Hoshea 1
The word of Ieue that came to Hoshea the male-tent-continuer of Beeriy, in the days of Uzziyahu, Yotham, Achaz, and Chizqiyah, male-authorities-that-guide-the-people of Ieude, and in the days of Yarobam the male-tent-continuer of Yoash, male-authority-that-guides-the-people of Isharal. When Ieue spoke at first by Hoshea, Ieue said to Hoshea, Go, take for yourself a woman of prostitution and tent-builders of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking Ieue.
So he went and took Gamar the female-tent-continuer of Diblayim; and she conceived, and bore him a male-tent-continuer.
Ieue said to him, Call his name Yizreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Yizreel on the house of Yehu, and will cause the authority-to-guide-the-people of the house of Isharal to cease. It will happen in that day that I will break the bow of Isharal in the valley of Yizreel.
She conceived again, and bore a female-tent-continuer.
Then he said to him, Call her name Lo Ruchamah; for I will no longer move my bowels for the house of Isharal, that I should in any way pardon them. But I will move my bowels for the house of Ieude, and will deliver them by Ieue their Strongest-Yoked-Guide, and will not deliver them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen.
Now when she had weaned Lo Ruchamah, she conceived, and bore a male-tent-continuer.
He said, Call his name Lo Ammiy; for you are not my people, and I will not be yours. Yet the number of the tent-builders of Isharal will be as the sand of the sea, which can’t be measured nor numbered; and it will come to pass that, in the place where it was said to them, You are not my people, they will be called male-tent-continuers of the stomach-filled Strong-Guide. The tent-builders of Ieude and the tent-builders of Isharal will be gathered together, and they will appoint themselves one head, and will go up from the land; for great will be the day of Yizreel.
Hoshea 2
Say to your male-strong-protectors, My people! and to your female-strong-protectors, She was shown compassion! Contend with your strong-womb! Contend, for she is not my woman, neither am I her man; and let her put away her prostitution from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts; Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst. Indeed, for her tent-builders my bowels will not move; for they are tent-builders of unfaithfulness; For their strong-womb has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can’t find her way. She will follow after her lovers, but she won’t overtake them; and she will seek them, but won’t find them. Then she will say, I will go and return to my first man; for then was it better with me than now.
For she did not know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness. Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of my hand. I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: her feasts, her new moons, her Ceasing-Signs, and all her solemn called-out-assemblies. I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, about which she has said, These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest, and the animals of the field shall eat them. I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me, says Ieue.
Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Akor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Matsrim. It will be in that day, says Ieue, that you will call me my man, and no longer call me my strongest-lifebringer. For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by name. In that day I will cut-pieces-to-pass-through for them with the animals of the field, and with the flyers of the sky, and with the creeping things of the ground. I will break the bow, the sword, and the battle out of the land, and will make them lie down safely. I will betroth you to me to the horizon. Yes, I will betroth you to me in straight-pathedness, in justice, in bent-neck, and in moving-bowels. I will even betroth you to me in steadiness; and you shall know Ieue.
It will happen in that day, I will respond, says Ieue, I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the land; and the land will respond to the grain, and the new wine, and the oil; and they will respond to Yizreel. I will sow her to me in the land; and I will move my bowels for her who had not had bowels moved for her; and I will tell those who were not my people, You are my people; and they will say, my Strongest-Yoked-Guide!
Hoshea 3
Ieue said to me, Go again, care-for-the-gift-of a woman gift-cared by another, and an adulteress, even as Ieue cares-for-the-gift-of the tent-builders of Isharal, though they turning their face to other strong-yoked-guides, and care-for-the-gift-of cakes of raisins.
So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley. I said to her, You shall stay with me many days. You shall not play the prostitute, and you shall not be with any other man. I will also be so toward you.
For the tent-builders of Isharal shall fill-the-stomach many days without male-authority-that-guides-the-people, and without prince, and without slaughter, and without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols. Afterward the tent-builders of Isharal shall return, and seek Ieue their Strongest-Yoked-Guide, and Duid their male-authority-that-guides-the-people, and shall come with trembling to Ieue and to his things kneeled down and given in the last days.
Hoshea 4
Hear the word of Ieue, you tent-builders of Isharal; for Ieue has a charge against the inhabitants of the land: Indeed there is no firmness, nor functionality, nor knowledge of the Strongest-Yoked-Guide in the land. There is cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break boundaries, and bloodshed causes bloodshed. Therefore the land will mourn, and everyone who dwells therein will waste away. all stomach-filled things in her, even the animals of the field and the flyers of the sky; yes, the fish of the sea also empty-the-stomach.
Yet let no man bring a charge, neither let any man accuse; For your people are like those who bring charges against a priest. You will stumble in the day, and the prophet will also stumble with you in the night; and I will destroy your strong-womb. My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten the thrown-seed of your Strongest-Yoked-Guide, I will also forget your tent-builders.
As they were multiplied, so they missed-the-target against me. I will change their weightiness into shame. They feed on the missed-targets of my people, and set their breathing-throat on their iniquity. It will be, like people, like priest; and I will punish them for their ways, and will repay them for their deeds. They will eat, and not have enough. They will play the prostitute, and will not increase; because they have abandoned giving to Ieue.
Prostitution, wine, and new wine take away understanding. My people consult with their wooden idol, and answer to a stick of wood. Indeed the wind of prostitution has led them astray, and they have been unfaithful to their Strongest-Yoked-Guide. They slaughter on the tops of the mountains, and burn incense on the hills, under oaks and poplars and terebinths, because its shade is functional. Therefore your female-tent-continuers play the prostitute, and your brides commit adultery. I will not punish your female-tent-continuers when they play the prostitute, nor your brides when they commit adultery; because the men consort with prostitutes, and they slaughter with the separated-females; so the people without understanding will come to ruin.
Though you, Isharal, play the prostitute, yet don’t let Ieude offend; and don’t come to Gilgal, neither go up to Beyth Aven, nor swear, As Ieue fills-the-stomach. For Isharal has behaved extremely stubbornly, like a stubborn heifer. Then how will Ieue feed them like a lamb in a meadow. Ephrayim is joined to idols. Leave him alone! Their drink has become sour. They play the prostitute continually. Her rulers dearly care-for-the-gift-of their shameful way. The wind has wrapped her up in its wings; and they shall be disappointed because of their slaughters.
Hoshea 5
Hear this, you priests! Attend, house of Isharal, and give ear, house of the male-authority-that-guides-the-people! For the judgment is against you; for you have been a snare at Mitspah, and a net spread on Tabor. The rebels are deep in massacre; but I discipline all of them. I know Ephrayim, and Isharal is not hidden from me; for now, Ephrayim, you have played the prostitute. Isharal is defiled. Their deeds won’t allow them to turn to their Strongest-Yoked-Guide; for the wind of prostitution is within them, and they don’t know Ieue. The pride of Isharal testifies to his face. Therefore Isharal and Ephrayim will stumble in their iniquity. Ieude also will stumble with them. They will go with their flocks and with their herds to seek Ieue; but they won’t find him. He has withdrawn himself from them. They are unfaithful to Ieue; for they have borne illegitimate tent-builders. Now the new moon will devour them with their fields.
Blow the cornet in Gibah, and the trumpet in Rome! Sound a battle cry at Beyth Aven, behind you, Binyamiyn! Ephrayim will become a desolation in the day of rebuke. Among the tribes of Isharal, I have made known that which will surely be. The princes of Ieude are like those who remove a landmark. I will pour out my wrath on them like water. Ephrayim is oppressed, he is crushed in judgment; Because he is intent in his pursuit of idols. Therefore I am to Ephrayim like a moth, and to the house of Ieude like rottenness.
When Ephrayim saw his sickness, and Ieude his wound, Then Ephrayim went to Ashur, and sent to male-authority-that-guides-the-people Yareb: but he is not able to heal you, neither will he cure you of your wound. For I will be to Ephrayim like a lion, and like a young lion to the house of Ieude. I myself will tear in pieces and go away. I will carry off, and there will be no one to deliver. I will go and return to my place, until they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me earnestly.
Hoshea 6
Come, and let us return to Ieue; for he has torn us to pieces, and he will heal us; he has injured us, and he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up, and we will fill-the-stomach before him. Let us acknowledge Ieue. Let us press on to know Ieue. As surely as the sun rises, Ieue will appear. He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain that waters the land.
Ephrayim, what shall I do to you? Ieude, what shall I do to you? For your care-for-the-gift is like a morning cloud, and like the dew that disappears early. Therefore I have cut them to pieces with the prophets; I killed them with the words of my mouth. Your judgments are like a flash of lightning. For I desire bent-neck, and not slaughter; and the experience of the Strongest-Yoked-Guide more than ascent offerings. But they, like Adam, have broken the pieces-to-pass-through. They were unfaithful to me, there. Gilad is a city of those who work iniquity; it is stained with blood. As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, so the company of priests murder in the way toward Shekem, committing shameful crimes. In the house of Isharal I have seen a horrible thing. There is prostitution in Ephrayim. Isharal is defiled.
Also, Ieude, there is a harvest appointed for you, when I restore the fortunes of my people.
Hoshea 7
When I would heal Isharal, then the iniquity of Ephrayim is uncovered, also the wickedness of Shomeron; for they commit what-is-empty, and the thief enters in, and the gang of robbers ravages outside. They don’t consider in their inner-guides that I remember all their wickedness. Now their own deeds have engulfed them. They are before my face. They make the male-authority-that-guides-the-people glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their empty things. They are all adulterers. They are burning like an oven that the baker stops stirring, from the kneading of the dough, until it is leavened. On the day of our male-authority-that-guides-the-people, the princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine. He joined his hand with mockers. For they have prepared their inner-guide like an oven, while they lie in wait. Their baker sleeps all the night. In the morning it burns as a flaming fire. They are all hot as an oven, and devour their judges. All their male-authorities-that-guide-the-people have fallen. There is no one among them who calls to me. Ephrayim, he mixes himself among the nations. Ephrayim is a pancake not turned over. Strangers have devoured his strength, and he doesn’t realize it. Indeed, gray hairs are here and there on him, and he doesn’t realize it. The pride of Isharal testifies to his face; yet they haven’t returned to Ieue their Strongest-Yoked-Guide, nor sought him, for all this.
Ephrayim is like an easily deceived dove, without understanding. They call to Matsrim. They go to Ashur. When they go, I will spread my net on them. I will bring them down like the flyers of the sky. I will chastise them, as their gathering has heard. Woe to them! For they have wandered from me. Destruction to them! For they have trespassed against me. Though I would redeem them, yet they have spoken empty things against me. They haven’t cried to me with their inner-guide, but they howl on their beds. They assemble themselves for grain and new wine. They turn away from me. Though I have taught and strengthened their arms, yet they plot what is dysfunctional against me. They return, but not to the Supreme-One. They are like a faulty bow. Their princes will fall by the sword for the rage of their tongue. This will be their derision in the land of Matsrim.
Hoshea 8
Puth the trumpet to your lips! Something like an eagle is over Ieue’s house, because they have broken my pieces-to-pass-through, and rebelled against my thrown-seed. They cry to me, my Strongest-Yoked-Guide, we Isharal acknowledge you! Isharal has cast off that which is functional. The enemy will pursue him. They have set up male-authorities-that-guide-the-people, but not by me. They have made princes, and I didn’t approve. Of their silver and their gold they have made themselves idols, that they may be cut off. Let Shomeron throw out his calf idol! My nose-flaring burns against them! How long will it be until they are capable of purity? For this is even from Isharal! The workman made it, and it is no mightiest-yoked-one; indeed, the calf of Shomeron shall be broken in pieces. For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.
Isharal is swallowed up. Now they are among the nations like a worthless thing. For they have gone up to Ashur, like a wild donkey wandering alone. Ephrayim has hired lovers for himself. But although they sold themselves among the nations, I will now gather them; and they shall trevail because of the oppression of the male-authority-that-guides-the-people of chiefs.
Because Ephrayim has multiplied altars for missed-targets, they became for him altars for missed-targets. I wrote for him the many things of my thrown-seed; but they were regarded as a strange thing. As for the slaughters of my offerings, they slaughter flesh and eat it; But Ieue doesn’t accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish their missed-targets. They will return to Matsrim. For Isharal has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; and Ieude has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send a fire on his cities, and it will devour its fortresses.
Hoshea 9
Don’t rejoice, Isharal, to jubilation like the nations; for you were unfaithful to your Strongest-Yoked-Guide. You care-for-the-gift-of the wages of a prostitute at every grain threshing floor. The threshing floor and the winepress won’t feed them, and the new wine will fail her. They won’t dwell in Ieue’s land; but Ephrayim will return to Matsrim, and they will eat unclean food in Ashur. They won’t pour out wine offerings to Ieue, neither will they be pleasing to him. Their slaughters will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat of it will be polluted; for their bread will be for their breathing-throat. It will not come into the house of Ieue. What will you do in the day of festival, and in the day of the feast of Ieue? For, behold, they have gone away from destruction. Matsrim will gather them up. Moph will bury them. Nettles will possess their pleasant things of silver. Thorns will be in their tents.
The days of visitation have come. The days of reckoning have come. Isharal will consider the prophet to be a fool, and the man who is inspired to be insane, because of the abundance of your missed-targets, and because your hostility is great. A prophet watches over Ephrayim with my Strongest-Yoked-Guide. A fowler’s snare is on all of his paths, and hostility in the house of his Strongest-Yoked-Guide. They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibah. He will remember their iniquity. He will punish them for their missed-targets.
I found Isharal like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your tent-supporters as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; but they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they cared-for-the-gift-of. As for Ephrayim, their weightiness will fly away like a flyer; from the birth, from the loins, and from the conception. Though they bring up their tent-builders, yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them! I have seen Ephrayim, like Tsor, planted in a pleasant place; but Ephrayim will bring out his tent-builders to the murderer. Give them—Ieue what will you give? Give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
All their wickedness is in Gilgal; for there I hated them. Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of my house! I will care-for-the-gift-of them no more. All their princes are rebels. Ephrayim is struck. Their root has dried up. They will bear no fruit. Even though they bring forth, yet I will kill the ones gift-cared of their loins. My Strongest-Yoked-Guide will cast them away, because they did not listen to him; and they will be wanderers among the nations.
Hoshea 10
Isharal is a luxuriant vine that puts forth his fruit. According to the abundance of his fruit he has multiplied his altars. As their land has prospered, they have adorned their sacred stones. Their inner-guide is divided. Now they will be found guilty. He will demolish their altars. He will destroy their sacred stones.
Surely now they will say, We have no male-authority-that-guides-the-people; for we don’t flow-the-gut-before Ieue; and the male-authority-that-guides-the-people, what can he do for us? They make promises, swearing in-an-empty-way in making passings through the pieces. Therefore judgment springs up like poisonous weeds in the furrows of the field. The inhabitants of Shomeron will be in terror for the calves of Beyth Aven; for its people will mourn over it, Along with its priests who rejoiced over it, for its weightiness, because it has departed from it. It also will be carried to Ashur for a present to a great male-authority-that-guides-the-people. Ephrayim will receive shame, and Isharal will be ashamed of his own counsel. Shomeron and her male-authority-that-guides-the-people float away, like a twig on the water. The high places also of Aven, the missed-targets of Isharal, will be destroyed. The thorn and the thistle will come up on their altars. They will tell the mountains, Cover us! and the hills, Fall on us!
Isharal, you have missed-the-target from the days of Gibah. There they remained. The battle against the tent-builders of iniquity doesn’t overtake them in Gibah. When it is my desire, I will chastise them; and the nations will be gathered against them, when they are bound to their two transgressions.
Ephrayim is a trained heifer caring-for-the-gift-of threshing; so I will put a yoke on her beautiful neck. I will set a rider on Ephrayim. Ieude will plow. Eoqub will break his clods. Sow to yourselves in straight-pathedness, reap according to bent-neck. Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek Ieue, until he comes and rains straight-pathedness on you. You have plowed wickedness. You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of empty things, for you trusted in your way, in the multitude of your high-headed men. Therefore a battle roar will arise among your people, and all your fortresses will be destroyed, as Shalman destroyed Beth Arbel in the day of battle. The strong-womb was dashed in pieces with her tent-builders. So Beythel will do to you because of your great wickedness. At daybreak the male-authority-that-guides-the-people of Isharal will be destroyed.
Hoshea 11
When Isharal was a tent-builder, then I cared-for-the-gift-of him, and called my male-tent-continuer out of Matsrim. They called to them, so they went from them. They slaughtered to the Baals, and burned incense to engraved images. Yet I taught Ephrayim to walk. I took them by his arms; but they didn’t know that I healed them. I drew them with cords of a man, with ties of gift-care; and I was to them like those who lift up the yoke on their necks; and I bent down to him and I fed him.
They won’t return into the land of Matsrim; but the Assyrian will be their male-authority-that-guides-the-people, because they refused to repent. The sword will fall on their cities, and will destroy the bars of their gates, and will put an end to their plans. My people are determined to turn from me. Though they call to the Supreme-One, he certainly won’t exalt them.
How can I give you up, Ephrayim? How can I hand you over, Isharal? How can I make you like Admah? How can I make you like Tseboiym? My inner-guide is turned within me, my compassion is aroused. I will not execute the fierceness of my nose-flaring. I will not return to destroy Ephrayim: for I am the Strong-Guide, and not man; the Separated One in the midst of you; and I will not come in wrath. They will walk after Ieue, who will roar like a lion; for he will roar, and the tent-builders will come trembling from the west. They will come trembling like a flyer out of Matsrim, and like a dove out of the land of Ashur; and I will settle them in their houses, says Ieue.
Ephrayim surrounds me with what-is-empty, and the house of Isharal with deceit. Ieude still strays from the Strong-Guide, and is unfaithful to the Separated One.
Hoshea 12
Ephrayim feeds on wind, and chases the east wind. He continually multiplies empty things and desolation. They cut-pieces-to-pass-through with Ashur, and oil is carried into Matsrim. Ieue also has a controversy with Ieude, and will punish Eoqub according to his ways; according to his deeds he will repay him. In the loins he took his male-strong-protector by the heel; and in his manhood he contended with the Strongest-Yoked-Guide. Indeed, he struggled with the messenger, and prevailed; he wept, and sought encampment with him. He found him at Beythel, and there he spoke with us, even Ieue, the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of Armies; Ieue is his name of renown! Therefore turn to your Strongest-Yoked-Guide. Keep bent-neck and justice, and wait continually for your Strongest-Yoked-Guide.
A merchant has dishonest scales in his hand. He cares-for-the-gift of defrauding. Ephrayim said, Surely I have become rich, I have found wealth for myself. In all my wealth they won’t find in me any iniquity that is a missed-target.
But I am Ieue your Strongest-Yoked-Guide from the land of Matsrim. I will yet again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the solemn feast. I have also spoken to the prophets, and I have multiplied visions; and by the ministry of the prophets I have used parables.
If Gilad is wicked, surely they are worthless. In Gilgal they slaughter bulls. Indeed, their altars are like heaps in the furrows of the field. Eoqub fled into the country of Aram, and Isharal served to get a woman, and for a woman he tended flocks and herds. By a prophet Ieue brought Isharal up out of Matsrim, and by a prophet he was preserved. Ephrayim has bitterly provoked nose-flaring. Therefore his blood will be left on him, and his Strongest-Lifebringer will repay his contempt.
Hoshea 13
When Ephrayim spoke, there was trembling. He exalted himself in Isharal, but when he became guilty in Baal, he emptied-the-stomach. Now they miss-the-target more and more, and have made themselves molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, They offer human slaughter and kiss the calves. Therefore they will be like the morning mist, and like the dew that passes away early, like the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the threshing floor, and like the smoke out of the chimney.
Yet I am Ieue your Strongest-Yoked-Guide from the land of Matsrim; and you shall acknowledge no mightiest-yoked-one but me, and besides me there is no deliverer. I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their inner-guide was exalted. Therefore they have forgotten me. Therefore I am like a lion to them. Like a leopard, I will lurk by the path. I will meet them like a bear that is bereaved of her cubs, and will tear the covering of their inner-guide. There I will devour them like a lioness. The wild animal will tear them.
You are destroyed, Isharal, because you are against me, against your help. Where is your male-authority-that-guides-the-people now, that he may deliver you in all your cities? And your judges, of whom you said, Give me a male-authority-that-guides-the-people and princes? I have given you a male-authority-that-guides-the-people in my nose-flaring, and have taken him away in my wrath. The guilt of Ephrayim is stored up. His missed-targets are stored up. The sorrows of a travailing woman will come on him. He is an unwise male-tent-continuer; for when it is time, he doesn’t come to the opening of the womb. I will ransom them from the power of the unseen-realm. I will redeem them from an emptied-stomach! Emptied-stomach, where are your plagues? Unseen Realm, where is your destruction?
Compassion will be hidden from my eyes. Though he is fruitful among his male-strong-protectors, an east wind will come, the wind of Ieue coming up from the wilderness; and his spring will become dry, and his fountain will be dried up. He will plunder the storehouse of treasure. Shomeron will bear her guilt; for she has rebelled against her Strongest-Yoked-Guide. They will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women will be ripped open.
Hoshea 14
Isharal, return to Ieue your Strongest-Yoked-Guide; for you have fallen because of your missed-targets. Take words with you, and return to Ieue. Tell him, Lift-Off all our missed-targets, and accept that which is functional: so we offer our lips like bulls. Ashur can’t deliver us. We won’t ride on horses; neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, our strong-yoked-guides! For in you the orphan has bowels moved for them.
I will heal their waywardness. I will care-for-the-gift-of them freely; for my nose-flaring is turned away from him. I will be like the dew to Isharal. He will blossom like the lily, and send down his roots like Lebanon. His branches will spread, and his beauty will be like the olive tree, and his fragrance like Lebanon. Men will dwell in his shade. They will revive like the grain, and blossom like the vine. Their fragrance will be like the wine of Lebanon. Ephrayim, what have I to do any more with idols? I answer, and will take care of him. I am like a green fir tree; from me your fruit is found.
Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Who is prudent, that he may know them? For the ways of Ieue are right, and the straight-pathed walk in them; But the rebellious stumble in them.
Yoel 1
The Word of Ieue that came to Yoel, the male-tent-continuer of Pethuel.
Hear this, you elders, And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land. Has this ever happened in your days, or in the days of your tent-supporters? Tell your tent-builders about it, and have your tent-builders tell their tent-builders, and their tent-builders, another circle-of-men.
What the swarming locust has left, the great locust has eaten. What the great locust has left, the grasshopper has eaten. What the grasshopper has left, the caterpillar has eaten. Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation has come up on my land, staunch, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a lioness. He has laid my vine waste, and stripped my fig tree. He has stripped its bark, and thrown it away. Its branches are made white.
Mourn like a virgin dressed in sackcloth for the man of her youth! The meal offering and the drink offering are cut off from Ieue’s house. The priests, Ieue’s ministers, mourn. The field is laid waste. The land mourns, for the grain is destroyed, the new wine has dried up, and the oil languishes. Be confounded, you farmers! Wail, you vineyard keepers; for the wheat and for the barley; for the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up, and the fig tree withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all of the trees of the field are withered; for joy has withered away from the male-tent-continuers of men.
Puth on sackcloth and mourn, you priests! Wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my Strongest-Yoked-Guide, for the meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from your Strongest-Yoked-Guide’s house. Sanctify a fast. Call a solemn service. Gather the elders, and all the inhabitants of the land, to the house of Ieue, your Strongest-Yoked-Guide, and cry to Ieue.
Alas for the day! For the day of Ieue is at hand, and it will come as destruction from the Strong-Breasted-One. Isn’t the food cut off before our eyes; joy and gladness from the house of our Strongest-Yoked-Guide? The seeds rot under their clods. The granaries are laid desolate. The barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. How the animals groan! The herds of livestock are perplexed, because they have no pasture. Yes, the flocks of sheep are made desolate.
Ieue, I cry to you, For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame has burned all the trees of the field. Yes, the animals of the field pant to you, for the water brooks have dried up, And the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
Yoel 2
Blow the trumpet in Tsiyon, and sound an alarm in my separated mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of Ieue comes, for it is close at hand: A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn spreading on the mountains, a great and staunch people; there has never been the like, neither will there be any more after them, even to the years of many circles-of-men. A fire devours before them, and behind them, a flame burns. The land is as the garden of Odan before them, and behind them, a desolate wilderness. Yes, and no one has escaped them. Their appearance is as the appearance of horses, and as horsemen, so do they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains do they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble, as a staunch people set in battle array. At their presence the peoples are in anguish. All faces have grown pale. They run like high-headed men. They climb the wall like warriors. They each march in his line, and they don’t swerve off course. Neither does one jostle another; they march everyone in his path, and they burst through the defenses, and don’t break ranks. They rush on the city. They run on the wall. They climb up into the houses. They enter in at the windows like thieves. The land quakes before them. The skies tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. Ieue thunders his voice before his army; for his forces are very great; for he is staunch who listens to his directive; for the day of Ieue is great and very awesome, and who can endure it?
Yet even now, says Ieue, turn to me with all your inner-guide, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning. Tear your inner-guide, and not your garments, and turn to Ieue, your Strongest-Yoked-Guide; for he is encamping and moving-boweled, slow to nose-flaring, and abundant in bent-neck, and relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and relent, and leave a kneeling-down-to-give behind him, even a meal offering and a drink offering to Ieue, your Strongest-Yoked-Guide. Blow the trumpet in Tsiyon! Set apart a fast. Call a solemn service. Gather the people. Set apart the called-out-assembly. Choose elders. Gather the tent-builders, and those who nurse from breasts. Let the bridegroom go forth from his room, and the bride out of her room. Let the priests, the ministers of Ieue, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare your people, Ieue, and don’t give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, Where is their Strongest-Yoked-Guide?
Then Ieue was jealous for his land, And had pity on his people. Ieue answered his people, Behold, I will send you grain, new wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied with them; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. But I will remove the northern army far away from you, and will drive it into a barren and desolate land, its front into the eastern sea, and its back into the western sea; and its stench will come up, and its stink will rise. Surely he has done great things. Land, don’t be afraid. Be glad and rejoice, for Ieue has done great things. Don’t be afraid, you animals of the field; for the pastures of the wilderness spring up, for the tree bears its fruit. The fig tree and the vine yield their strength.
Be glad then, you tent-builders of Tsiyon, and rejoice in Ieue, your Strongest-Yoked-Guide; for he gives you the former rain in just measure, and he causes the rain to come down for you, the former rain and the latter rain, as before. The threshing floors will be full of wheat, and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar, my great army, which I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, and be satisfied, and will praise the name of Ieue, your Strongest-Yoked-Guide, who has dealt wondrously with you; and my people will never again be disappointed. You will know that I am in the midst of Isharal, and that I am Ieue, your Strongest-Yoked-Guide, and there is no one else; and my people will never again be disappointed.
It will happen afterward, that I will pour out my wind on all flesh; and your male-tent-continuers and your female-tent-continuers will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions. And also on the servants and on the handmaids in those days, I will pour out my wind. I will show wonders in the skies and in the land: blood, fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of Ieue comes. It will happen that whoever will call on the name of Ieue shall be delivered; for in Mount Tsiyon and in Yerusalem there will be those who escape, as Ieue has said, and among the remnant, those whom Ieue calls.
Yoel 3
For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I restore the fortunes of Ieude and Yerusalem, I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Yehoshaphat; and I will execute judgment on them there for my people, and for my heritage, Isharal, whom they have scattered among the nations. They have divided my land, and have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a prostitute, and sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.
Yes, and what are you to me, Tsor, and Tsiydon, and all the regions of Pelesheth? Will you repay me? And if you repay me, I will swiftly and speedily return your repayment on your own head. Because you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my finest treasures into your temples, and have sold the tent-builders of Ieude and the tent-builders of Yerusalem to the male-tent-continuers of the Greeks, that you may remove them far from their border. Behold, I will stir them up out of the place where you have sold them, and will return your repayment on your own head; and I will sell your male-tent-continuers and your female-tent-continuers into the hands of the tent-builders of Ieude, and they will sell them to the men of Shaba, to a faraway nation, for Ieue has spoken it.
Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Stir up the high-headed men. Let all the warriors draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, I am high-headed. Hurry and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves together. Settle your high-headed ones there, Ieue. Let the nations arouse themselves, and come up to the valley of Yehoshaphat; for there will I sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Puth in the sickle; for the harvest is ripe. Come, tread, for the winepress is full, the vats overflow, for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of Ieue is near, in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. Ieue will roar from Tsiyon, and thunder from Yerusalem; and the skies and the land will shake; but Ieue will be a refuge to his people, and a stronghold to the tent-builders of Isharal.
So you will know that I am Ieue, your Strongest-Yoked-Guide, dwelling in Tsiyon, my separated mountain. Then Yerusalem will be separated, and no strangers will pass through her any more.
It will happen in that day, that the mountains will drop down sweet wine, the hills will flow with milk, all the brooks of Ieude will flow with waters, and a fountain will come forth from the house of Ieue, and the valley of Shittiym will drink. Matsrim will be a desolation, and Edom will be a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the tent-builders of Ieude, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Ieude will be inhabited to the horizon, and Yerusalem from circle-of-men to circle-of-men. I will cleanse their blood, that I have not cleansed: for Ieue dwells in Tsiyon.
Amos 1
The words of Amos, who was among the herdsmen of Teqoa, which he cut-the-fence concerning Isharal in the days of Uzziyahu male-authority-that-guides-the-people of Ieude, and in the days of Yarobam the male-tent-continuer of Yoash male-authority-that-guides-the-people of Isharal, two years before the earthquake. He said:
Ieue will roar from Tsiyon, and utter his voice from Yerusalem; and the pastures of the shepherds will mourn, and the top of Karmel will wither.
This is what Ieue says: For three transgressions of Dammeseq, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have threshed Gilad with threshing instruments of iron; but I will send a fire into the house of Chazael, and it will devour the palaces of Ben Hadad. I will break the bar of Dammeseq, and cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Aven, and him who holds the scepter from the house of Odan; and the people of Syria shall go into captivity to Qiyr, says Ieue.
This is what Ieue says: For three transgressions of Azzah, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they carried away captive the whole community, to deliver them up to Edom; but I will send a fire on the wall of Azzah, and it will devour its palaces. I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him who holds the scepter from Ashqelon; and I will turn my hand against Eqron; and the remnant of the Palashtim will perish, says the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue.
This is what Ieue says: For three transgressions of Tsor, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they delivered up the whole community to Edom, and didn’t remember the pieces-to-pass-through characteristic of male-strong-protectors; but I will send a fire on the wall of Tsor, and it will devour its palaces.
This is what Ieue says: For three transgressions of Edom, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because he pursued his male-strong-protector with the sword, and cast off all moving-bowels, and his nose-flaring raged continually, and he kept his wrath to victory; but I will send a fire on Teyman, and it will devour the palaces of Botsrah.
This is what Ieue says: For three transgressions of the tent-builders of Ammon, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have ripped open the pregnant women of Gilad, that they may enlarge their border. But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it will devour its palaces, with shouting in the day of battle, with a storm in the day of the whirlwind; and their male-authority-that-guides-the-people will go into captivity, he and his princes together, says Ieue.
Amos 2
This is what Ieue says: For three transgressions of Moab, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because he burned the bones of the male-authority-that-guides-the-people of Edom into lime; but I will send a fire on Moab, and it will devour the palaces of Qeriyoth; and Moab will empty-the-stomach with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet; and I will cut off the judge from their midst, and will kill all its princes with him, says Ieue.
This is what Ieue says: For three transgressions of Ieude, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have rejected the thrown-seed of Ieue, and have not kept his statutes, and their empty things have led them astray, after which their tent-supporters walked; But I will send a fire on Ieude, and it will devour the palaces of Yerusalem.
This is what Ieue says: For three transgressions of Isharal, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have sold the straight-pathed for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; They trample on the dust of the land on the head of the poor, and deny justice to the oppressed; and a man and his tent-supporter use the same maiden, to profane my separated name; and they lay themselves down beside every altar on clothes taken in pledge; and in the house of their Strongest-Yoked-Guide they drink the wine of those who have been fined.
Yet I destroyed the Emoriy before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath. Also I brought you up out of the land of Matsrim, and led you forty years in the wilderness, to possess the land of the Emoriy. I raised up some of your male-tent-continuers for prophets, and some of your young men for Naziyr. Isn’t this firm, you tent-builders of Isharal? says Ieue.
But you gave the Naziyr wine to drink, and directed the prophets, saying, Don’t prophesy! Behold, I will crush you in your place, as a cart crushes that is full of grain. Flight will perish from the swift; and the steady won’t strengthen his force; neither shall the high-headed deliver his breathing-throat; neither shall he stand who handles the bow; and he who is swift of foot won’t escape; neither shall he who rides the horse deliver his breathing-throat; and he who is resolute of inner-guide among the high-headed will flee away naked on that day, says Ieue.
Amos 3
Hear this word that Ieue has spoken against you, tent-builders of Isharal, against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Matsrim, saying: You only have I chosen of all the families of the land. Therefore I will punish you for all of your missed-targets.
Do two walk together, unless they have agreed? Will a lion roar in the thicket, when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out of his den, if he has caught nothing? Can a flyer fall in a trap on the land, where no snare is set for him? Does a snare spring up from the ground, when there is nothing to catch? Does the trumpet alarm sound in a city, without the people being afraid? Does what is dysfunctional happen to a city, and Ieue hasn’t done it? Surely the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue will do nothing, unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets. The lion has roared. Who will not flow-the-gut? The Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue has spoken. Who can but prophesy?
Proclaim in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Matsrim, and say, Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Shomeron, and see what unrest is in her, and what oppression is among them. Indeed they don’t know to do right, says Ieue, Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces. Therefore this is what the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue says: An adversary will overrun the land; and he will pull down your strongholds, and your fortresses will be plundered. This is what Ieue says: As the shepherd rescues out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the tent-builders of Isharal be rescued who sit in Shomeron on the corner of a couch, and on the silken cushions of a bed.
Listen, and testify against the house of Eoqub, says the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue, the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of Armies. For in the day that I visit the transgressions of Isharal on him, I will also visit the altars of Beythel; and the horns of the altar will be cut off, and fall to the ground.
I will strike the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory will perish, and the great houses will have an end, says Ieue.
Amos 4
Listen to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Shomeron, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who tell their men, Bring us drinks! The Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue has sworn by his separateness that behold, The days shall come on you that they will take you away with hooks, and the last of you with fish hooks. You will go out at the breaks in the wall, everyone straight before her; and you will cast yourselves into Harmon, says Ieue.
Go to Beythel, and miss-the-target; to Gilgal, and miss-the-target more. Bring your slaughters every morning, your tithes every three days, offer a slaughter of thanksgiving of that which is leavened, and proclaim free will offerings and brag about them: for this pleases you, you tent-builders of Isharal, says the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue.
I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in every town; yet you haven’t returned to me, says Ieue.
I also have withheld the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest; and I caused it to rain on one city, and caused it not to rain on another city. One place was rained on, and the piece where it didn’t rain withered. So two or three cities staggered to one city to drink water, and were not satisfied: yet you haven’t returned to me, says Ieue.
I struck you with blight and mildew many times in your gardens and your vineyards; and your fig trees and your olive trees have the swarming locust devoured: yet you haven’t returned to me, says Ieue.
I sent plagues among you like I did Matsrim. I have slain your young men with the sword, and have carried away your horses; and I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you haven’t returned to me, says Ieue.
I have overthrown some of you, as when the Strongest-Yoked-Guide overthrew Sedom and Amorah, and you were like a burning stick plucked out of the fire; yet you haven’t returned to me, says Ieue.
Therefore thus will I do to you, Isharal; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your Strongest-Yoked-Guide, Isharal. For, behold, he who forms the mountains, and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought; who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the high places of the land: Ieue, the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of Armies, is his name.
Amos 5
Listen to this word which I take up for a lamentation over you, O house of Isharal. The virgin of Isharal has fallen; She shall rise no more. She is cast down on her land; there is no one to raise her up.
For this is what the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue says: The city that went forth a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which went forth one hundred shall have ten left to the house of Isharal. For this is what Ieue says to the house of Isharal: Seek me, and you will fill-the-stomach; but don’t seek Beythel, nor enter into Gilgal, and don’t pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Beythel shall come to nothing. Seek Ieue, and you will fill-the-stomach; lest he break out like fire in the house of Yehoseph, and it devour, and there be no one to quench it in Beythel. You who turn justice to wormwood, and cast down straight-pathedness to the land: seek him who made the Pleiades and Orion, and turns the empty-stomach's shadow into the morning, and makes the day dark with night; who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the face of the land, Ieue is his name, who brings sudden destruction on the strong, so that destruction comes on the fortress.
They hate him who reproves in the gate, and they abhor him who speaks blamelessly. Forasmuch therefore as you trample on the poor, and take taxes from him of wheat: You have built houses of cut stone, but you will not dwell in them. You have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink their wine. For I know how many your offenses, and how staunch are your missed-targets— you who afflict the straight-pathed, who take a bribe, and who turn aside the needy in the courts. Therefore a prudent person keeps silent in such a time, for it is a dysfunctional time.
Seek what is functional, and not dysfunctional, that you may fill-the-stomach; and so Ieue, the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of Armies, will be with you, as you say. Hate what is dysfunctional, care-for-the-gift-of what is functional, and establish justice in the courts. It may be that Ieue, the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of Armies, will encamp with the remnant of Yehoseph.
Therefore this is what Ieue says, the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of Armies, the Strongest-Lifebringer: Wailing will be in all the broad ways; and they will say in all the streets, Alas! Alas! and they will call the farmer to mourning, and those who are skillful in lamentation to wailing. In all vineyards there will be wailing; for I will pass through the midst of you, says Ieue.
Woe to you who desire the day of Ieue! Why do you long for the day of Ieue? It is darkness, and not light. As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; Or he went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a snake bit him. Won’t the day of Ieue be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it? I hate, I despise your feasts, and I can’t stand your solemn called-out-assemblies. Yes, though you offer me your ascent offerings and meal offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the completeness offerings of your fat animals. Take away from me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like rivers, and straight-pathedness like a mighty stream. Did you bring to me slaughters and offerings in the wilderness forty years, house of Isharal? You also carried the tent of your male-authority-that-guides-the-people and the shrine of your images, the star of your Strongest-Yoked-Guide, which you made for yourselves. Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Dammeseq, says Ieue, whose name is the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of Armies.
Amos 6
Woe to those who are at ease in Tsiyon, and to those who are secure on the mountain of Shomeron, the notable men of the chief of the nations, to whom the house of Isharal come! Go to Kalne, and see; and from there go to Chamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Palashtim. are they better than these authorities-to-guide-the-people? or is their border greater than your border? Those who put far away the dysfunctional day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; Who lie on beds of ivory, and stretch themselves on their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; who strum on the strings of a harp; who invent for themselves instruments of music, like Duid; who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the best oils; but they are not grieved for the affliction of Yehoseph.
Therefore they will now go captive with the first who go captive; and the feasting and lounging will end.
The Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue has sworn by his breathing-throat, says Ieue, the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of Armies: I abhor the pride of Eoqub, and detest his fortresses. Therefore I will deliver up the city with all that is in it. It will happen, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall empty-the-stomach. When a man’s relative carries him, even he who burns him, to bring bodies out of the house, and asks him who is in the innermost parts of the house, Is there yet any with you? And he says, No; then he will say, Hush! Indeed we must not mention the name of Ieue.
For, behold, Ieue directs, and the great house will be smashed to pieces, and the little house into bits.
Do horses run on the rocky crags? Does one plow there with oxen? But you have turned justice into poison, and the fruit of straight-pathedness into bitterness; you who rejoice in a thing of nothing, who say, Haven’t we taken for ourselves horns by our own strength? For, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, house of Isharal, says Ieue, the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of Armies; and they will afflict you from the entrance of Chamath to the brook of the Arabah.
Amos 7
Thus the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue showed me: and behold, he formed locusts in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and behold, it was the latter growth after the male-authority-that-guides-the-people’s harvest. It happened that, when they made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue, lift-off, I beg you! How could Eoqub stand? For he is small.
Ieue relented concerning this. It shall not be, says Ieue.
Thus the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue showed me and behold, the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue called for judgment by fire; and it dried up the watery deep, and would have devoured the land. Then I said, Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue, stop, I beg you! How could Eoqub stand? For he is small.
Ieue relented concerning this. This also shall not be, says the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue.
Thus he showed me and behold, the Strongest-Lifebringer stood beside a wall made by a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. Ieue said to me, Amos, what do you see?
I said, A plumb line.
Then the Strongest-Lifebringer said, Behold, I will set a plumb line in the midst of my people Isharal. I will not again pass by them any more. The high places of Aisachaq will be desolate, the sanctuaries of Isharal will be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Yarobam with the sword.
Then Amatsyahu the priest of Beythel sent to Yarobam male-authority-that-guides-the-people of Isharal, saying, Amos has conspired against you in the midst of the house of Isharal. The land is not able to bear all his words. For Amos says, Yarobam will empty-the-stomach by the sword, and Isharal shall surely be led away captive out of his land.
Amatsyahu also said to Amos, You seer, go, flee away into the land of Ieude, and there eat bread, and prophesy there: but don’t prophesy again any more at Beythel; for it is the male-authority-that-guides-the-people’s sanctuary, and it is a royal house!
Then Amos answered Amatsyahu, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s male-tent-continuer; but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs; and Ieue took me from following the flock, and Ieue said to me, Go, prophesy to my people Isharal. Now therefore listen to the word of Ieue: You say, Don’t prophesy against Isharal, and don’t preach against the house of Aisachaq. Therefore this is what Ieue says: Your woman shall be a prostitute in the city, and your male-tent-continuers and your female-tent-continuers shall fall by the sword, and your land shall be divided by line; and you yourself shall empty-the-stomach in a land that is unclean, and Isharal shall surely be led away captive out of his land.
Amos 8
Thus the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue showed me: behold, a basket of summer fruit. He said, Amos, what do you see? I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then Ieue said to me, The end has come on my people Isharal. I will not again pass by them any more. The songs of the temple will be wailings in that day, says the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue. The stomach-emptied bodies will be many. In every place they will throw them out with silence.
Hear this, you who desire to swallow up the needy, and cause the poor of the land to fail, Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell grain? And the Ceasing-Sign, that we may market wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel large, and dealing in-an-empty-way with balances of deceit; that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, and sell the sweepings with the wheat?
Ieue has sworn by the pride of Eoqub, Surely I will never forget any of their works. Won’t the land tremble for this, and everyone mourn who dwells in it? Yes, it will rise up wholly like the River; and it will be stirred up and sink again, like the River of Matsrim.
It will happen in that day, says the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the land in the clear day. I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only male-tent-continuer, and its end like a bitter day.
Behold, the days come, says the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Ieue. They will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will run back and forth to seek the word of Ieue, and will not find it. In that day the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint for thirst. Those who swear by the missed-targets of Shomeron, and say, As your Strongest-Yoked-Guide, Dan, fills-the-stomach; and, As the way of Beersheba fills-the-stomach; they will fall, and never rise up again.
Amos 9
I saw the Strongest-Lifebringer standing beside the altar, and he said, Strike the tops of the pillars, that the thresholds may shake; and break them in pieces on the head of all of them; and I will kill the last of them with the sword: there shall not one of them flee away, and there shall not one of them escape. Though they dig into the unseen-realm, there my hand will take them; and though they climb up to sky, there I will bring them down. Though they hide themselves in the top of Karmel, I will search and take them out there; and though they be hidden from my sight in the bottom of the sea, there I will direct the serpent, and it will bite them. Though they go into captivity before their enemies, there I will direct the sword, and it will kill them. I will set my eyes on them for what is dysfunctional, and not for what is functional. For the Strongest-Lifebringer, Ieue of Armies, is he who touches the land and it melts, and all who dwell in it will mourn; and it will rise up wholly like the River, and will sink again, like the River of Matsrim.
It is he who builds his rooms in the skies, and has founded his vault on the land; he who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the face of the land; Ieue is his name.
Are you not like the tent-builders of the Ethiopians to me, tent-builders of Isharal? says Ieue. Haven’t I brought up Isharal out of the land of Matsrim, and the Palashtim from Kaphtor, and the Syrians from Qiyr?
Behold, the eyes of the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue are on the authority-to-guide-the-people missing-the-target, and I will destroy it from off the face of the land; except that I will not utterly destroy the house of Eoqub, says Ieue. For, behold, I will direct, and I will sift the house of Isharal among all the nations, as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not the least kernel will fall on the land. All the ones of my people who miss-the-target will empty-the-stomach by the sword, who say, Dysfunction won’t overtake nor meet us.
In that day I will raise up the tent of Duid who is fallen, and close up its breaches, and I will raise up its ruins, and I will rebuild it as in the days of the horizon; that the rest of the men, and all the nations upon whom my name is called, may earnestly seek me, says Ieue who does this.
Behold, the days come, says Ieue, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the one treading grapes him who sows seed; and sweet wine will drip from the mountains, and flow from the hills. I will bring my people Isharal back from captivity, and they will rebuild the ruined cities, and inhabit them; and they will plant vineyards, and drink wine from them. They shall also make gardens, and eat their fruit.
I will plant them on their land, and they will no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them, says Ieue your Strongest-Yoked-Guide.
Obadyahu
The vision of Obadyahu. This is what the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue says about Edom. We have heard news from Ieue, and an ambassador is sent among the nations, saying, Arise, and let’s rise up against her in battle. Behold, I have made you small among the nations. You are greatly despised. The pride of your inner-guide has deceived you, you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high, who says in his inner-guide, Who will bring me down to the ground? Though you mount on high as the eagle, and though your nest is set among the stars, I will bring you down from there, says Ieue. If thieves came to you, if robbers by night—oh, what disaster awaits you—wouldn’t they only steal until they had enough? If grape pickers came to you, wouldn’t they leave some gleaning grapes? How Esav will be ransacked! How his hidden treasures are sought out! All the men of your alliance have brought you on your way, even to the border. The men who were at completeness with you have deceived you, and prevailed against you. Friends who eat your bread lay a snare under you. There is no understanding in him.
Won’t I in that day, says Ieue, destroy the wise men out of Edom, and understanding out of the mountain of Esav? Your high-headed men, Teyman, will be dismayed, to the end that everyone may be cut off from the mountain of Esav by massacre. For the violence done to your male-strong-protector Eoqub, shame will cover you, and you will be cut off to the horizon. In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that strangers carried away his substance, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast lots for Yerusalem, even you were like one of them. But don’t look down on your male-strong-protector in the day of his disaster, and don’t rejoice over the tent-builders of Ieude in the day of their destruction. Don’t speak proudly in the day of distress. Don’t enter into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Don’t look down on his affliction in the day of their calamity, neither be sprouting in his wealth on the day of his calamity. Don’t stand in the crossroads to cut off those of his who escape. Don’t deliver up those of his who remain in the day of distress. For the day of Ieue is near all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head. For as you have drunk on my separated mountain, so will all the nations drink continually. Yes, they will drink, swallow down, and will be as though they had not been. But in Mount Tsiyon, there will be those who escape, and it will be separated. The house of Eoqub will possess their possessions. The house of Eoqub will be a fire, the house of Yehoseph a flame, and the house of Esav for stubble. They will burn among them, and devour them. There will not be any remaining to the house of Esav. Indeed, Ieue has spoken.
Those of the South will possess the mountain of Esav, and those of the lowland, the Palashtim. They will possess the field of Ephrayim, and the field of Shomeron. Binyamiyn will possess Gilad. The captives of this army of the tent-builders of Isharal, who are among the Kenaaniy, will possess even to Tsarephath; and the captives of Yerusalem, who are in Sepharad, will possess the cities of the Negev. Deliverers will go up on Mount Tsiyon to judge the mountains of Esav, and the authority-to-guide-the-people will be Ieue’s.
Yonah 1
Now the word of Ieue came to Yonah the male-tent-continuer of Amittay, saying, Arise, go to Ninue, that great city, and preach against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.
But Yonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of Ieue. He went down to Yapho, and found a boat going to Tarshish; so he paid its fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of Ieue. But Ieue sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty storm on the sea, so that the boat was likely to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and every man cried to his Strongest-Yoked-Guide. They threw the cargo that was in the boat into the sea to lighten the boat. But Yonah had gone down into the innermost parts of the boat, and he was laying down, and was fast asleep. So the shipmaster came to him, and said to him, What do you mean, sleeper? Arise, call on your Strongest-Yoked-Guide! Maybe your Strongest-Yoked-Guide will notice us, so that we won’t perish.
They all said to each other, Come, let us cast lots, that we may know who is responsible for this dysfunctional thing that is on us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Yonah. Then they asked him, Tell us, please, for whose cause this dysfunctional thing is on us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? Of what people are you?
He said to them, I am a Hebrew, and I flow-the-gut-before Ieue, the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of the sky, who has made the sea and the dry-area.
Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said to him, What is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of Ieue, because he had told them. Then they said to him, What shall we do to you, that the sea may be calm to us? For the sea grew more and more stormy. He said to them, Take me up, and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will be calm for you; for I know that because of me this great storm is on you.
Nevertheless the men rowed hard to get them back to the dry-area; but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. Therefore they cried to Ieue, and said, We beg you, Ieue, we beg you, don’t let us empty-the-stomach for this man’s breathing-throat, and don’t lay on us innocent blood; for you, Ieue, have done as it pleased you. So they took up Yonah, and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased its raging. Then the men inwardly-flowed-before Ieue exceedingly; and they offered a slaughter to Ieue, and made vows.
Ieue prepared a great fish to swallow up Yonah, and Yonah was in the bowels of the fish three days and three nights.
Yonah 2
Then Yonah prayed to Ieue, his Strongest-Yoked-Guide, out of the fish’s bowels. He said, I called because of my affliction to Ieue. He answered me. Out of the loins of the unseen-realm I cried. You heard my voice. For you threw me into the depths, in the inner-guide of the seas. The flood was all around me. All your waves and your billows passed over me. I said, I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your separated temple. The waters surrounded me, even to the breathing-throat. The watery deep was around me. The weeds were wrapped around my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains. The land barred me in to the horizon: yet you have brought my filled-stomach up from the pit, Ieue my Strongest-Yoked-Guide.
When my breathing-throat fainted within me, I remembered Ieue. My prayer came in to you, into your separated temple. Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own bent-neck. But I will slaughter to you with the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay that which I have vowed. Deliverance belongs to Ieue.
Ieue spoke to the fish, and it vomited out Yonah on the dry-area.
Yonah 3
The word of Ieue came to Yonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Ninue, that great city, and preach to it the message that I give you.
So Yonah arose, and went to Ninue, according to the word of Ieue. Now Ninue was an exceedingly great city, three days’ journey across. Yonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried out, and said, In forty days, Ninue will be overthrown!
The people of Ninue supported the Strongest-Yoked-Guide; and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from their greatest even to their least. The news reached the male-authority-that-guides-the-people of Ninue, and he arose from his throne, and took off his royal robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. He made a proclamation and published through Ninue by the decree of the male-authority-that-guides-the-people and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor animal, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water; but let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and animal, and let them cry mightily to the Strongest-Yoked-Guide. Yes, let them turn everyone from his dysfunctional way, and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows whether the Strongest-Yoked-Guide will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce nose-flaring, so that we might not perish?
The Strongest-Yoked-Guide saw their works, that they turned from their dysfunctional way. The Strongest-Yoked-Guide relented of the disaster which he said he would do to them, and he didn’t do it.
Yonah 4
But it displeased Yonah exceedingly, and he was nose-flared. He prayed to Ieue, and said, Please, Ieue, wasn’t this what I said when I was still in my own country? Therefore I hurried to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are an encamping Strong-Guide, and moving-boweled, slow to nose-flaring, and abundant in bent-neck, and you relent of doing harm. Therefore now, Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue, take, I beg you, my breathing-throat from me; for it is better for me to empty-the-stomach than to fill-the-stomach.
Ieue said, Is it right for you to be nose-flared?
Then Yonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made himself a booth, and sat under it in the shade, until he might see what would become of the city. Ieue the Strongest-Yoked-Guide prepared a vine, and made it to come up over Yonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to deliver him from his discomfort. So Yonah was exceedingly glad because of the vine. But the Strongest-Yoked-Guide prepared a worm at dawn the next day, and it chewed on the vine, so that it withered. It happened, when the sun arose, that the Strongest-Yoked-Guide prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat on Yonah’s head, so that he fainted, and requested for his breathing-throat to be stomach-emptied, and said, It is better for me to empty-the-stomach than to fill-the-stomach.
The Strong-Guide said to Yonah, Is it right for you to be nose-flared about the vine?
He said, I am right to be nose-flared, even to an emptied-stomach.
Ieue said, You have been concerned for the vine, for which you have not labored, neither made it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night. Shouldn’t I be concerned for Ninue, that great city, in which are more than one hundred twenty thousand persons who can’t discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much livestock?
Miykayahu 1
The word of Ieue that came to Miykayahu the Morashtite in the days of Yotham, Achaz, and Chizqiyah, male-authorities-that-guide-the-people of Ieude, which he cut-the-fence concerning Shomeron and Yerusalem.
Hear, you peoples, all of you. Listen, O land, and all that is therein: and let the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue be witness against you, the Strongest-Lifebringer from his separated temple. For, behold, Ieue comes forth out of his place, and will come down and tread on the high places of the land. The mountains melt under him, and the valleys split apart, like wax before the fire, like waters that are poured down a steep place.
All this is for the disobedience of Eoqub, and for the missed-targets of the house of Isharal. What is the disobedience of Eoqub? Isn’t it Shomeron? And what are the high places of Ieude? Aren’t they Yerusalem? Therefore I will make Shomeron like a rubble heap of the field, like places for planting vineyards; and I will pour down its stones into the valley, and I will uncover its foundations. All her idols will be beaten to pieces, and all her temple bent-knee-presents will be burned with fire, and all her images I will destroy; for of the hire of a prostitute has she gathered them, and to the hire of a prostitute shall they return.
For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will howl like the jackals, and moan like the female-tent-continuers of owls. For her wounds are incurable; for it has come even to Ieude. It reaches to the gate of my people, even to Yerusalem.
Don’t tell it in Gath. Don’t weep at all.
At Beth Ophrah I have rolled myself in the dust. Pass on, inhabitant of Shaphiyr, in nakedness and shame. The inhabitant of Zaanan won’t come out. The wailing of Beyth Haetsel will take from you his protection. For the inhabitant of Maroth waits anxiously for what is functional, because what is dysfunctional has come down from Ieue to the gate of Yerusalem. Harness the chariot to the swift steed, inhabitant of Lakiysh. She was the beginning of the missed-target to the female-tent-continuer of Tsiyon; For the transgressions of Isharal were found in you. Therefore you will give a parting bent-knee-present to Moresheth Gath. The houses of Akziyb will be a deceitful thing to the male-authorities-that-guide-the-people of Isharal. I will yet bring to you, inhabitant of Mareshah. He who is the weightiness of Isharal will come to Adullam. Shave your heads, and cut off your hair for the tent-builders of your delight. Enlarge your baldness like the vulture; for they have gone into captivity from you!
Miykayahu 2
Woe to those who devise iniquity and work what is dysfunctional on their beds! When the morning is light, they practice it, because it is in the power of their hand. They covet fields, and seize them; and houses, and take them away: and they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.
Therefore this is what Ieue says: Behold, I am planning against these people a disaster, from which you will not remove your necks, neither will you walk haughtily; for it is a dysfunctional time. In that day they will take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, saying, We are utterly ruined! My people’s possession is divided up. Indeed he takes it from me and assigns our fields to traitors! Therefore you will have no one who divides the land by lot in the called-out-assembly of Ieue. Don’t prophesy! They prophesy. Don’t prophesy about these things. Disfavor won’t overtake us.
Shall it be said, O house of Eoqub: Is the wind of Ieue nose-flared? Are these his doings? Don’t my words do what is functional to him who walks blamelessly?
But lately my people have risen up as an enemy. You strip the robe and clothing from those who pass by without a care, returning from battle. You drive the women of my people out from their pleasant houses; from their young tent-builders you take away my kneeling-down-to-give to the horizon. Arise, and depart! For this is not your resting place, because of uncleanness that destroys, even with a grievous destruction. If a man walking in a wind of what-is-empty empty things: I will prophesy to you of wine and of strong drink; he would be the prophet of this people.
I will surely assemble, Eoqub, all of you; I will surely gather the remnant of Isharal; I will put them together as the sheep of Botsrah, as a flock in the midst of their pasture; they will swarm with people. He who breaks open the way goes up before them. They break through the gate, and go out. And their male-authority-that-guides-the-people passes on before them, with Ieue at their head.
Miykayahu 3
I said, Please listen, you heads of Eoqub, and rulers of the house of Isharal: Isn’t it for you to know justice? You who hate that which is functional, and care-for-the-gift-of that which is dysfunctional; who tear off their skin, and their flesh from off their bones; who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them, and break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. Then they will cry to Ieue, but he will not answer them. Yes, he will hide his face from them at that time, because they made their deeds dysfunctional.
This is what Ieue says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray; for those who feed their teeth, they proclaim, Completeness! and whoever doesn’t provide for their mouths, they prepare war against him: Therefore night is over you, with no vision, and it is dark to you, that you may not divine; and the sun will go down on the prophets, and the day will be black over them. The seers shall be disappointed, and the diviners confounded. Yes, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer from the Strongest-Yoked-Guide.
But as for me, I am full of power by the wind of Ieue, and of judgment, and of might, to declare to Eoqub his disobedience, and to Isharal his missed-target.
Please listen to this, you heads of the house of Eoqub, and rulers of the house of Isharal, who abhor justice, and pervert all equity. They build up Tsiyon with blood, and Yerusalem with iniquity. Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets of it tell fortunes for money: yet they lean on Ieue, and say, Isn’t Ieue in the midst of us? No disaster will come on us. Therefore Tsiyon for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Yerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.
Miykayahu 4
But in the latter days, it will happen that the mountain of Ieue’s temple will be established on the top of the mountains, and it will be exalted above the hills; and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of Ieue, and to the house of the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of Eoqub; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Tsiyon will go forth the thrown-seed, and the word of Ieue from Yerusalem; and he will judge between many peoples, and will decide concerning staunch nations afar off. They will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war any more. But they will sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and no one will make them afraid: For the mouth of Ieue of Armies has spoken.
Indeed all the nations may walk in the name of their strongest-yoked-guide; but we will walk in the name of Ieue our Strongest-Yoked-Guide to the horizon and beyond. In that day, says Ieue, I will assemble that which is lame, and I will gather that which is driven away, and that which I have afflicted; and I will make that which was lame a remnant, and that which was cast far off a staunch nation: and Ieue will reign over them on Mount Tsiyon from then on, to the horizon.
You, tower of the flock, the hill of the female-tent-continuer of Tsiyon, to you it will come, yes, the former dominion will come, the authority-to-guide-the-people of the female-tent-continuer of Yerusalem.
Now why do you cry out aloud? Is there no male-authority-that-guides-the-people in you? Has your counselor perished, that pains have taken hold of you as of a woman in travail? Be in pain, and labor to bring forth, female-tent-continuer of Tsiyon, like a woman in travail; for now you will go forth out of the city, and will dwell in the field, and will come even to Babylon. There you will be rescued. There Ieue will redeem you from the hand of your enemies.
Now many nations have assembled against you, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eyes cut-the-fence over Tsiyon. But they don’t know the thoughts of Ieue, neither do they understand his counsel; for he has gathered them like the sheaves to the threshing floor.
Arise and thresh, female-tent-continuer of Tsiyon; for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hoofs brass; and you will beat in pieces many peoples: and I will devote their gain to Ieue, and their substance to the Strongest-Lifebringer of the whole land.
Miykayahu 5
Now you shall gather yourself in troops, female-tent-continuer of troops. He has laid siege against us. They will strike the judge of Isharal with a rod on the cheek.
But you, Beyth Lechem Ephrathah, being small among the clans of Ieude, out of you one will come forth to me that is to be ruler in Isharal; whose goings forth are from of old, from the horizon.
Therefore he will abandon them until the time that she who is in labor gives birth. Then the rest of his male-strong-protectors will return to the tent-builders of Isharal.
He shall stand, and shall shepherd in the strength of Ieue, in the majesty of the name of Ieue his Strongest-Yoked-Guide: and they will fill-the-stomach, for then he will be great to the ends of the land. He will be our completeness when Ashur invades our land, and when he marches through our fortresses, then we will raise against him seven shepherds, and eight leaders of men. They will rule the land of Ashur with the sword, and the land of Namrad in its gates. He will deliver us from the Assyrian, when he invades our land, and when he marches within our border. The remnant of Eoqub will be in the midst of many peoples, like dew from Ieue, like showers on the grass, that don’t wait for man, nor wait for the male-tent-continuers of men.
The remnant of Eoqub will be among the nations, in the midst of many peoples, like a lion among the animals of the forest, like a young lion among the flocks of sheep; who, if he goes through, treads down and tears in pieces, and there is no one to deliver. Let your hand be lifted up above your adversaries, and let all of your enemies be cut off.
It will happen in that day, says Ieue, That I will cut off your horses out of the midst of you, and will destroy your chariots. I will cut off the cities of your land, and will tear down all your strongholds. I will destroy witchcraft from your hand; and you shall have no soothsayers. I will cut off your engraved images and your pillars out of your midst; and you shall no more flatten-yourselves to the work of your hands. I will uproot your Asherim out of your midst; and I will destroy your cities. I will execute vengeance in nose-flaring, and wrath on the nations that didn’t listen.
Miykayahu 6
Listen now to what Ieue says: Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear what you have to say. Hear, you mountains, Ieue’s controversy, and you enduring foundations of the land; for Ieue has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Isharal.
My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me! For I brought you up out of the land of Matsrim, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage. I sent before you Mashe, Aharon, and Miryam. My people, remember now what Balaq male-authority-that-guides-the-people of Moab devised, and what Bilam the male-tent-continuer of Beor answered him from Shittiym to Gilgal, that you may know the straight-pathed acts of Ieue.
How shall I come before Ieue, and bow myself before the exalted Strongest-Yoked-Guide? Shall I come before him with ascent offerings, with calves a year old? Will Ieue be pleased with thousands of rams? With tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my disobedience? The fruit of my loins for the missed-targets of my breathing-throat? He has shown you, O man, what is functional. What does Ieue require of you, but to act justly, to care-for-the-gift-of bent-neck, and to walk humbly with your Strongest-Yoked-Guide?
Ieue’s voice calls to the city, and wisdom sees your name: Listen to the rod, and he who appointed it. Are there yet treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and a short ephah that is accursed? Shall I be pure with dishonest scales, and with a bag of deceitful weights? Her rich men are full of violence, her inhabitants speak empty things, and their tongue is deceitful in their speech.
Therefore I also have struck you with a grievous wound. I have made you desolate because of your missed-targets. You shall eat, but not be satisfied. Your humiliation will be in your midst. You will store up, but not deliver; and that which you deliver I will give up to the sword. You will sow, but won’t reap. You will tread the olives, but won’t anoint yourself with oil; and crush grapes, but won’t drink the wine. For the statutes of Omriy are kept, and all the works of the house of Achab. You walk in their counsels, that I may make you a ruin, and her inhabitants a hissing; And you will bear the reproach of my people.
Miykayahu 7
Misery is mine! Indeed, I am like one who gathers the summer fruits, as gleanings of the vineyard: There is no cluster of grapes to eat. My breathing-throat desires to eat the early fig. The reverent man has perished out of the land, and there is no one upright among men. They all lie in wait for blood; every man hunts his male-strong-protector with a net. Their hands are on that which is dysfunctional to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe; and the powerful man dictates the dysfunctional desire of his breathing-throat. Thus they conspire together. The best of them is like a brier. The most upright is worse than a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, even your visitation, has come; now is the time of their confusion.
Don’t trust in a neighbor. Don’t put confidence in a friend. With the woman lying in your embrace, be careful of the words of your mouth! For the male-tent-continuer dishonors the tent-supporter, the female-tent-continuer rises up against her strong-womb, the female-tent-continuer-in-law against her strong-womb-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.
But as for me, I will look to Ieue. I will wait for the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of my deliverance. my Strongest-Yoked-Guide will hear me.
Don’t rejoice against me, my enemy. When I fall, I will arise. When I sit in darkness, Ieue will be a light to me. I will bear the indignation of Ieue, because I have missed-the-target against him, until he pleads my case, and executes judgment for me. He will bring me forth to the light. I will see his straight-pathedness. Then my enemy will see it, and shame will cover her who said to me, where is Ieue your Strongest-Yoked-Guide? Then my enemy will see me and will cover her shame. Now she will be trodden down like the mire of the streets.
A day to build your walls, in that day, he will extend your boundary. In that day they will come to you from Ashur and the cities of Matsrim, and from Matsrim even to the River, and from sea to sea, and mountain to mountain. Yet the land will be desolate because of those who dwell therein, for the fruit of their doings.
Shepherd your people with your staff, the flock of your heritage, who dwell by themselves in a forest, in the midst of fertile pasture land, let them feed; in Bashan and Gilad, as in the days of old.
As in the days of your coming forth out of the land of Matsrim, I will show them marvelous things. The nations will see and be ashamed of all their might. They will lay their hand on their mouth. Their ears will be deaf. They will lick the dust like a serpent. Like crawling things of the land they shall come trembling out of their dens. They will come with gut-flowing to Ieue our Strongest-Yoked-Guide, and will be afraid because of you.
Who is a Strong-Guide like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his nose-flaring for the future, because he delights in bent-neck. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities under foot; and you will cast all their missed-targets into the depths of the sea. You will give firmness to Eoqub, and bent-neck to Abarem, as you have sworn to our tent-supporters from the former days.
Nachum 1
An oracle about Ninue. The mouth-support of the vision of Nachum the Elqoshiy.
Ieue is a jealous Strong-Guide and he avenges. Ieue avenges and is full of wrath. Ieue takes vengeance on his adversaries, and he maintains wrath against his enemies.
Ieue is slow to nose-flaring, and great in power, and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. Ieue has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. He rebukes the sea, and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. Bashan languishes, and Karmel; and the flower of Lebanon languishes. The mountains quake before him, and the hills melt away. The land trembles at his presence, yes, the whole, and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the fierceness of his nose-flaring? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken apart by him.
Ieue is functional, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knows those who take refuge in him. But with an overflowing flood, he will make a full end of her place, and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
What do you plot against Ieue? He will make a full end. Affliction won’t rise up the second time. For entangled like thorns, and drunken as with their drink, they are consumed utterly like dry stubble. There is one gone forth out of you, who devises what is dysfunctional against Ieue, who counsels wickedness.
This is what Ieue says: Though they be in full strength, and likewise many, even so they will be cut down, and he shall pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. Now will I break his yoke from off you, and will burst your bonds apart. Ieue has directed concerning you: No more descendants will bear your name. Out of the house of your strongest-yoked-guide, will I cut off the engraved image and the molten image. I will make your grave, for you are vile.
Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings functional news, who publishes completeness! Keep your feasts, Ieude! Perform your vows, for the wicked one will no more pass through you. He is utterly cut off.
Nachum 2
He who dashes in pieces has come up against you. Keep the fortress! Watch the way! Strengthen your waist! Fortify your power mightily!
For Ieue restores the excellency of Eoqub, as the excellency of Isharal; for the destroyers have destroyed them, and ruined their vine branches.
The shield of his high-headed men is made red. The valiant men are in scarlet. The chariots flash with steel in the day of his preparation, and the pine spears are brandished. The chariots rage in the streets. They rush back and forth in the broad ways. Their appearance is like torches. They run like the lightnings.
He summons his picked troops. They stumble on their way. They dash to its wall, and the protective shield is put in place. The gates of the rivers are opened, and the palace is dissolved. It is decreed: she is uncovered, she is carried away; and her handmaids moan as with the voice of doves, beating on their breasts. But Ninue has been from of old like a pool of water, yet they flee away. Stop! Stop! they cry, but no one looks back.
Take the spoil of silver. Take the spoil of gold, for there is no end of the store, the weightiness of all goodly furniture.
She is empty, void, and waste. The inner-guide melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale. Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion and the lioness walked, the lion’s cubs, and no one made them afraid? The lion tore in pieces enough for his cubs, and strangled for his lionesses, and filled his caves with the kill, and his dens with prey.
Behold, I am against you, says Ieue of Armies, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions; and I will cut off your prey from the land, and the voice of your messengers will no longer be heard.
Nachum 3
Woe to the bloody city! It is all full of empty things and robbery. The prey doesn’t depart. The noise of the whip, the noise of the rattling of wheels, prancing horses, and bounding chariots, the horseman mounting, and the flashing sword, the glittering spear, and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of the bodies. They stumble on their bodies, because of the multitude of the prostitution of the prostitute functional of encampment, the mistress of witchcraft, who sells nations through her prostitution, and families through her witchcraft.
Behold, I am against you, says Ieue of Armies, and I will lift your skirts over your face. I will show the nations your nakedness, and the authorities-to-guide-the-people your shame. I will throw abominable filth on you, and make you vile, and will set you a spectacle. It will happen that all those who look at you will flee from you, and say, Ninue is laid waste! Who will mourn for her? Where will I seek comforters for you?
Are you better than No-Amon, who was situated among the rivers, who had the waters around her; whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was of the sea? Kush and Matsrim were her boundless strength. Puth and Puth were her helpers. Yet was she carried away. She went into captivity. Her young tent-builders also were dashed in pieces at the head of all the streets, and they cast lots for her weighty men, and all her great men were bound in chains.
You also will be drunken. You will be hidden. You also will seek a stronghold because of the enemy. All your fortresses will be like fig trees with the first-ripe figs: if they are shaken, they fall into the mouth of the eater.
Behold, your troops in your midst are women. The gates of your land are set wide open to your enemies. The fire has devoured your bars. Draw water for the siege. Strengthen your fortresses. Go into the clay, and tread the mortar. Make the brick kiln strong. There the fire will devour you. The sword will cut you off. It will devour you like the grasshopper. Make yourself weighty like grasshoppers. Make yourself weighty like the locust. You have increased your merchants more than the stars of the skies.
The grasshopper strips, and flees away. Your guards are like the locusts, and your officials like the swarms of locusts, which settle on the walls on a cold day, but when the sun appears, they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.
Your shepherds slumber, male-authority-that-guides-the-people of Ashur. Your nobles lie down. Your people are scattered on the mountains, and there is no one to gather them. There is no healing your wound, for your injury is fatal. All who hear the report of you clap their hands over you; for who hasn’t felt your endless cruelty?
Chabaqquq 1
The oracle which Chabaqquq the prophet cut-the-fence blocking. Ieue, how long will I cry, and you will not hear? I cry out to you Violence! and will you not deliver? Why do you show me iniquity, and look at perversity? For destruction and violence are before me. There is strife, and contention rises up. Therefore the thrown-seed is paralyzed, and justice never goes forth; for the wicked surround the straight-pathed; therefore justice goes forth perverted.
Look among the nations, watch, and wonder marvelously; for I am working a work in your days, which you will not support though it is told you. For, behold, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, that march through the breadth of the land, to possess dwelling places that are not theirs. They are inwardly-flowed and dreaded. Their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. Their horsemen press proudly on. Yes, their horsemen come from afar. They fly as an eagle that hurries to devour. All of them come for violence. Their hordes face the desert. He gathers prisoners like sand. Yes, he scoffs at male-authorities-that-guide-the-people, and princes are a derision to him. He laughs at every stronghold, for he builds up an earthen ramp, and takes it. Then he sweeps by like the wind, and goes on. He is indeed guilty, whose strength becomes his mighty-yoked-shepherd.
Aren’t you from long ago, Ieue my Strong-Yoked-Guide, my Separated One? You will not empty-the-stomach. Ieue, you have appointed him for judgment. You, Rock, have established him to punish. You who have purer eyes than to see what is dysfunctional, and who cannot look on perversity, why do you tolerate those who deal treacherously, and keep silent when the wicked swallows up the man who is more straight-pathed than he, and make men like the fish of the sea, like the creeping things, that have no ruler over them? He takes up all of them with the hook. He catches them in his net, and gathers them in his dragnet. Therefore he rejoices and is glad. Therefore he slaughters to his net, and burns incense to his dragnet, because by them his filled-stomach is luxurious, and his food is functional. Will he therefore continually empty his net, and kill the nations without compassion?
Chabaqquq 2
I will stand at my watch, and set myself on the ramparts, and will look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.
Ieue answered me, Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets, that he who runs may read it. For the vision is yet for the appointed time, and it hurries toward the end, and won’t prove empty. Though it takes time, wait for it; because it will surely come. It won’t delay. Behold, his breathing-throat is puffed up. It is not upright in him, but the straight-pathed will fill-the-stomach by his steadiness. Yes, moreover, wine is treacherous. A haughty man who doesn’t stay at home, who enlarges his breathing-throat as the unseen-realm, and he is like an emptied-stomach, and can’t be satisfied, but gathers to himself all nations, and heaps to himself all peoples. Won’t all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him who increases that which is not his, and who makes himself weighty with something pledged! How long? Won’t your debtors rise up suddenly, and wake up those who make you tremble, and you will be their victim? Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it. Woe to him who gets a dysfunctional gain for his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the hand of the dysfunctional! You have devised shame to your house, by cutting off many peoples, and have missed-the-target against your breathing-throat. For the stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the woodwork will answer it. Woe to him who builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity! Behold, isn’t it of Ieue of Armies that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity? For the land will be filled with the knowledge of the weightiness of Ieue, as the waters cover the sea.
Woe to him who gives his neighbor drink, pouring your inflaming wine until they are drunk, so that you may gaze at their naked bodies! You are filled with shame, and not weightiness. You will also drink, and be exposed! The cup of Ieue’s right hand will come around to you, and disfavor will cover your weightiness. For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and the destruction of the animals, which made them afraid; because of men’s blood, and for the violence done to the land, to every city and to those who dwell in them.
What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of empty things, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols? Woe to him who says to the wood, Awake! or to the mute stone, Arise! Shall this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no wind at all in its midst. But Ieue is in his separated temple. Let all the land be silent before him!
Chabaqquq 3
A prayer of Chabaqquq, the prophet, set to victorious music. Ieue, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, Ieue. Renew your work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years make it known. In wrath, you remember moving-bowels. The Strong-Yoked-Guide came from Teyman, the Separated One from Mount Paran.
Weigh This.
His esteem covered the skies, and his praise filled the land. His splendor is like the sunrise. Rays shine from his hand, where his power is hidden. Plague went before him, and pestilence followed his feet. He stood, and shook the land. He looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains were crumbled. The horizonal hills melted away. His ways are horizonal. I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction. The dwellings of the land of Midyan trembled.
Was Ieue displeased with the rivers? Was your nose-flaring against the rivers, or your wrath against the sea, that you rode on your horses, on your chariots of deliverance?
You uncovered your bow. You called for your sworn arrows.
Weigh This.
You split the land with rivers. The mountains saw you, and were afraid. The storm of waters passed by. The watery deep roared and lifted up its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in the sky, at the light of your arrows as they went, at the shining of your glittering spear. You marched through the land in wrath. You threshed the nations in nose-flaring. You went forth for the deliverance of your people, for the deliverance of your anointed. You crushed the head of the land of wickedness. You stripped them head to foot.
Weigh This.
You pierced the heads of his warriors with their own spears. They came as a whirlwind to scatter me, gloating as if to devour the wretched in secret. You trampled the sea with your horses, churning mighty waters.
I heard, and my loins trembled. My lips quivered at the voice. Rottenness enters into my bones, and I tremble in my place, because I must wait quietly for the day of trouble, for the coming up of the people who invade us.
For though the fig tree doesn’t flourish, nor fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive fails, the fields yield no food; the flocks are cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in Ieue. I will be joyful in the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of my deliverance! Ieue, the Strongest-Lifebringer, is my strength. He makes my feet like deer’s feet, and enables me to go in high places. For the music director, on my stringed instruments.
Tsaphanyahu 1
The word of Ieue which came to Tsephanyahu, the male-tent-continuer of Cushi, the male-tent-continuer of Gedalyahu, the male-tent-continuer of Amaryahu, the male-tent-continuer of Chizqiyah, in the days of Yoshiyah, the male-tent-continuer of Amon, male-authority-that-guides-the-people of Ieude.
I will utterly sweep away everything off of the face of the land, says Ieue. I will sweep away man and animal. I will sweep away the flyers of the sky, the fish of the sea, and the heaps of rubble with the wicked. I will cut off man from the face of the land, says Ieue. I will stretch out my hand against Ieude, and against all the inhabitants of Yerusalem. I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place: the name of the idolatrous and pagan priests, those who flatten-themselves to the army of the sky on the housetops, those who flatten-themselves and swear by Ieue and also swear by Malkam, those who have turned back from following Ieue, and those who haven’t sought Ieue nor inquired after him.
Be silent at the presence of the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue, for the day of Ieue is at hand. For Ieue has prepared a slaughter. He has consecrated his guests.
It will happen in the day of Ieue’s slaughter, that I will punish the princes, the male-authority-that-guides-the-people’s male-tent-continuers, and all those who are clothed with foreign clothing. In that day, I will punish all those who leap over the threshold, who fill their strongest-lifebringer’s house with violence and deceit. In that day, says Ieue, there will be the noise of a cry from the fish gate, a wailing from the second quarter, and a great crashing from the hills. Wail, you inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the people of Kanon are undone! All those who were loaded with silver are cut off.
It will happen at that time, that I will search Yerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are settled on their dregs, who say in their inner-guide, Ieue will not do what is functional, neither will he do what is dysfunctional. Their wealth will become a spoil, and their houses a desolation. Yes, they will build houses, but won’t inhabit them. They will plant vineyards, but won’t drink their wine.
The great day of Ieue is near. It is near, and hurries greatly, the voice of the day of Ieue. The high-headed man cries there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness, a day of the trumpet and alarm, against the fortified cities, and against the high battlements. I will bring distress on men, that they will walk like blind men, because they have missed-the-target against Ieue, and their blood will be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Ieue’s wrath, but the whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he will make an end, yes, a terrible end, of all those who dwell in the land.
Tsaphanyahu 2
Gather yourselves together, yes, gather together, you nation that has no shame, before the appointed time when the day passes as the chaff, before the fierce nose-flaring of Ieue comes on you, before the day of Ieue’s nose-flaring comes on you. Seek Ieue, all you humble of the land, who have kept his ordinances. Seek straight-pathedness. Seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of Ieue’s nose-flaring. For Azzah will be forsaken, and Ashqelon a desolation. They will drive out Ashdod at noonday, and Eqron will be rooted up.
Woe to the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the Kerethiy! The word of Ieue is against you, Kanon, the land of the Palashtim. I will destroy you, that there will be no inhabitant. The sea coast will be pastures, with cottages for shepherds and folds for flocks. The coast will be for the remnant of the house of Ieude. They will find pasture. In the houses of Ashqelon, they will lie down in the evening, for Ieue, their Strongest-Yoked-Guide, will visit them, and restore them.
I have heard the reproach of Moab, and the insults of the tent-builders of Ammon, with which they have reproached my people, and magnified themselves against their border. Therefore as I fill-the-stomach, says Ieue of Armies, the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of Isharal, surely Moab will be as Sedom, and the tent-builders of Ammon as Amorah, a possession of nettles, and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation. The remnant of my people will plunder them, and the survivors of my nation will inherit them. This they will have for their pride, because they have reproached and magnified themselves against the people of Ieue of Armies. Ieue will be awesome to them, for he will famish all the strong-yoked-guides of the land. Men will flatten-themselves to him, everyone from his place, even all the shores of the nations.
You Kushiy also, you will be killed by my sword. He will stretch out his hand against the north, destroy Ashur, and will make Ninue a desolation, as dry as the wilderness. Herds will lie down in the midst of her, all the animals of the nations. Both the pelican and the porcupine will lodge in its capitals. Their calls will echo through the windows. Desolation will be in the thresholds, for he has laid bare the cedar beams. This is the joyous city that filled-the-stomach carelessly, that said in her inner-guide, I am, and there is none besides me. How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in! Everyone who passes by her will hiss, and shake their fists.
Tsaphanyahu 3
Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, the oppressing city! She didn’t listen to the voice. She didn’t receive correction. She didn’t trust in Ieue. She didn’t draw near to her Strongest-Yoked-Guide. Her princes in the midst of her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day. Her prophets are arrogant and treacherous people. Her priests have profaned the sanctuary. They have done violence to the thrown-seed. Ieue, in the midst of her, is straight-pathed. He will do no wrong. Every morning he brings his justice to light. He doesn’t fail, but the unjust know no shame.
I have cut off nations. Their battlements are desolate. I have made their streets waste, so that no one passes by. Their cities are destroyed, so that there is no man, so that there is no inhabitant. I said, Just flow-the-gut-before me. Receive correction, so that her dwelling won’t be cut off, according to all that I have appointed concerning her. But they rose early and corrupted all their doings.
Therefore wait for me, says Ieue, until the day that I rise up to the prey, for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the authorities-to-guide-the-people, to pour on them my indignation, even all my fierce nose-flaring, for all the land will be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then I will purify the lips of the peoples, that they may all call on the name of Ieue, to serve him shoulder to shoulder. From beyond the rivers of Kush, my worshipers, even the female-tent-continuer of my dispersed people, will bring my offering. In that day you will not be disappointed for all your doings, in which you have transgressed against me; for then I will take away out of the midst of you your proudly exulting ones, and you will no more be haughty in my separated mountain. But I will leave in the midst of you an afflicted and poor people, and they will take refuge in the name of Ieue. The remnant of Isharal will not do iniquity, nor speak empty things, neither will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth, for they will feed and lie down, and no one will make them afraid.
Sing, female-tent-continuer of Tsiyon! Shout, Isharal! Be glad and rejoice with all your inner-guide, female-tent-continuer of Yerusalem. Ieue has taken away your judgments. He has thrown out your enemy. The Male-Authority-That-Guides-The-People of Isharal, Ieue, is in the midst of you. You will not be afraid of what is dysfunctional any more. In that day, it will be said to Yerusalem, Don’t be afraid, Tsiyon. Don’t let your hands be weak. Ieue, your Strongest-Yoked-Guide, is in the midst of you, a high-headed one who will deliver. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will calm you in his gift-care. He will rejoice over you with singing. I will remove those who grieve about the appointed feasts from you. They are a burden and a reproach to you. Behold, at that time I will deal with all those who afflict you, and I will deliver those who are lame, and gather those who were driven away. I will give them praise and honor, whose shame has been in all the land. At that time will I bring you in, and at that time will I gather you; for I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the land, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says Ieue.
Chaggay 1
In the second year of Dareyavesh the male-authority-that-guides-the-people, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, the Word of Ieue came by Chaggay, the prophet, to Zerubbabel, the male-tent-continuer of Shealtiyel, governor of Ieude, and to Yehoshua, the male-tent-continuer of Yehotsadaq, the high priest, saying, This is what Ieue of Armies says: These people say, The time hasn’t yet come, the time for Ieue’s house to be built.
Then the Word of Ieue came by Chaggay, the prophet, saying, Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, while this house lies waste? Now therefore this is what Ieue of Armies says: Consider your ways. You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.
This is what Ieue of Armies says: Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, bring wood, and build the house. I will take pleasure in it, and I will be given-weight, says Ieue. You looked for much, and, behold, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? says Ieue of Armies, Because of my house that lies waste, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore for your sake the skies withhold the dew, and the land withholds its fruit. I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on that which the ground brings forth, on men, on livestock, and on all the labor of the hands.
Then Zerubbabel, the male-tent-continuer of Shealtiyel, and Yehoshua, the male-tent-continuer of Yehotsadaq, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, listened to the voice of Ieue, their Strongest-Yoked-Guide, and the words of Chaggay, the prophet, as Ieue, their Strongest-Yoked-Guide, had sent him; and the people inwardly-flowed-before Ieue.
Then Chaggay, Ieue’s messenger, spoke Ieue’s message to the people, saying, I am with you, says Ieue.
Ieue stirred up the wind of Zerubbabel, the male-tent-continuer of Shealtiyel, governor of Ieude, and the wind of Yehoshua, the male-tent-continuer of Yehotsadaq, the high priest, and the wind of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of Ieue of Armies, their Strongest-Yoked-Guide, in the twenty-fourth day of the month, in the sixth month, in the second year of Dareyavesh the male-authority-that-guides-the-people.
Chaggay 2
In the seventh month, in the twenty-first day of the month, the Word of Ieue came by Chaggay the prophet, saying, Speak now to Zerubbabel, the male-tent-continuer of Shealtiyel, governor of Ieude, and to Yehoshua, the male-tent-continuer of Yehotsadaq, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, saying, Who is left among you who saw this house in its former weightiness? How do you see it now? Isn’t it in your eyes as nothing? Yet now be strong, Zerubbabel, says Ieue. Be strong, Yehoshua, male-tent-continuer of Yehotsadaq, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, says Ieue, and work, for I am with you, says Ieue of Armies. This is the word that I passed through the pieces with you when you came out of Matsrim, and my wind filled-the-stomach among you. Don’t be afraid. For this is what Ieue of Armies says: Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the skies, the land, the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations. The precious things of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with weightiness, says Ieue of Armies. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says Ieue of Armies. The latter weightiness of this house will be greater than the former, says Ieue of Armies; and in this place will I give completeness, says Ieue of Armies.
In the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the second year of Dareyavesh, the Word of Ieue came by Chaggay the prophet, saying, This is what Ieue of Armies says: Ask now the priests concerning the thrown-seed, saying, If someone carries separated meat in the fold of his garment, and with his fold touches bread, stew, wine, oil, or any food, will it become separated?
The priests answered, No.
Then Chaggay said, If a breathing-throat who is unclean by reason of a stomach-emptied body touch any of these, will it be unclean?
The priests answered, It will be unclean.
Then Chaggay answered, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, says Ieue; and so is every work of their hands. That which they offer there is unclean. Now, please consider from this day and backward, before a stone was laid on a stone in the temple of Ieue. Through all that time, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were only ten. When one came to the wine vat to draw out fifty, there were only twenty. I struck you with blight, mildew, and hail in all the work of your hands; yet you didn’t turn to me, says Ieue. Consider, please, from this day and backward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, since the day that the foundation of Ieue’s temple was laid, consider it. Is the seed yet in the barn? Yes, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree haven’t brought forth. From this day will I kneel-to-give to you.
The Word of Ieue came the second time to Chaggay in the twenty-fourth day of the month, saying, Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Ieude, saying, I will shake the skies and the land. I will overthrow the throne of authorities-to-guide-the-people. I will destroy the strength of the authorities-to-guide-the-people of the nations. I will overthrow the chariots, and those who ride in them. The horses and their riders will come down, everyone by the sword of his male-strong-protector. In that day, says Ieue of Armies, will I take you, Zerubbabel, my servant, the male-tent-continuer of Shealtiyel, says Ieue, and will make you as a signet, for I have chosen you, says Ieue of Armies.
Zekaryahu 1
In the eighth month, in the second year of Dareyavesh, the word of Ieue came to Zekaryahu the male-tent-continuer of Berekyahu, the male-tent-continuer of Yiddo, the prophet, saying, Ieue was very displeased with your tent-supporters. Therefore tell them: This is what Ieue of Armies says: Return to me, says Ieue of Armies, and I will return to you, says Ieue of Armies. Don’t you be like your tent-supporters, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying: This is what Ieue of Armies says: Return now from your dysfunctional ways, and from your dysfunctional doings; but they did not hear, nor listen to me, says Ieue. Your tent-supporters, where are they? And the prophets, do they fill-the-stomach to the horizon? But my words and my decrees, which I directed my servants the prophets, didn’t they overtake your tent-supporters?
Then they repented and said, Just as Ieue of Armies determined to do to us, according to our ways, and according to our practices, so he has dealt with us. On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shebat, in the second year of Dareyavesh, the word of Ieue came to Zekaryahu the male-tent-continuer of Berekyahu, the male-tent-continuer of Yiddo, the prophet, saying, I had a vision in the night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in a ravine; and behind him there were red, brown, and white horses. Then I asked, My strongest-lifebringer, what are these?
The messenger who talked with me said to me, I will show you what these are.
The man who stood among the myrtle trees answered, They are the ones Ieue has sent to go back and forth through the land.
They reported to the messenger of Ieue who stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked back and forth through the land, and behold, all the land is at entry-into-the-tent and in completeness.
Then the messenger of Ieue replied, O Ieue of Armies, how long will your bowels not move for Yerusalem and on the cities of Ieude, against which you have had indignation these seventy years?
Ieue answered the messenger who talked with me with kind and comforting words. So the messenger who talked with me said to me, Proclaim, saying, This is what Ieue of Armies says: I am jealous for Yerusalem and for Tsiyon with a great jealousy. I am very nose-flared with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little displeased, but they added to the calamity. Therefore this is what Ieue says: I have returned to Yerusalem with moving-bowels. My house shall be built in it, says Ieue of Armies, and a line shall be stretched forth over Yerusalem.
Proclaim further, saying, This is what Ieue of Armies says: My cities will again overflow with prosperity, and Ieue will again comfort Tsiyon, and will again choose Yerusalem.
I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold, four horns. I asked the messenger who talked with me, What are these?
He answered me, These are the horns which have scattered Ieude, Isharal, and Yerusalem.
Ieue showed me four craftsmen. Then I asked, What are these coming to do?
He said, These are the horns which scattered Ieude, so that no man lifted up his head; but these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations, which lifted up their horn against the land of Ieude to scatter it.
Zekaryahu 2
I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand. Then I asked, Where are you going?
He said to me, To measure Yerusalem, to see what is its breadth and what is its length.
Behold, the messenger who talked with me went forth, and another messenger went out to meet him, and said to him, Run, speak to this young man, saying, Yerusalem will be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of men and livestock in it. For I, says Ieue, will be to her a wall of fire around it, and I will be for weightiness in the midst of her. Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north, says Ieue; for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the sky, says Ieue. Come, Tsiyon! Escape, you who dwell with the female-tent-continuer of Babylon. For this is what Ieue of Armies says: For weightiness he has sent me to the nations which plundered you; for he who touches you touches the pupil of his eye. For, behold, I will shake my hand over them, and they will be a spoil to those who served them; and you will know that Ieue of Armies has sent me. Sing and rejoice, female-tent-continuer of Tsiyon; for, behold, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of you, says Ieue. Many nations shall join themselves to Ieue in that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in the midst of you, and you shall know that Ieue of Armies has sent me to you. Ieue will inherit Ieude as his portion in the separated land, and will again choose Yerusalem. Be silent, all flesh, before Ieue; for he has roused himself from his separated habitation!
Zekaryahu 3
He showed me Yehoshua the high priest standing before the messenger of Ieue, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary. Ieue said to Satan, Ieue rebuke you, Satan! Yes, Ieue who has chosen Yerusalem rebuke you! Isn’t this a burning stick plucked out of the fire?
Now Yehoshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the messenger. He answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, Take the filthy garments off of him. To him he said, Behold, I have caused your iniquity to pass from you, and I will clothe you with rich clothing.
I said, Let them set a clean turban on his head.
So they set a clean turban on his head, and clothed him; and the messenger of Ieue was standing by. The messenger of Ieue protested to Yehoshua, saying, This is what Ieue of Armies says: If you will walk in my ways, and if you will follow my instructions, then you also shall judge my house, and shall also keep my courts, and I will give you a place of access among these who stand by. Hear now, Yehoshua the high priest, you and your fellows who sit before you; for they are men who are a sign: for, behold, I will bring forth my servant, the Branch. For, behold, the stone that I have set before Yehoshua; on one stone are seven eyes: behold, I will engrave its engraving, says Ieue of Armies, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day, says Ieue of Armies, you will invite every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree.
Zekaryahu 4
The messenger who talked with me came again, and wakened me, as a man who is wakened out of his sleep. He said to me, What do you see?
I said, I have seen, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with its bowl on the top of it, and its seven lamps thereon; there are seven pipes to each of the lamps, which are on the top of it; and two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl, and the other on the left side of it.
I answered and spoke to the messenger who talked with me, saying, What are these, my strongest-lifebringer?
Then the messenger who talked with me answered me, Don’t you know what these are?
I said, No, my strongest-lifebringer.
Then he answered and spoke to me, saying, This is the word of Ieue to Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my wind, says Ieue of Armies. Who are you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you are a plain; and he will bring out the capstone with shouts of Encampment, encampment to it!
Moreover the word of Ieue came to me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house. His hands shall also finish it; and you will know that Ieue of Armies has sent me to you. Indeed, who despises the day of small things? For these seven shall rejoice, and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. These are the eyes of Ieue, which run back and forth through the whole land.
Then I asked him, What are these two olive trees on the right side of the lampstand and on the left side of it?
I asked him the second time, What are these two olive branches, which are beside the two golden spouts, that pour the golden oil out of themselves?
He answered me, Don’t you know what these are?
I said, No, my strongest-lifebringer.
Then he said, These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Strong-Lifebringer of the whole land.
Zekaryahu 5
Then again I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold, a flying mouth-support. He said to me, What do you see?
I answered, I see a flying mouth-support; its length is twenty cubits, and its breadth ten cubits.
Then he said to me, This is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land; for everyone who steals shall be cut off according to it on the one side; and everyone who swears in-an-empty-way shall be cut off according to it on the other side. I will cause it to go out, says Ieue of Armies, and it will enter into the house of the thief, and into the house of him who swears in-an-empty-way by my name; and it will remain in the midst of his house, and will destroy it with its timber and its stones.
Then the messenger who talked with me came forward, and said to me, Lift up now your eyes, and see what is this that is appearing.
I said, What is it?
He said, This is the ephah basket that is appearing. He said moreover, This is their appearance in all the land (and behold, a talent of lead was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah basket. He said, This is Wickedness; and he threw her down into the midst of the ephah basket; and he threw the weight of lead on its mouth.
Then lifted I up my eyes, and saw, and behold, there were two women, and the wind was in their wings. Now they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah basket between the land and the sky. Then I said to the messenger who talked with me, Where are these carrying the ephah basket?
He said to me, To build her a house in the land of Shanor. When it is prepared, she will be set there in her own place.
Zekaryahu 6
Again I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold, four chariots came out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass. In the first chariot were red horses; in the second chariot black horses; in the third chariot white horses; and in the fourth chariot dappled horses, all of them powerful. Then I asked the messenger who talked with me, What are these, my strongest-lifebringer?
The messenger answered me, These are the four winds of the sky, which go forth from standing before the Strong-Lifebringer of all the land. The one with the black horses goes out toward the north country; and the white went out after them; and the dappled went forth toward the south country. The strong went out, and sought to go that they might walk back and forth through the land: and he said, Go around and through the land! So they walked back and forth through the land.
Then he called to me, and spoke to me, saying, Behold, those who go toward the north country have quieted my wind in the north country.
The word of Ieue came to me, saying, Take of them of the captivity, even of Chelday, of Tobijah, and of Yedayah; and come the same day, and go into the house of Yoshiyah the male-tent-continuer of Tsephanyahu, where they have come from Babylon. Yes, take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them on the head of Yehoshua the male-tent-continuer of Yehotsadaq, the high priest; and speak to him, saying, This is what Ieue of Armies says: Behold, the man whose name is the Branch: and he shall grow up out of his place; and he shall build the temple of Ieue; even he shall build the temple of Ieue; and he shall bear the esteem, and shall sit and rule on his throne; and he shall be a priest on his throne; and the counsel of completeness shall be between them both. The crowns shall be to Helem, and to Tobijah, and to Yedayah, and to Chen the male-tent-continuer of Tsephanyahu, for a memorial in the temple of Ieue. Those who are far off shall come and build in the temple of Ieue; and you shall know that Ieue of Armies has sent me to you. This will happen, if you will diligently listen to the voice of Ieue your Strongest-Yoked-Guide.
Zekaryahu 7
It happened in the fourth year of male-authority-that-guides-the-people Dareyavesh that the word of Ieue came to Zekaryahu in the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Kislev. The people of Beythel sent Sharetser and Regem Melek, and their men, to entreat Ieue’s favor, and to speak to the priests of the house of Ieue of Armies, and to the prophets, saying, Should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself, as I have done these so many years?
Then the word of Ieue of Armies came to me, saying, Speak to all the people of the land, and to the priests, saying, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and in the seventh month for these seventy years, did you at all fast to me, really to me? When you eat, and when you drink, don’t you eat for yourselves, and drink for yourselves? Aren’t these the words which Ieue proclaimed by the former prophets, when Yerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and its cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?
The word of Ieue came to Zekaryahu, saying, Thus has Ieue of Armies spoken, saying, Execute firm judgment, and let every man bend-his-neck and move his bowels for his male-strong-protector. Don’t oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the foreigner, nor the poor; and let none of you devise what is dysfunctional against his male-strong-protector in your inner-guide. But they refused to attend, and gave a stubborn shoulder, and made their ears weighty against hearing. Yes, they made their inner-guides as hard as flint, lest they might hear the thrown-seed, and the words which Ieue of Armies had sent by his wind by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from Ieue of Armies. It has come to pass that, as he called, and they refused to listen, so they will call, and I will not listen, said Ieue of Armies; but I will scatter them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they have not known. Thus the land was desolate after them, so that no man passed through nor returned: for they made the pleasant land desolate.
Zekaryahu 8
The word of Ieue of Armies came to me. This is what Ieue of Armies says: I am jealous for Tsiyon with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath.
This is what Ieue says: I have returned to Tsiyon, and will dwell in the midst of Yerusalem. Yerusalem shall be called The City of Firmness; and the mountain of Ieue of Armies, The Separated Mountain.
This is what Ieue of Armies says: Old men and old women will again dwell in the streets of Yerusalem, every man with his staff in his hand for very age. The streets of the city will be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.
This is what Ieue of Armies says: If it is marvelous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvelous in my eyes? says Ieue of Armies.
This is what Ieue of Armies says: Behold, I will deliver my people from the east country, and from the west country; and I will bring them, and they will dwell in the midst of Yerusalem; and they will be my people, and I will be their Strongest-Yoked-Guide, in firmness and in straight-pathedness.
This is what Ieue of Armies says: Let your hands be strong, you who hear in these days these words from the mouth of the prophets who were in the day that the foundation of the house of Ieue of Armies was laid, even the temple, that it might be built. For before those days there was no wages for man, nor any wages for an animal; neither was there any completeness to him who went out or came in, because of the adversary. For I set all men everyone against his neighbor. But now I will not be to the remnant of this people as in the former days, says Ieue of Armies. For the seed of completeness and the vine will yield its fruit, and the ground will give its increase, and the skies will give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things. It shall come to pass that, as you were a curse among the nations, house of Ieude and house of Isharal, so will I deliver you, and you shall be a kneeling-down-to-give. Don’t be afraid. Let your hands be strong.
For this is what Ieue of Armies says: As I thought to do what is dysfunctional to you, when your tent-supporters provoked me to wrath, says Ieue of Armies, and I didn’t repent; so again have I thought in these days to do what is functional to Yerusalem and to the house of Ieude. Don’t be afraid. These are the things that you shall do: every man speak firmness with his neighbor. Execute the judgment of firmness and completeness in your gates, and let none of you devise what is dysfunctional in your inner-guides against his neighbor, and care-for-the-gift-of no empty oath: for all these are things that I hate, says Ieue.
The word of Ieue of Armies came to me. This is what Ieue of Armies says: The fasts of the fourth fifth, seventh, and tenth months shall be for the house of Ieude joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts. Therefore care-for-the-gift of firmness and completeness.
This is what Ieue of Armies says: Many peoples, and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come; and the inhabitants of one shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to entreat the favor of Ieue, and to seek Ieue of Armies. I will go also. Yes, many peoples and staunch nations will come to seek Ieue of Armies in Yerusalem, and to entreat the favor of Ieue. This is what Ieue of Armies says: In those days, ten men will take hold, out of all the languages of the nations, they will take hold of the skirt of him who is a Yehudiy, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that the Strongest-Yoked-Guide is with you.
Zekaryahu 9
An oracle.
The word of Ieue is against the land of Chadrak, and will enter-into-the-tent upon Dammeseq; for the eye of man and of all the tribes of Isharal is toward Ieue; and Chamath, also, which borders on it; Tsor and Tsiydon, because they are very wise. Tsor built herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver like the dust, and fine gold like the mire of the streets. Behold, the Strongest-Lifebringer will dispossess her, and he will strike her power in the sea; and she will be devoured with fire. Ashqelon will see it, and flow-the-gut; Azzah also, and will writhe in agony; as will Eqron, for her expectation will be disappointed; and the male-authority-that-guides-the-people will perish from Azzah, and Ashqelon will not be inhabited. Foreigners will dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Palashtim. I will take away his blood out of his mouth, and his abominations from between his teeth; and he also will be a remnant for our Strongest-Yoked-Guide; and he will be as a chieftain in Ieude, and Eqron as a Yebusiy. I will encamp around my house against the army, that none pass through or return; and no oppressor will pass through them any more: for now I have seen with my eyes.
Rejoice greatly, female-tent-continuer of Tsiyon! Shout, female-tent-continuer of Yerusalem! Behold, your Male-Authority-That-Guides-The-People comes to you! He is straight-pathed, and having deliverance; lowly, and riding on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will cut off the chariot from Ephrayim, and the horse from Yerusalem; and the battle bow will be cut off; and he will speak completeness to the nations: and his dominion will be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the land.
As for you also, because of the blood of your pieces-to-pass-through, I have set free your prisoners from the pit in which is no water.
Turn to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope! Even today I declare that I will restore double to you. For indeed I bend Ieude as a bow for me. I have filled the bow with Ephrayim; and I will stir up your male-tent-continuers, Tsiyon, against your male-tent-continuers, Greece, and will make you like the sword of a high-headed one. Ieue will be seen over them; and his arrow will go flash like lightning; and the Strongest-Lifebringer Ieue will blow the trumpet, and will go with whirlwinds of the south. Ieue of Armies will defend them; and they will destroy and overcome with sling stones; and they will drink, and roar as through wine; and they will be filled like bowls, like the corners of the altar.
Ieue their Strongest-Yoked-Guide will deliver them in that day as the flock of his people; for they are like the jewels of a crown, lifted on high over his land. For how great is his functionality, and how great is his beauty! Grain will make the young men flourish, and new wine the virgins.
Zekaryahu 10
Ask of Ieue rain in the spring time, Ieue who makes storm clouds, and he gives rain showers to everyone for the plants in the field. For the family idols have spoken vanity, and the diviners have cut-the-fence blocking an emptyness; and they have told empty dreams. They comfort in vain. Therefore they go their way like sheep. They are oppressed, because there is no shepherd.
My nose-flaring is kindled against the shepherds, and I will punish the male goats; For Ieue of Armies has visited his flock, the house of Ieude, and will make them as his majestic horse in the battle. From him will come forth the cornerstone, from him the nail, from him the battle bow, from him every ruler together. They shall be as high-headed men, treading down muddy streets in the battle; and they shall fight, because Ieue is with them; and the riders on horses will be confounded. I will strengthen the house of Ieude, and I will deliver the house of Yehoseph, and I will bring them back; for my bowels will move for them; and they will be as though I had not cast them off: for I am Ieue their Strongest-Yoked-Guide, and I will hear them. Ephrayim will be like a high-headed man, and their inner-guide will rejoice as through wine; yes, their tent-builders will see it, and rejoice. Their inner-guide will be glad in Ieue.
I will signal for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them; and they will increase as they have increased. I will sow them among the peoples; and they will remember me in far countries; and they will fill-the-stomach with their tent-builders, and will return. I will bring them again also out of the land of Matsrim, and gather them out of Ashur; and I will bring them into the land of Gilad and Lebanon; and there won’t be room enough for them. He will pass through the sea of affliction, and will strike the waves in the sea, and all the depths of the Nile will dry up; and the pride of Ashur will be brought down, and the scepter of Matsrim will depart. I will strengthen them in Ieue; and they will walk up and down in his name, says Ieue.
Zekaryahu 11
Open your doors, Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars. Wail, fir tree, for the cedar has fallen, because the stately ones are destroyed. Wail, you oaks of Bashan, for the strong forest has come down. A voice of the wailing of the shepherds! For their esteem is destroyed: a voice of the roaring of young lions! For the pride of the Yarden is ruined.
This is what Ieue says my Strongest-Yoked-Guide: Feed the flock of massacre. Their buyers massacre them, and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, Knelt-down-and-given-to be Ieue, for I am rich; and their own shepherds don’t pity them. For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, says Ieue; but, behold, I will deliver the men everyone into his neighbor’s hand, and into the hand of his male-authority-that-guides-the-people. They will strike the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them.
So I fed the flock of massacre, especially the oppressed of the flock. I took for myself two staffs. The one I called Favor, and the other I called Union, and I fed the flock. I cut off the three shepherds in one month; for my breathing-throat was weary of them, and their breathing-throat also loathed me. Then I said, I will not feed you. That which empties-the-stomach, let it empty-the-stomach; and that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off; and let those who are left eat each other’s flesh. I took my staff Favor, and cut it apart, that I might break my pieces-to-pass-through that I had made with all the peoples. It was broken in that day; and thus the poor of the flock that listened to me knew that it was the word of Ieue. I said to them, If you think it best, give me my wages; and if not, keep them. So they weighed for my wages thirty pieces of silver. Ieue said to me, Throw it to the potter, the handsome price that I was valued at by them! I took the thirty pieces of silver, and threw them to the potter, in the house of Ieue. Then I cut apart my other staff, even Union, that I might break the brotherhood between Ieude and Isharal.
Ieue said to me, Take for yourself yet again the equipment of a foolish shepherd. For, behold, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, who will not visit those who are cut off, neither will seek those who are scattered, nor heal that which is broken, nor feed that which is sound; but he will eat the flesh of the fat sheep, and will tear their hoofs in pieces. Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock! The sword will be on his arm, and on his right eye. His arm will be completely withered, and his right eye will be totally blinded!
Zekaryahu 12
An oracle. The word of Ieue concerning Isharal. Ieue, who stretches out the skies, and lays the foundation of the land, and forms the wind of man within him says: Behold, I will make Yerusalem a cup of reeling to all the surrounding peoples, and on Ieude also will it be in the siege against Yerusalem. It will happen in that day, that I will make Yerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples. All who burden themselves with it will be severely wounded, and all the nations of the land will be gathered together against it. In that day, says Ieue, I will strike every horse with terror, and his rider with madness; and I will open my eyes on the house of Ieude, and will strike every horse of the peoples with blindness. The chieftains of Ieude will say in their inner-guide, The inhabitants of Yerusalem are my strength in Ieue of Armies their Strongest-Yoked-Guide. In that day I will make the chieftains of Ieude like a pan of fire among wood, and like a flaming torch among sheaves; and they will devour all the surrounding peoples, on the right hand and on the left; and Yerusalem will yet again dwell in their own place, even in Yerusalem. Ieue also will deliver the tents of Ieude first, that the esteem of the house of Duid and the esteem of the inhabitants of Yerusalem not be magnified above Ieude. In that day Ieue will defend the inhabitants of Yerusalem. He who is feeble among them at that day will be like Duid, and the house of Duid will be like the Strongest-Yoked-Guide, like the messenger of Ieue before them. It will happen in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Yerusalem. I will pour on the house of Duid, and on the inhabitants of Yerusalem, the wind of encampment and of supplication; and they will look to me, for whom they have pierced; and they shall beat over him, as one beats the breast for his only male-tent-continuer, and will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for his firstborn. In that day there will be a great beating of the breast in Yerusalem, like the beating of the breast of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. The land will beat the breast, every family apart; the family of the house of Duid apart, and their women apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their women apart; the family of the house of Leviy apart, and their women apart; the family of the Shimiy apart, and their women apart; all the families who remain, every family apart, and their women apart.
Zekaryahu 13
In that day there will be a spring opened to the house of Duid and to the inhabitants of Yerusalem, for missed-targets and for uncleanness. It will come to pass in that day, says Ieue of Armies, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they will be remembered no more. I will also cause the prophets and the wind of impurity to pass out of the land. It will happen that, when anyone still prophesies, then his tent-supporter and his strong-womb who bore him will tell him, You must empty-the-stomach, because you speak empty things in the name of Ieue; and his tent-supporter and his strong-womb who bore him will stab him when he prophesies. It will happen in that day, that the prophets will each be ashamed of his vision, when he prophesies; neither will they wear a hairy mantle to deceive: but he will say, I am no prophet, I am a tiller of the ground; for I have been made a bondservant from my youth. One will say to him, What are these wounds between your arms? Then he will answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.
Awake, sword, against my shepherd, and against the man who is close to me, says Ieue of Armies. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; and I will turn my hand against the little ones.
It shall happen that in all the land, says Ieue, two parts in it will be cut off and empty-the-stomach; but the third will be left in it. I will bring the third part into the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will test them like gold is tested. They will call on my name, and I will hear them. I will say, It is my people; and they will say, Ieue is my Strongest-Yoked-Guide.
Zekaryahu 14
Behold, a day of Ieue comes, when your spoil will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all nations against Yerusalem to battle; and the city will be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city will go out into captivity, and the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. Then Ieue will go out and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. His feet will stand in that day on the Mount of Olives, which is before Yerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in two, from east to west, making a very great valley. Half of the mountain will move toward the north, and half of it toward the south. You shall flee by the valley of my mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azel; yes, you shall flee, just like you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziyahu male-authority-that-guides-the-people of Ieude. Ieue my Strongest-Yoked-Guide will come, and all the separated-ones with you. It will happen in that day, that there will not be light, cold, or frost. It will be a unique day which is known to Ieue; not day, and not night; but it will come to pass, that at evening time there will be light.
It will happen in that day, that stomach-filled waters will go out from Yerusalem; half of them toward the eastern sea, and half of them toward the western sea; in summer and in winter will it be.
Ieue will be Male-Authority-That-Guides-The-People over all the land. In that day Ieue will be one, and his name one. All the land will be made like the Arabah, from Geba to Rimmon south of Yerusalem; and she will be lifted up, and will dwell in her place, from Binyamiyn’s gate to the place of the first gate, to the corner gate, and from the tower of Chananel to the male-authority-that-guides-the-people’s winepresses. Men will dwell therein, and there will be no more curse; but Yerusalem will dwell safely. This will be the plague with which Ieue will strike all the peoples who have warred against Yerusalem: their flesh will consume away while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will consume away in their sockets, and their tongue will consume away in their mouth. It will happen in that day, that a great panic from Ieue will be among them; and they will lay hold everyone on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand will rise up against the hand of his neighbor. Ieude also will fight at Yerusalem; and the wealth of all the surrounding nations will be gathered together: gold, and silver, and clothing, in great abundance.
So will be the plague of the horse, of the mule, of the camel, and of the donkey, and of all the animals that will be in those camps, as that plague. It will happen that everyone who is left of all the nations that came against Yerusalem will go up from year to year to flatten-themselves to the Male-Authority-That-Guides-The-People, Ieue of Armies, and to keep the feast of tents. It will be, that whoever of all the families of the land doesn’t go up to Yerusalem to flatten-themselves to the Male-Authority-That-Guides-The-People, Ieue of Armies, on them there will be no rain. If the family of Matsrim doesn’t go up, and doesn’t come, neither will it rain on them. This will be the plague with which Ieue will strike the nations that don’t go up to keep the feast of tents. This will be the punishment of Matsrim, and the punishment of all the nations that don’t go up to keep the feast of tents. In that day there will be on the bells of the horses, HOLY TO YAHUWAH; and the pots in Ieue’s house will be like the bowls before the altar. Yes, every pot in Yerusalem and in Ieude will be separated to Ieue of Armies; and all those who slaughter will come and take of them, and cook in them. In that day there will no longer be a Kenaaniy in the house of Ieue of Armies.
Malakiy 1
An oracle: the word of Ieue to Isharal by Malakiy.
I have cared-for-the-gift-of you, says Ieue.
Yet you say, How have you cared-for-the-gift-of us?
Wasn’t Esav Eoqub’s male-strong-protector? says Ieue, Yet I cared-for-the-gift-of Eoqub; but Esav I hated, and made his mountains a desolation, and gave his heritage to the jackals of the wilderness. Whereas Edom says, We are beaten down, but we will return and build the waste places; this is what Ieue of Armies says, They shall build, but I will throw down; and men will call them The Wicked Land, even the people against whom Ieue shows wrath to the horizon.
Your eyes will see, and you will say, Ieue is great—even beyond the border of Isharal!
A male-tent-continuer gives-weight to his tent-supporter, and a servant his strongest-lifebringer. If I am a tent-supporter, then where is my weightiness? And if I am a strongest-lifebringer, where is the respect due me? Says Ieue of Armies to you, priests, who despise my name. You say, How have we despised your name? You offer polluted bread on my altar. You say, How have we polluted you? In that you say, Ieue’s table contemptible. When you offer the blind for slaughter, isn’t that dysfunctional? And when you offer the lame and sick, isn’t that dysfunctional? Present it now to your governor! Will he be pleased with you? Or will he accept your person? says Ieue of Armies.
Now, please entreat the face of the Strong-Guide, that he may encamp with us. With this, will he accept any of you? says Ieue of Armies.
Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says Ieue of Armies, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same, my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering: for my name is great among the nations, says Ieue of Armies. But you profane it, in that you say, Ieue’s table is polluted, and its fruit, even its food, is contemptible. You say also, Behold, what a weariness it is! and you have sniffed at it, says Ieue of Armies; and you have brought that which was taken by violence, the lame, and the sick; thus you bring the offering. Should I accept this at your hand? says Ieue.
But the deceiver is cursed, who has in his flock a male, and vows, and slaughters to the Strongest-Lifebringer a blemished thing; for I am a great Male-Authority-That-Guides-The-People, says Ieue of Armies, and my name is awesome among the nations.
Malakiy 2
Now, you priests, this directive is for you. If you will not listen, and if you will not lay it to inner-guide, to give-weight to my name, says Ieue of Armies, then will I send the curse on you, and I will curse the things knelt-down-and-given-to you. Indeed, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to inner-guide.
Behold, I will rebuke your seed, and will spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it. You will know that I have sent this directive to you, that my pieces-to-pass-through may be with Leviy, says Ieue of Armies.
My pieces-to-pass-through was with him of a filled-stomach and completeness; and I gave them to him that he might be reverent toward me; and he was reverent toward me, and stood in awe of my name. The thrown-seed of firmness was in his mouth, and path-desertedness was not found in his lips. He walked with me in completeness and uprightness, and turned many away from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the thrown-seed at his mouth; for he is the messenger of Ieue of Armies.
But you have turned aside out of the way. You have caused many to stumble in the thrown-seed. You have corrupted the pieces-to-pass-through of Leviy, says Ieue of Armies. Therefore I have also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according to the way you have not kept my ways, but have had respect for persons in the thrown-seed.
Don’t we all have one tent-supporter? Hasn’t one Strong-Guide fattened us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his male-strong-protector, profaning the pieces-to-pass-through of our tent-supporters? Ieude has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Isharal and in Yerusalem; for Ieude has profaned the separateness of Ieue which he cares-for-the-gift-of, and has married the female-tent-continuer of a foreign strong-guide. Ieue will cut off, to the man who does this, him who wakes and him who answers, out of the tents of Eoqub, and him who offers an offering to Ieue of Armies.
This again you do: you cover the altar of Ieue with tears, with weeping, and with sighing, because he doesn’t regard the offering any more, neither receives it with functional will at your hand. Yet you say, Why? Because Ieue has been witness between you and the woman of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion, and the woman of your pieces-to-pass-through. Did he not make you one, although he had the residue of the wind? Why one? He sought a reverent seed. Therefore take heed to your wind, and let no one deal treacherously against the woman of his youth. But if by detesting you send her away, says Ieue, the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of Isharal, wickedness shall cover your thoughts, says Ieue of Armies. Therefore take heed to your wind, that you don’t deal treacherously.
You have wearied Ieue with your words. Yet you say, How have we wearied him? In that you say, Everyone who does what is dysfunctional is functional in the sight of Ieue, and he delights in them; or Where is the Strongest-Yoked-Guide of justice?
Malakiy 3
Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me; and the Strongest-Lifebringer, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the pieces-to-pass-through, whom you desire, behold, he comes! says Ieue of Armies.
But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderer’s soap; and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the male-tent-continuers of Leviy, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer to Ieue offerings in straight-pathedness. Then the offering of Ieude and Yerusalem will be pleasant to Ieue, as in the days of old, and as in ancient years.
I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t flow-the-gut-before me, says Ieue of Armies.
For I, Ieue, don’t change; therefore you, male-tent-continuers of Eoqub, are not consumed. From the days of your tent-supporters you have turned aside from my ordinances, and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says Ieue of Armies.
But you say, How shall we return?
Will a man rob the Strongest-Yoked-Guide? Yet you rob me!
But you say, How have we robbed you?
In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with the curse; for you rob me, even this whole nation. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this, says Ieue of Armies, if I will not open you the windows of the sky, and pour you out a kneeling-down-to-give, that there shall not be room enough for. I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast its fruit before its time in the field, says Ieue of Armies. All nations shall call you knelt-down-and-given-to, for you will be a delightful land, says Ieue of Armies.
Your words have been stout against me, says Ieue.
Yet you say, What have we spoken against you? You have said, It is vain to serve the Strongest-Yoked-Guide; and What profit is it that we have followed his instructions, and that we have walked mournfully before Ieue of Armies? Now we call the proud happy; yes, those who work wickedness are built up; yes, they tempt the Strongest-Yoked-Guide, and escape. Then those who inwardly-flowed-before Ieue spoke one with another; and Ieue listened, and heard, and a mouth-support of memory was written before him, for those who inwardly-flowed-before Ieue, and who honored his name.
They shall be mine, says Ieue of Armies, my own possession in the day that I make, and I will spare them, as a man spares his own male-tent-continuer who serves him. Then you shall return and discern between the straight-pathed and the wicked, between him who serves the Strongest-Yoked-Guide and him who doesn’t serve him.
Malakiy 4
For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up, says Ieue of Armies, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But to you who's gut-flows-before my name shall the sun of straight-pathedness arise with healing in its wings. You will go out, and leap like calves of the stall. You shall tread down the wicked; for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make, says Ieue of Armies.
Remember the thrown-seed of Mashe my servant, which I directed to him in Choreb for all Isharal, even statutes and ordinances. Behold, I will send you Eliyahu the prophet before the great and terrible day of Ieue comes. He will turn the inner-guides of the tent-supporters to the tent-builders, and the inner-guides of the tent-builders to their tent-supporters, lest I come and strike the land with a curse.
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