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?
Habakkuk
1:1The word which Habakkuk the prophet saw. 1:2How long, O Lord, will your ears be shut to my voice? I make an outcry to you about violent behaviour, but you do not send salvation. 1:3Why do you make me see evil-doing, and why are my eyes fixed on wrong? for wasting and violent acts are before me: and there is fighting and bitter argument. 1:4For this reason the law is feeble and decisions are not effected: for the upright man is circled round by evil-doers; because of which right is twisted. 1:5See among the nations, and take note, and be full of wonder: for in your days I am doing a work in which you will have no belief, even if news of it is given to you. 1:6For see, I am sending the Chaldaeans, that bitter and quick-moving nation; who go through the wide spaces of the earth to get for themselves living-places which are not theirs. 1:7They are greatly to be feared: their right comes from themselves. 1:8And their horses are quicker than leopards and their horsemen more cruel than evening wolves; they come from far away, like an eagle in flight rushing on its food. 1:9They are coming all of them with force; the direction of their faces is forward, the number of their prisoners is like the sands of the sea. 1:10He makes little of kings, rulers are a sport to him; all the strong places are to be laughed at; for he makes earthworks and takes them. 1:11Then his purpose will be changed, over-stepping the limit; he will make his strength his god. 1:12Are you not eternal, O Lord my God, my Holy One? for you there is no death. O Lord, he has been ordered by you for our punishment; and by you, O Rock, he has been marked out to put us right. 1:13Before your holy eyes sin may not be seen, and you are unable to put up with wrong; why, then, are your eyes on the false? why do you say nothing when the evil-doer puts an end to one who is more upright than himself? 1:14He has made men like the fishes of the sea, like the worms which have no ruler over them. 1:15He takes them all up with his hook, he takes them in his net, getting them together in his fishing-net: for which cause he is glad and full of joy. 1:16For this reason he makes an offering to his net, burning perfume to his fishing-net; because by them he gets much food and his meat is fat. 1:17For this cause his net is ever open, and there is no end to his destruction of the nations.
2:1I will take my position and be on watch, placing myself on my tower, looking out to see what he will say to me, and what answer he will give to my protest. 2:2And the Lord gave me an answer, and said, Put the vision in writing and make it clear on stones, so that the reader may go quickly. 2:3For the vision is still for the fixed time, and it is moving quickly to the end, and it will not be false: even if it is slow in coming, go on waiting for it; because it will certainly come, it will not be kept back. 2:4As for the man of pride, my soul has no pleasure in him; but the upright man will have life through his good faith. 2:5A curse on the cruel and false one! the man full of pride, who never has enough; who makes his desires wide as the underworld! he is like death; he is never full, but he makes all nations come to him, getting all peoples together to himself. 2:6Will not all these take up a word of shame against him and a bitter saying against him, and say, A curse on him who goes on taking what is not his and is weighted down with the property of debtors! 2:7Will not your creditors suddenly be moved against you, and your troublers get up from their sleep, and you will be to them like goods taken in war? 2:8Because you have taken their goods from great nations, all the rest of the peoples will take your goods from you; because of men's blood and violent acts against the land and the town and all who are living in it. 2:9A curse on him who gets evil profits for his family, so that he may put his resting-place on high and be safe from the hand of the wrongdoer! 2:10You have been a cause of shame to your house by cutting off a number of peoples, and sinning against your soul. 2:11For the stone will give a cry out of the wall, and it will be answered by the board out of the woodwork. 2:12A curse on him who is building a place with blood, and basing a town on evil-doing! 2:13See, is it not the pleasure of the Lord of armies that the peoples are working for the fire and using themselves up for nothing? 2:14For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the sea is covered by the waters. 2:15A curse on him who gives his neighbour the wine of his wrath, making him overcome with strong drink from the cup of his passion, so that you may be a witness of their shame! 2:16You are full of shame in place of glory: take your part in the drinking, and let your shame be uncovered: the cup of the Lord's right hand will come round to you and your glory will be covered with shame. 2:17For the violent acts against Lebanon will come on you, and the destruction of the cattle will be a cause of fear to you, because of men's blood and the violent acts against the land and the town and all who are living in it. 2:18What profit is the pictured image to its maker? and as for the metal image, the false teacher, why does its maker put his faith in it, making false gods without a voice? 2:19A curse on him who says to the wood, Awake! to the unbreathing stone, Up! let it be a teacher! See, it is plated with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all inside it. 2:20But the Lord is in his holy Temple: let all the earth be quiet before him.
3:1A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, put to Shigionoth. 3:2O Lord, word of you has come to my ears; I have seen your work, O Lord; when the years come near make it clear; in wrath keep mercy in mind. 3:3God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. The heavens were covered with his glory, and the earth was full of his praise. 3:4He was shining like the light; he had rays coming out from his hand: there his power was kept secret. 3:5Before him went disease, and flames went out at his feet. 3:6From his high place he sent shaking on the earth; he saw and nations were suddenly moved: and the eternal mountains were broken, the unchanging hills were bent down; his ways are eternal. 3:7The curtains of Cushan were troubled, and the tents of Midian were shaking. 3:8Was your wrath burning against the rivers? were you angry with the sea, that you went on your horses, on your war-carriages of salvation? 3:9Your bow was quite uncovered. Selah. By you the earth was cut through with rivers. 3:10The mountains saw you and were moved with fear; the clouds were streaming with water: the voice of the deep was sounding; the sun did not come up, and the moon kept still in her place. 3:11At the light of your arrows they went away, at the shining of your polished spear. 3:12You went stepping through the land in wrath, crushing the nations in your passion. 3:13You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of the one on whom your holy oil was put; wounding the head of the family of the evil-doer, uncovering the base even to the neck. Selah. 3:14You have put your spears through his head, his horsemen were sent in flight like dry stems; they had joy in driving away the poor, in making a meal of them secretly. 3:15The feet of your horses were on the sea, on the mass of great waters. 3:16Hearing it, my inner parts were moved, and my lips were shaking at the sound; my bones became feeble, and my steps were uncertain under me: I gave sounds of grief in the day of trouble, when his forces came up against the people in bands. 3:17For though the fig-tree has no flowers, and there is no fruit on the vine, and work on the olive comes to nothing, and the fields give no food; and the flock is cut off from its resting-place, and there is no herd in the cattle-house: 3:18Still, I will be glad in the Lord, my joy will be in the God of my salvation. 3:19The Lord God is my strength, and he makes my feet like roes' feet, guiding me on my high places. For the chief music-maker on corded instruments.
Zephaniah
1:1The word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah, the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah. 1:2I will take away everything from the face of the earth, says the Lord. 1:3I will take away man and beast; I will take away the birds of the heaven and the fishes of the sea; causing the downfall of the evil-doers, and cutting man off from the face of the earth, says the Lord. 1:4And my hand will be stretched out on Judah and on all the people of Jerusalem, cutting off the name of the Baal from this place, and the name of the false priests, 1:5And the worshippers of the army of heaven on the house-tops, and the Lord's worshippers who take oaths by Milcom, 1:6And those who are turned back from going after the Lord, and those who have not made prayer to the Lord or got directions from him. 1:7Let there be no sound before the Lord God: for the day of the Lord is near: for the Lord has made ready an offering, he has made his guests holy. 1:8And it will come about in the day of the Lord's offering, that I will send punishment on the rulers and the king's sons and all who are clothed in robes from strange lands. 1:9And in that day I will send punishment on all those who come jumping over the doorstep and make their master's house full of violent behaviour and deceit. 1:10And in that day, says the Lord, there will be the sound of a cry from the fish doorway, and an outcry from the new town, and a great thundering from the hills, and cries of grief from the people of the Hollow; 1:11Because of the downfall of all the people of Canaan: all those who were weighted down with silver have been cut off. 1:12And it will come about at that time, that I will go searching through Jerusalem with lights; and I will send punishment on the men who have become like wine stored over-long, who say to themselves, The Lord will not do good and will not do evil. 1:13And their wealth will be violently taken away, and their houses will be made waste: they will go on building houses and never living in them, and planting vine-gardens but not drinking the wine from them. 1:14The great day of the Lord is near, it is near and coming very quickly; the bitter day of the Lord is near, coming on more quickly than a man of war. 1:15That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and sorrow, a day of wasting and destruction, a day of dark night and deep shade, a day of cloud and thick dark. 1:16A day of sounding the horn and the war-cry against the walled towns and the high towers. 1:17And I will send trouble on men so that they will go about like the blind, because they have done evil against the Lord: and their blood will be drained out like dust, and their strength like waste. 1:18Even their silver and their gold will not be able to keep them safe in the day of the Lord's wrath; but all the land will be burned up in the fire of his bitter wrath: for he will put an end, even suddenly, to all who are living in the land.
2:1Come together, make everyone come together, O nation without shame; 2:2Before the Lord sends you violently away in flight like the waste from the grain; before the burning wrath of the Lord comes on you, before the day of the Lord's wrath comes on you. 2:3Make search for the Lord, all you quiet ones of the earth, who have done what is right in his eyes; make search for righteousness and a quiet heart: it may be that you will be safely covered in the day of the Lord's wrath. 2:4For Gaza will be given up and Ashkelon will become waste: they will send Ashdod out in the middle of the day, and Ekron will be uprooted. 2:5Sorrow to the people living by the sea, the nation of the Cherethites! The word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, the land of the Philistines; I will send destruction on you till there is no one living in you. 2:6And the land by the sea will be grass-land, with houses for keepers of sheep and walled places for flocks. 2:7The land by the sea will be for the rest of the children of Judah; by the sea they will give their flocks food: in the houses of Ashkelon they will take their rest in the evening; for the Lord their God will take them in hand and their fate will be changed. 2:8My ears have been open to the bitter words of Moab and the words of shame of the children of Ammon, which they have said against my people, lifting themselves up against the limit of their land. 2:9For this cause, by my life, says the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, truly Moab will become like Sodom and the children of Ammon like Gomorrah, given up to waste plants and salt pools and unpeopled for ever: the rest of my people will take their property, the overflow of my nation will take their heritage. 2:10This will be their fate because of their pride, because they have said evil, lifting themselves up against the people of the Lord of armies. 2:11The Lord will let himself be seen by them: for he will make all the gods of the earth feeble; and men will go down before him in worship, everyone from his place, even all the sea-lands of the nations. 2:12And you Ethiopians will be put to death by my sword. 2:13And his hand will be stretched out against the north, for the destruction of Assyria; and he will make Nineveh unpeopled and dry like the waste land. 2:14And herds will take their rest in the middle of her, all the beasts of the valley: the pelican and the porcupine will make their living-places on the tops of its pillars; the owl will be crying in the window; the raven will be seen on the doorstep. 2:15This is the town which was full of joy, living without fear of danger, saying in her heart, I am, and there is no other: how has she been made waste, a place for beasts to take their rest in! everyone who goes by her will make hisses, waving his hand.
3:1Sorrow to her who is uncontrolled and unclean, the cruel town! 3:2She gave no attention to the voice, she had no use for teaching, she put no faith in the Lord, she did not come near to her God. 3:3Her rulers are like loud-voiced lions in her; her judges are wolves of the evening, crushing up the bones before the morning. 3:4Her prophets are good-for-nothing persons, full of deceit: her priests have made the holy place unclean and have gone violently against the law. 3:5The Lord in her is upright; he will not do evil; every morning he lets his righteousness be seen, he is unchanging; but the evil-doer has no sense of shame. 3:6I have had the nations cut off, their towers are broken down; I have made their streets a waste so that no one goes through them: destruction has overtaken their towns, so that there is no man living in them. 3:7I said, Certainly you will go in fear of me, and come under my training, so that whatever I may send on her may not be cut off before her eyes: but they got up early and made all their works evil. 3:8For this reason, go on waiting for me, says the Lord, till the day when I come up as a witness: for my purpose is to send for the nations and to get the kingdoms together, so that I may let loose on them my passion, even all my burning wrath: for all the earth will be burned up in the fire of my bitter passion. 3:9For then I will give the people a clean language, so that they may all make prayer to the Lord and be his servants with one mind. 3:10From over the rivers of Ethiopia, and from the sides of the north, they will come to me with an offering. 3:11In that day you will have no shame on account of all the things in which you did evil against me: for then I will take away from among you those who were lifted up in pride, and you will no longer be lifted up with pride in my holy mountain. 3:12But I will still have among you a quiet and poor people, and they will put their faith in the name of the Lord. 3:13The rest of Israel will do no evil and say no false words; the tongue of deceit will not be seen in their mouth: for they will take their food and their rest, and no one will be a cause of fear to them. 3:14Make melody, O daughter of Zion; give a loud cry, O Israel; be glad and let your heart be full of joy, O daughter of Jerusalem. 3:15The Lord has taken away those who were judging you, he has sent your haters far away: the King of Israel, even the Lord, is among you: you will have no more fear of evil. 3:16In that day it will be said to Jerusalem, Have no fear: O Zion, let not your hands be feeble. 3:17The Lord your God is among you, as a strong saviour: he will be glad over you with joy, he will make his love new again, he will make a song of joy over you as in the time of a holy feast. 3:18I will take away your troubles, lifting up your shame from off you. 3:19See, at that time I will put an end to all who have been troubling you: I will give salvation to her whose steps are uncertain, and get together her who has been sent in flight; and I will make them a cause of praise and an honoured name in all the earth, when I let their fate be changed. 3:20At that time I will make you come in, at that time I will get you together: for I will make you a name and a praise among all the peoples of the earth when I let your fate be changed before your eyes, says the Lord.
Haggai
1:1In the second year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, ruler of Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying, 1:2These are the words of the Lord of armies: These people say, The time has not come for building the Lord's house. 1:3Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, 1:4Is it a time for you to be living in roofed houses while this house is a waste? 1:5For this cause the Lord of armies has said, Give thought to your ways. 1:6Much has been planted, but little got in; you take food, but have not enough; you take drink, but are not full; you are clothed, but no one is warm; and he who gets payment for his work, gets it to put it into a bag full of holes. 1:7This is what the Lord of armies has said: Give thought to your ways. 1:8Go up to the hills and get wood and put up the house; and I will take pleasure in it and be honoured, says the Lord. 1:9You were looking for much, and it came to little; and when you got it into your house, I took it away with a breath. Why? says the Lord of armies. Because of my house which is a waste, while every man takes care of the house which is his. 1:10For this cause the heaven over you is kept from giving dew, and the earth from giving her fruit. 1:11And by my order no rain came on the land or on the mountains or the grain or the wine or the oil or the produce of the earth or on men or cattle or on any work of man's hands. 1:12Then Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and all the rest of the people, gave ear to the voice of the Lord their God and to the words of Haggai the prophet, because the Lord their God had sent him, and the people were in fear before the Lord. 1:13Then Haggai, whom the Lord had sent to give his words to the people, said, I am with you, says the Lord. 1:14And the spirit of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, ruler of Judah, was moved by the Lord, as was the spirit of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the rest of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of armies, their God. 1:15On the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king.