Obadiah
1:1The 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.
Jonah
1:1And the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, 1:2Up! go to Nineveh, that great town, and let your voice come to it; for their evil-doing has come up before me. 1:3And 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. 1:4And the Lord sent out a great wind on to the sea and there was a violent storm in the sea, so that the ship seemed in danger of being broken. 1:5Then the sailors were full of fear, every man crying to his god; and the goods in the ship were dropped out into the sea to make the weight less. But Jonah had gone down into the inmost part of the ship where he was stretched out in a deep sleep. 1:6And the ship's captain came to him and said to him, What are you doing sleeping? Up! say a prayer to your God, if by chance God will give a thought to us, so that we may not come to destruction. 1:7And they said to one another, Come, let us put this to the decision of chance and see on whose account this evil has come on us. So they did so, and Jonah was seen to be the man. 1:8Then 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? 1:9And he said to them, I am a Hebrew, a worshipper of the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. 1:10And 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. 1:11And they said to him, What are we to do to you so that the sea may become calm for us? For the sea was getting rougher and rougher. 1:12And he said to them, Take me up and put me into the sea, and the sea will become calm for you: for I am certain that because of me this great storm has come on you. 1:13And the men were working hard to get back to the land, but they were not able to do so: for the sea got rougher and rougher against them. 1:14So, crying to the Lord, they said, Give ear to our prayer, O Lord, give ear, and do not let destruction overtake us because of this man's life; do not put on us the sin of taking life without cause: for you, O Lord, have done what seemed good to you. 1:15So they took Jonah up and put him into the sea: and the sea was no longer angry. 1:16Then great was the men's fear of the Lord; and they made an offering to the Lord and took oaths to him. 1:17And the Lord made ready a great fish to take Jonah into its mouth; and Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.
2:1Then Jonah made prayer to the Lord his God from the inside of the fish, and said, 2:2In my trouble I was crying to the Lord, and he gave me an answer; out of the deepest underworld I sent up a cry, and you gave ear to my voice. 2:3For you have put me down into the deep, into the heart of the sea; and the river was round about me; all your waves and your rolling waters went over me. 2:4And I said, I have been sent away from before your eyes; how may I ever again see your holy Temple? 2:5The waters were circling round me, even to the neck; the deep was about me; the sea-grass was twisted round my head. 2:6I 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. 2:7When my soul in me was overcome, I kept the memory of the Lord: and my prayer came in to you, into your holy Temple. 2:8The worshippers of false gods have given up their only hope. 2:9But I will make an offering to you with the voice of praise; I will give effect to my oaths. Salvation is the Lord's. 2:10And at the Lord's order, the fish sent Jonah out of its mouth on to the dry land.
3:1And the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 3:2Up! go to Nineveh, that great town, and give it the word which I have given you. 3:3So 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. 3:4And Jonah first of all went a day's journey into the town, and crying out said, In forty days destruction will overtake Nineveh. 3:5And 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. 3:6And 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. 3:7And he had it given out in Nineveh, By the order of the king and his great men, no man or beast, herd or flock, is to have a taste of anything; let them have no food or water: 3:8And 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. 3:9Who 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? 3:10And 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.
4:1But this seemed very wrong to Jonah, and he was angry. 4:2And he made prayer to the Lord and said, O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still in my country? This is why I took care to go in flight to Tarshish: for I was certain that you were a loving God, full of pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, and ready to be turned from your purpose of evil. 4:3So now, O Lord, give ear to my prayer and take my life from me; for death is better for me than life. 4:4And the Lord said, Have you any right to be angry? 4:5Then Jonah went out of the town, and took his seat on the east side of the town and made himself a roof of branches and took his seat under its shade till he saw what would become of the town. 4:6And the Lord God made a vine come up over Jonah to give him shade over his head. And Jonah was very glad because of the vine. 4:7But early on the morning after, God made ready a worm for the destruction of the vine, and it became dry and dead. 4:8Then when the sun came up, God sent a burning east wind: and so great was the heat of the sun on his head that Jonah was overcome, and, requesting death for himself, said, Death is better for me than life. 4:9And the Lord said to Jonah, Have you any right to be angry about the vine? And he said, I have a right to be truly angry. 4:10And the Lord said, You had pity on the vine, for which you did no work and for the growth of which you were not responsible; which came up in a night and came to an end in a night; 4:11And am I not to have mercy on Nineveh, that great town, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons without the power of judging between right and left, as well as much cattle?
Micah
1:1The word of the Lord which came to Micah the Morashtite, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah: his vision about Samaria and Jerusalem. 1:2Give ear, you peoples, all of you; give attention, O earth and everything in it: let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from his holy Temple. 1:3For see, the Lord is coming out from his place, and will come down, stepping on the high places of the earth. 1:4And the mountains will be turned to water under him, and the deep valleys will be broken open, like wax before the fire, like waters flowing down a slope. 1:5All this is because of the wrongdoing of Jacob and the sins of the children of Israel. What is the wrongdoing of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem? 1:6So I will make Samaria into a field and the plantings of a vine-garden: I will send its stones falling down into the valley, uncovering its bases. 1:7And all her pictured images will be hammered into bits, and all the payments for her loose ways will be burned with fire, and all the images of her gods I will make waste: for with the price of a loose woman she got them together, and as the price of a loose woman will they be given back. 1:8For this I will be full of sorrow and give cries of grief; I will go uncovered and unclothed: I will give cries of grief like the jackals and will be in sorrow like the ostriches. 1:9For her wounds may not be made well: for it has come even to Judah, stretching up to the doorway of my people, even to Jerusalem. 1:10Give no word of it in Gath, let there be no weeping at all: at Beth-le-aphrah be rolling in the dust. 1:11Be 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. 1:12For the one living in Maroth is waiting for good: for evil has come down from the Lord to the doorways of Jerusalem. 1:13Let 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. 1:14For this cause give a parting offering to Moresheth-gath: the daughter of Achzib will be a deceit to the king of Israel. 1:15Even 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. 1:16Let your head be uncovered and your hair cut off in sorrow for the children of your delight: let the hair be pulled from your head like an eagle's; for they have been taken away from you as prisoners.
2:1A curse on the designers of evil, working on their beds! in the morning light they do it, because it is in their power. 2:2They 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. 2:3For this cause the Lord has said, See, against this family I am purposing an evil from which you will not be able to take your necks away, and you will be weighted down by it; for it is an evil time. 2:4In that day this saying will be said about you, and this song of grief will be made: The heritage of my people is measured out, and there is no one to give it back; those who have made us prisoners have taken our fields from us, and complete destruction has come to us. 2:5For this cause you will have no one to make the decision by the measuring line in the meeting of the Lord. 2:6Let not words like these be dropped, they say: Shame and the curse will not come to the family of Jacob! 2:7Is the Lord quickly made angry? are these his doings? do not his words do good to his people Israel? 2:8As for you, you have become haters of those who were at peace with you: you take the clothing of those who go by without fear, and make them prisoners of war. 2:9The 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. 2:10Up! and go; for this is not your rest: because it has been made unclean, the destruction ordered will come on you. 2:11If a man came with a false spirit of deceit, saying, I will be a prophet to you of wine and strong drink: he would be the sort of prophet for this people. 2:12I will certainly make all of you, O Jacob, come together; I will get together the rest of Israel; I will put them together like the sheep in their circle: like a flock in their green field; they will be full of the noise of men. 2:13The opener of the way will go up before them: forcing their way out they will go on to the doorway and out through it: their king will go on before them, and the Lord at their head.
3:1And I said, Give ear, now, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the people of Israel: is it not for you to have knowledge of what is right? 3:2You who are haters of good and lovers of evil, pulling off their skin from them and their flesh from their bones; 3:3Like meat they take the flesh of my people for their food, skinning them and crushing their bones, yes, cutting them up as if for the pot, like flesh inside the cooking-pot. 3:4Then they will be crying to the Lord for help, but he will not give them an answer: yes, he will keep his face veiled from them at that time, because their acts have been evil. 3:5This is what the Lord has said about the prophets by whom my people have been turned from the right way; who, biting with their teeth, say, Peace; and if anyone puts nothing in their mouths they make ready for war against him. 3:6For this cause it will be night for you, without a vision; and it will be dark for you, without knowledge of the future; the sun will go down over the prophets, and the day will be black over them. 3:7And the seers will be shamed, and the readers of the future will be at a loss, all of them covering their lips; for there is no answer from God. 3:8But I truly am full of the spirit of the Lord, with power of judging and with strength to make clear to Jacob his wrongdoing and to Israel his sin. 3:9Then give ear to this, you heads of the children of Jacob, you rulers of the children of Israel, hating what is right, twisting what is straight. 3:10They are building up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with evil-doing. 3:11Its heads take rewards for judging, and the priests take payment for teaching, and the prophets get silver for reading the future: but still, supporting themselves on the Lord, they say, Is not the Lord among us? no evil will overtake us. 3:12For this reason, Zion will be ploughed like a field because of you, and Jerusalem will become a mass of broken walls, and the mountain of the house like a high place in the woods.
4:1But in the last days it will come about that the mountain of the Lord's house will be placed on the top of the mountains, and be lifted up over the hills; and peoples will be flowing to it. 4:2And a number of nations will go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will give us knowledge of his ways and we will be guided by his word: for from Zion the law will go out, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4:3And he will be judge between great peoples, and strong nations far away will be ruled by his decisions; their swords will be hammered into plough-blades and their spears into vine-knives: nations will no longer be lifting up their swords against one another, and knowledge of war will have gone for ever. 4:4But every man will be seated under his vine and under his fig-tree, and no one will be a cause of fear to them: for the mouth of the Lord of armies has said it. 4:5For all the peoples will be walking, every one in the name of his god, and we will be walking in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever. 4:6In that day, says the Lord, I will get together her who goes with uncertain steps, I will get together her who has been sent away, and her on whom I have sent evil; 4:7And I will make her whose steps were uncertain a small band, and her who was feeble a strong nation: and the Lord will be their King in Mount Zion from now and for ever. 4:8And you, O tower of the flock, Ophel of the daughter of Zion, to you it will come, even the earlier authority, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. 4:9Now 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: 4:10Be in pain, make sounds of grief, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in childbirth: for now you will go out of the town, living in the open country, and will come even to Babylon; there you will have salvation; there the Lord will make you free from the hands of your haters. 4:11And now a number of nations have come together against you, and they say, Let her be made unclean and let our eyes see the fate of Zion. 4:12But 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. 4:13Up! and let the grain be crushed, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron and your feet brass, and a number of peoples will be broken by you, and you will give up their increase to the Lord and their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.
5:1Now you will give yourselves deep wounds for grief; they will put up a wall round us: they will give the judge of Israel a blow on the face with a rod. 5:2And you, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, the least among the families of Judah, out of you one will come to me who is to be ruler in Israel; whose going out has been purposed from time past, from the eternal days. 5:3For this cause he will give them up till the time when she who is with child has given birth: then the rest of his brothers will come back to the children of Israel. 5:4And he will take his place and give food to his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the glory of the name of the Lord his God; and their resting-place will be safe: for now he will be great to the ends of the earth. 5:5And 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. 5:6And they will make waste the land of Assyria with the sword, and the land of Nimrod with the edge of the sword: he will give us salvation from the Assyrian when he comes into our country, when his feet come inside the limit of our land. 5:7And the rest of Jacob will be among the mass of peoples like dew from the Lord, like showers on the grass, which may not be kept back by man, or be waiting for the sons of men. 5:8And the rest of Jacob will be among the nations, in the middle of the mass of peoples, like a lion among the beasts of the woods, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep: if he goes through, they will be crushed under foot and pulled to bits, and there will be no saviour. 5:9Your hand is lifted up against those who are against you, and all your haters will be cut off. 5:10And it will come about in that day, says the Lord, that I will take away your horses from you, and will give your war-carriages to destruction: 5:11I will have the towns of your land cut off and all your strong places pulled down: 5:12I will put an end to your use of secret arts, and you will have no more readers of signs: 5:13And I will have your images and your pillars cut off from you; and you will no longer give worship to the work of your hands. 5:14I will have your Asherahs pulled up from among you: and I will send destruction on your images. 5:15And my punishment will be effected on the nations with such burning wrath as they have not had word of.
6:1Give ear now to the words of the Lord: Up! put forward your cause before the mountains, let your voice be sounding among the hills. 6:2Give ear, O you mountains, to the Lord's cause, and take note, you bases of the earth: for the Lord has a cause against his people, and he will take it up with Israel. 6:3O my people, what have I done to you? how have I been a weariness to you? give answer against me. 6:4For I took you up out of the land of Egypt and made you free from the prison-house; I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. 6:5O my people, keep in mind now what was designed by Balak, king of Moab, and the answer which Balaam, son of Beor, gave him; the events, from Shittim to Gilgal, so that you may be certain of the upright acts of the Lord. 6:6With what am I to come before the Lord and go with bent head before the high God? am I to come before him with burned offerings, with young oxen a year old? 6:7Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of sheep or with ten thousand rivers of oil? am I to give my first child for my wrongdoing, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 6:8He has made clear to you, O man, what is good; and what is desired from you by the Lord; only doing what is right, and loving mercy, and walking without pride before your God. 6:9The voice of the Lord is crying out to the town: Give ear, you tribes and the meeting of the town. 6:10Am I to let the stores of the evil-doer go out of my memory, and the short measure, which is cursed? 6:11Is it possible for me to let wrong scales and the bag of false weights go without punishment? 6:12For its men of wealth are cruel, and its people have said what is not true, and their tongue is false in their mouth. 6:13So I have made a start with your punishment; I have made you waste because of your sins. 6:14You will have food, but not enough; your shame will be ever with you: you will get your goods moved, but you will not take them away safely; and what you do take away I will give to the sword. 6:15You will put in seed, but you will not get in the grain; you will be crushing olives, but your bodies will not be rubbed with the oil; and you will get in the grapes, but you will have no wine. 6:16For you have kept the laws of Omri and all the works of the family of Ahab, and you have been guided by their designs: so that I might make you a cause of wonder and your people a cause of hisses; and the shame of my people will be on you.
7:1Sorrow is mine! for I am as when they have got in the summer fruits, like the last of the grapes: there is nothing for food, not even an early fig for my desire. 7:2The 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. 7:3Their 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. 7:4The 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. 7:5Put no faith in a friend, do not let your hope be placed in a relation: keep watch on the doors of your mouth against her who is resting on your breast. 7:6For 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. 7:7But as for me, I am looking to the Lord; I am waiting for the God of my salvation: the ears of my God will be open to me. 7:8Do not be glad because of my sorrow, O my hater: after my fall I will be lifted up; when I am seated in the dark, the Lord will be a light to me. 7:9I will undergo the wrath of the Lord, because of my sin against him; till he takes up my cause and does what is right for me: when he makes me come out into the light, I will see his righteousness; 7:10And my hater will see it and be covered with shame; she who said to me, Where is the Lord your God? my eyes will see their desire effected on her, now she will be crushed under foot like the dust of the streets. 7:11A day for building your walls! in that day will your limits be stretched far and wide. 7:12In that day they will come to you from Assyria and the towns of Egypt, and from Egypt even to the River, and from sea to sea and from mountain to mountain. 7:13But the land will become a waste because of its people, as the fruit of their works. 7:14Keep your people safe with your rod, the flock of your heritage, living by themselves in the woods in the middle of Carmel: let them get their food in Bashan and Gilead as in the past. 7:15As in the days when you came out from the land of Egypt, let us see things of wonder. 7:16The nations will see and be shamed because of all their strength; they will put their hands on their mouths, their ears will be stopped. 7:17They will take dust as their food like a snake, like the things which go flat on the earth; they will come shaking with fear out of their secret places: they will come with fear to the Lord our God, full of fear because of you. 7:18Who is a God like you, offering forgiveness for evil-doing and overlooking the sins of the rest of his heritage? he does not keep his wrath for ever, because his delight is in mercy. 7:19He will again have pity on us; he will put our sins under his feet: and you will send all our sins down into the heart of the sea. 7:20You will make clear your good faith to Jacob and your mercy to Abraham, as you gave your oath to our fathers from times long past.
Nahum
1:1The word about Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. 1:2The 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. 1:3The 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. 1:4He says sharp words to the sea and makes it dry, drying up all the rivers: Bashan is feeble, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon is without strength. 1:5The 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. 1:6Who 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. 1:7The Lord is good, a strong place in the day of trouble; and he has knowledge of those who take him for their safe cover. 1:8But like water overflowing he will take them away; he will put an end to those who come up against him, driving his haters into the dark. 1:9What are you designing against the Lord? he will put an end to it: his haters will not come up again a second time. 1:10For though they are like twisted thorns, and are overcome as with drink, they will come to destruction like stems of grass fully dry. 1:11One has gone out from you who is designing evil against the Lord, whose purposes are of no value. 1:12This 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. 1:13And now I will let his yoke be broken off you, and your chains be parted. 1:14The 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. 1:15See on the mountains the feet of him who comes with good news, giving word of peace! Keep your feasts, O Judah, give effect to your oaths: for the good-for-nothing man will never again go through you; he is completely cut off.
2:1A crusher has come up before your face: keep a good look-out, let the way be watched, make yourself strong, let your power be greatly increased. 2:2For the Lord will make good the vine of Jacob, as well as the vine of Israel: for the wasters have made them waste and sent destruction on the branches of their vine. 2:3The 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. 2:4The war-carriages are rushing through the streets, pushing against one another in the wide ways, looking like burning lights, running like thunder-flames. 2:5He takes the record of his great men: they go falling on their way; they go quickly to the wall, the cover is made ready. 2:6The river doorways are forced open, and the king's house is flowing away. 2:7And the queen is uncovered, she is taken away and her servant-girls are weeping like the sound of doves, hammering on their breasts. 2:8But Nineveh is like a pool of water whose waters are flowing away; Keep your place, they say; but no one is turning back. 2:9Take silver, take gold; for there is no end to the store; take for yourselves a weight of things to be desired. 2:10Everything 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. 2:11Where is the lions' hole, the place where the young lions got their food, where the lion and the she-lion were walking with their young, without cause for fear? 2:12Food enough for his young and for his she-lions was pulled down by the lion; his hole was full of flesh and his resting-place stored with meat. 2:13See, I am against you, says the Lord of armies, and I will have your war-carriages burned in the smoke, and your young lions will be food for the sword: you will no longer get your food by force on the earth, and the voice of your she-lions will be stopped for ever.
3:1A curse is on the town of blood; it is full of deceit and violent acts; and there is no end to the taking of life. 3:2The noise of the whip, and the noise of thundering wheels; horses rushing and war-carriages jumping, 3:3Horsemen 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: 3:4Because of all the false ways of the loose woman, expert in attraction and wise in secret arts, who takes nations in the net of her false ways, and families through her secret arts. 3:5See, I am against you, says the Lord of armies, and I will have your skirts pulled over your face, and let the nations see you unclothed, and the kingdoms your shame. 3:6I will make you completely disgusting and full of shame, and will put you up to be looked at by all. 3:7And it will come about that all who see you will go in flight from you and say, Nineveh is made waste: who will be weeping for her? where am I to get comforters for her? 3:8Are 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? 3:9Ethiopia was her strength and Egyptians without number; Put and Lubim were her helpers. 3:10But 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. 3:11And 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. 3:12All your walled places will be like fig-trees and your people like the first figs, falling at a shake into the mouth which is open for them. 3:13See, 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. 3:14Get 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. 3:15There the fire will make you waste; you will be cut off by the sword: make yourself as great in number as the worms, as great in number as the locusts. 3:16Let your traders be increased more than the stars of heaven: 3:17Your 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. 3:18Sorrow! 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. 3:19Your 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?