| Chapter 3 |
1 |
For behold in those days, and in that time when I shall bring back the captivity of Juda and Jerusalem: --
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2 |
I will gather together all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with them there for my people, and for my inheritance Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and have parted my land. --
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3 |
And they have cast lots upon my people: and the boy they have put in the stews, and the girl they have sold for wine, that they might drink. --
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4 |
But what have you to do with me, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all the coast of the Philistines? will you revenge yourselves on me? and if you revenge yourselves on me, I will very soon return you a recompense upon your own head. --
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5 |
For you have taken away my silver and my gold: and my desirable and most beautiful things you have carried into your temples. --
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6 |
And the children of Juda, and the children of Jerusalem you have sold to the children of the Greeks, that you might remove them far off from their own country. --
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7 |
Behold, I will raise them up out of the place wherein you have sold them: and I will return your recompense upon your own heads. --
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8 |
And I will sell your sons, and your daughters by the hands of the children of Juda, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far off, for the Lord hath spoken it. --
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9 |
Proclaim ye this among the nations: prepare war, rouse up the strong: let them come, let all the men of war come up. --
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10 |
Cut your ploughshares into swords, and your spades into spears. Let the weak say: I am strong. --
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11 |
Break forth, and come, all ye nations, from round about, and gather yourselves together: there will the Lord cause all thy strong ones to fall down. --
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12 |
Let them arise, and let the nations come up into the valley of Josaphat: for there I will sit to judge all nations round about. --
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13 |
Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe: come and go down, for the press is full, the fats run over: for their wickedness is multiplied. --
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14 |
Nations, nations in the valley of destruction: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of destruction. --
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15 |
The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their shining. --
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16 |
And the Lord shall roar out of Sion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem: and the heavens and the earth shall be moved, and the Lord shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. --
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17 |
And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Sion my holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy and strangers shall pass through it no more. --
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18 |
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweetness, and the hills shall flow with milk: and waters shall flow through all the rivers of Juda: and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the torrent of thorns. --
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19 |
Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a wilderness destroyed: because they have done unjustly against the children of Juda, and have shed innocent blood in their land. --
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20 |
And Judea shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to generation and generation. --
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21 |
And I will cleanse their blood which I had not cleansed: and the Lord will dwell in Sion. --
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