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To drink water, and were not satisfied;

Yet have ye not returned unto Me,

Saith the Lord.

 

⁹I have smitten you with blasting and mildew;

The multitude of your gardens and your vineyards

And your fig-trees and your olive-trees

Hath the palmer-worm devoured;

Yet have ye not returned unto Me,

Saith the Lord.

 

¹⁰I have sent among you the pestilence in the way of Egypt;

Your young men have I slain with the sword,

And have carried away your horses;

And I have made the stench of your camp to come up even into your nostrils;

Yet have ye not returned unto Me,

Saith the Lord.

 

¹¹I have overthrown some of you,

As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,

And ye were as a brand plucked out of the burning;

Yet have ye not returned unto Me,

Saith the Lord.

 

¹²Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel;

Because I will do this unto thee,

Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

¹³For, lo, He that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind,

And declareth unto man what is his thought,

That maketh the morning darkness,

And treadeth upon the high places of the earth;

The Lord, the God of hosts, is His name.

5Hear ye this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Israel:

²The virgin of Israel is fallen,

She shall no more rise;

She is cast down upon her land,

There is none to raise her up.

³For thus saith the Lord God: The city that went forth a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went forth a hundred shall have ten left, of the house of Israel.

⁴For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel:

Seek ye Me, and live;

⁵But seek not Beth-el,

Nor enter into Gilgal,

And pass not to Beer-sheba;

For Gilgal shall surely go into captivity,

And Beth-el shall come to nought.

⁶Seek the Lord, and live

Lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph,

And it devour, and there be none to quench it in Beth-el.

⁷Ye who turn justice to wormwood,

And cast righteousness to the ground;

⁸Him that maketh the Pleiades and Orion,

And bringeth on the shadow of death in the morning,

And darkeneth the day into night;

That calleth for the waters of the sea,

And poureth them out upon the face of the earth;

The Lord is His name;

⁹That causeth destruction to flash upon the strong,

So that destruction cometh upon the fortress.

 

¹⁰They hate him that reproveth in the gate,