1
Woe to the crown of pride, to the drunkards of Ephraim, whose gloriousbeauty is a fadingflower, which are on the head of the fatvalleys of them that are overcome with wine!
2
Behold, the Lord hath a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroyingstorm, as a flood of mightywatersoverflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand.
4
And the gloriousbeauty, which is on the head of the fatvalley, shall be a fadingflower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up.
7
But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed upofwine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.
13
But the word of the LORD was unto them precept upon precept,precept upon precept;line upon line,line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fallbackward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
15
Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowingscourge* shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have madelies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
16
Therefore thus saith the LordGOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a triedstone, a preciouscorner stone, a surefoundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
17
Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.
18
And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowingscourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.
19
From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report.
21
For the LORD shall rise up as in mountPerazim, he shall be wroth as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strangework; and bring to pass his act, his strangeact.
22
Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the LordGOD of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth.
25
When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principalwheat and the appointedbarley and the rie in their place?
26
For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him.
.WN,rw{y wy'h{l/a j'P.viM;l w{r.SIy.w
27
For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cartwheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod.