3   Therefore these are the words of the Lord:

Listen, for this whole brood I am planning disaster,
  whose yoke you cannot shake from your necks
and walk upright; it shall be your hour of disaster.


     4   On that day
  they shall take up a poem about you
  and raise a lament thrice told,
  saying, ‘We are utterly despoiled:

The rulers of Israel and Judah denounced
the land of the Lord's ^note people changes hands.
    How shall a man have power ^note
to restore our fields, now parcelled out ^note?’
5   Therefore there shall be no one to assign to you
  any portion by lot in the Lord's assembly.


   6   How they rant! They may say, ‘Do not rant’;
  but this ranting is all their own,
  these insults are their ^note own invention.


   7   Can one ask, O house of Jacob,
  ‘Is the Lord's patience truly at an end?
    Are these his deeds?
  Does not good come of the Lord's ^note words?
    He is the upright man's best friend.’
   8   But you are no ^note people for me,
  rising up as my enemy to my ^note face,
  to strip the cloak from him that was safe ^note
  and take away the confidence of returning warriors,
9   to drive the women of my people from their pleasant homes
and rob the children of my glory for ever.
10   Up and be gone; this is no resting-place for you,
you that to defile yourselves would commit any mischief,
    mischief however cruel.

11   If anyone had gone about in a spirit of falsehood and lies, saying, ‘I will rant to you of wine and strong drink’, his ranting would be what this people like.

12   I will assemble you, the whole house of Jacob;
  I will gather together those that are left in Israel.
I will herd them like sheep in a fold,
like a grazing flock which stampedes at the sight of a man.
   13   So their leader breaks out before them,
and they all break through the gate and escape,
  and their king goes before them,
    and the Lord leads the way.

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