

And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it shall be for Tyre as the harlot's song.

And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with him from whom usury is taken.

For so will it be in the midst of the land among the peoples, as the shaking of an olive-tree, as the grape-gleanings when the vintage is done.

And they shall be brought together, as an assemblage of prisoners for the pit, and shall be shut up in prison, and after many days shall they be visited.

For thou hast been a fortress to the poor, a fortress for the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat: for the blast of the terrible ones has been as the storm against a wall.

Thou hast subdued the tumult of strangers, as the heat in a dry place; as the heat, by the shadow of a cloud, so the song of the terrible ones is brought low.

For in this mountain shall the hand of Jehovah rest, and Moab shall be trodden down under him, as straw is trodden down in the dunghill;

and he shall spread forth his hands in the midst of them, as he that swimmeth spreadeth them forth to swim; and he shall bring down their pride together with the plots of their hands.

As a woman with child, that draweth near her delivery, is in travail, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been before thee, Jehovah.

We have been with child, we have been in travail, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought the deliverance of the land, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

By this, therefore, shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit of the taking away of his sin: when he shall make all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are crumbled in pieces, the Asherahs and the sun-images shall not stand.

Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, as a storm of hail and a destroying tempest; as a storm of mighty waters overflowing, shall he cast down to the earth with might.

and the fading flower of his glorious adornment which is on the head of the fat valley shall be like an early fig before the summer: as soon as he that seeth it perceiveth it, scarcely is it in his hand, he swalloweth it down.

As it passeth through it shall take you; for morning by morning shall it pass through, by day and by night; and it shall be terror only to understand the report.