Your land is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; strangers devour your land in your presence, and it is made desolate, overthrown by strange nations.

And I beheld, and the people were spoiled and plundered; for [there is] a snare in the secret chambers everywhere, and in the houses also, where they have hidden them; they became a spoil, and there was no one that delivered the prey, and there was none who said, Restore.

For what did He give Jacob up to spoil, and Israel to them that plundered him? Did not God [do it] against whom they sinned? [And] they would not walk in His ways, nor hearken to His law.

In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of the Assyrians took Samaria, and carried Israel away to the Assyrians, and settled them in Halah and in Habor, [near] the River of Gozan, and [in] the mountains of the Medes.

And the Lord his God delivered him into the hand of the king of Syria. And [the king] attacked him, and took a great multitude of prisoners captive, and carried him to Damascus. Also [God] delivered him into the hands of the king of Israel, who defeated him with a great slaughter.

And Zichri, a mighty man of Ephraim, killed Maaseiah the king's son, and Azrikam the chief of his house, and Elkanah the king's deputy.

The ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master's crib; but Israel does not know Me, and the people have not regarded Me.

And after a time there shall be in it no green thing because of [the grass] being parched. Come here, you woman that comes from a sight; for it is a people of no understanding; therefore He that made them shall have no pity upon them, and He that formed them shall have no mercy [upon them].

Even the stork in the heaven knows her time, [also] the turtledove and wild swallow; the sparrows observe the times of their coming in; but this My people knows not the judgments of the Lord.

My people are like as if they had no knowledge: because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you, that you shall not minister as priest unto Me: and [as] you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

Woe to you, blind guides, who say, 'Whoever swears by the temple, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gold of the temple, is obligated.'

And, 'Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, is obligated.'

Therefore he that swears by the altar, swears by it and by all the things on it.

And he that swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by Him who sits on it.

Blind guides, you who strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel!

Blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and dish, so that the outside of them may be clean also.

and they will level you to the ground, and your children with you; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the season of your visitation."

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness more than the light, because their works were evil.

For everyone that does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works be exposed.

And just as they did not approve to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do the things which are not fitting;

For this they willingly forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and [the] earth, consisting out of water and through water,

If I go forth into the plain, then behold the slain by the sword! And if I enter into the city, then behold the distress of famine! For priest and prophet have gone to a land which they knew not.

DALETH. The tongue of the sucking child cleaves to the roof of its mouth for thirst: the little children ask for bread, and there is none to break it for them.

HE. They that feed on dainties are desolate in the streets; they that used to be nursed in scarlet have clothed themselves with dung.

TETH. The slain with the sword were better than they that were slain with hunger; they have departed, pierced through from lack of the fruits of the field.

And her nobles have sent their little ones to the water: they came to the wells, and found no water: and brought back their vessels empty.

In that day shall the fair virgins and the young men faint for thirst;