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The notable men of the first of the nations,

To whom the house of Israel come!

²Pass ye unto Calneh, and see,

And from thence go ye to Hamath the great;

Then go down to Gath of the Philistines;

Are they better than these kingdoms?

Or is their border greater than your border?

³Ye that put far away the evil day,

And cause the seat of violence to come near;

⁴That lie upon beds of ivory,

And stretch themselves upon their couches,

And eat the lambs out of the flock,

And the calves out of the midst of the stall;

⁵That thrum on the psaltery,

That devise for themselves instruments of music, like David;

⁶That drink wine in bowls,

And anoint themselves with the chief ointments;

But they are not grieved for the hurt of Joseph.

⁷Therefore now shall they go captive at the head of them that go captive,

And the revelry of them that stretched themselves shall pass away.

⁸The Lord God hath sworn by Himself,

Saith the Lord, the God of hosts:

I abhor the pride of Jacob,

And hate his palaces;

And I will deliver up the city with all that is therein.

⁹And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die. ¹⁰And when a man's uncle shall take him up, even he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is in the innermost parts of the house 'Is there yet any with thee?' and he shall say. 'No'; then shall he say: 'Hold thy peace; for we must not make mention of the name of the Lord.'

¹¹For, behold, the Lord commandeth,

And the great house shall be smitten into splinters,

And the little house into chips.

¹²Do horses run upon the rock?

Doth one plow there with oxen?

That ye have turned justice into gall,

And the fruit of righteousness into wormwood;

¹³Ye that rejoice in a thing of nought,

That say: 'Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?'

¹⁴For, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the Lord, the God of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the entrance of Hamath unto the Brook of the Arabah.

7Thus the Lord God showed me; and, behold, He formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king's mowings. ²And if it had come to pass, that when they made an end of eating the grass of the land so I said:

Lord God, forgive, I beseech Thee;

How shall Jacob stand? for he is small.

³The Lord repented concerning this; 'It shall not be', saith the Lord.

⁴Thus the Lord God showed me; and, behold, the Lord God called to contend by fire; and it devoured the great deep, and would have eaten up the land. ⁵Then said I:

O Lord God, cease, I beseech Thee;

How shall Jacob stand? for he is small.

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