Jehovah and the instruments of his indignation,

To lay waste the whole country.
6 Howl ye, for the day of Jehovah is near,

Yea, destruction from the Almighty is coming.
7 Therefore all hands shall hang down,

And every heart of man shall be melted.
8 They shall be in consternation,

Distress and anguish shall lay hold upon them,
As a travailing woman shall they be distressed,
One shall gaze upon another with astonishment,

Their faces shall glow like flames.
9 Behold! The day of Jehovah cometh,

Dreadful is his anger and fierce indignation,
To make the country a waste,

And to destroy sinners out of it.
10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof,

Shall not give their light;
The sun shall be darkened in his march,

And the moon shall withhold her splendour.
11 For I will visit upon the land its evil,

And upon the wicked, their iniquity,
I will make the glorying of the proud to cease,

And the haughtiness of the tyrants will I bring down. 12 I will make a man more scarce than gold,

Yea men, than the gold of Ophir.
13 Moreover I will make the heavens to shake,

And the earth shall totter from its place ;
Because of the indignation of Jehovah of hosts,

In the day of his fierce anger.
14 And men shall be like a frighted doe,

And like sheep, which no one collects together.
Each one shall turn to his own people,

And each fly to his own country.
15 Every one who is overtaken shall be thrust through,
And all who are collected together shall fall by the

sword.
· 16 Their children shall be dashed in pieces before their

eyes,

Their houses shall be rifled, and their women ravished. 17 Behold, I will raise up against them the Medes,

Who make no account of silver,

And as to gold, they regard it not. 18 Their bows shall strike down the youth,

On the fruit of the womb they will have no compassion,

Their eye will not pity the children. 19 So shall Babylon, the pride of kingdoms,

The boast and glory of the Chaldeans,

Be like Sodom and Gomorrha which God destroyed ; 20 It shall never more be inhabited,

Nor shall it be dwelt in, from generation to generation.
There the Arabian shall not pitch his tent,

Nor the shepherds make their flocks to lie down there. 21 But there the wild beasts of the desert shall lie down,

And howling monsters shall fill their houses,
There the ostriches shall dwell,

And the satyrs shall revel there.
22 The jackals shall howl in their palaces,

And the dragons in their magnificent pleasure-houses;
For her time is near,
And her days shall not be prolonged.

CHAPTER Xiv.
1 Then will Jehovah have compassion upon Jacob,

And set his love again upon Israel ;
And he will transfer them to their own country,
And strangers shall be joined to thein,

They shall be connected with the house of Jacob. 2 The nations shall take them and bring them to their

place,
And the house of Israel shall possess them as servants

and handmaids,
In the land of Jehovah;
And their captors shall become captives,

And they shall rule over their oppressors. 3 Then it shall come to pass, When Jehovah shall give thee rest from thy trouble and

thine adversity,

And from the oppressive service which was laid upon

thee, 4 Thou shalt utter this song over the king of Babylon,

and say ;

me down

How has the oppressor come to an end,

The exactor of golden tribute ceased !
5 Jehovah has broken the staff of the wicked,

The rod of the tyrants.
6 He smote the people in anger,

With a stroke that was not remitted ;
He lorded it over the nations in wrath,

With oppression that never ceased.
7 But now the whole country is quiet,

They break out into singing.
8 The fir trees, also, exult over thee,

And the cedars of Lebanon, (saying),
6. Since thou art laid there,

No feller has come up against us.”
9 Hades from beneath is in cominotion on account of thee,

To meet thee at thy coming.
Because of thee she rouses up her ghosts,
All the mighty ones of the earth she raises from their

thrones,
All the kings of the nations.
10 All of them will accost thee, and say,

" Art thou become feeble, as we are?

Art thou become like unto us?”
11 Down to Hades goes thy pomp,

And the noise of thy harps !
The worm is thy couch under thee,

And the maggot is thy covering.
12 Bright and morning star,

How art thou fallen from heaven!
How art thou prostrate upon the earth,

Who didst crush the nations !
13 But thou didst say in thine heart;

" I will ascend the heavens,
Above the stars of God I will elevate my throne;
I will sit on the mount of solemn assembly,

In the recesses of the north ; 14 I will mount above the height of the clouds,

I will be like the most high.” 15 But, to Hades hast thou come down,

To the recesses of the pit.
16 Those that see thee shall gaze upon thee,

They shall attentively view thee, [and say,]
" Is this the man who made the earth to quake?

Who made kingdoms to tremble ? 17 Who made the world a desert,

And laid waste its cities?

Who dismissed not his prisoners to their home ?" 18 All the kings of the nations,

Yea all of them, repose in glory,

Each in his own place.
19 But thou art cast out from thy grave,

Like a loathsome branch;
Thou art covered with the slain,
With those who are pierced through by the sword,
Who go down into the stony pit;

Thy carcase is trodden under foot.
20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial,

For thou hast destroyed thy country,
Thou hast slain thy people;

The seed of evil doers shall never more be named. 21 Prepare ye* slaughter for his children,

Because of the iniquity of their fathers;
That they may never rise up and possess the [promised]

land,
Nor fill the country with enemies.
22 I will rise up against them,

Saith Jehovah of hosts ;
I will cut off from Babylon the name and the residue,

Posterity and offspring, saith Jehovah.
23 I will make it a possession of the porcupine,

And turn it] to pools of water ;
I will sweep it with the besom of destruction,
Saith Jehovah of hosts.

Stuart's Translation.

* To the Medes.

103. Eternity of God. If all who live and breathe around us are the creatures of yesterday, and destined to see destruction to-morrow; if the same condition is our own, and the same sentence

is written against us; if the solid forms of inanimate na5 ture and laborious art are fading and falling, if we look

in vain for durability to the very roots of the mountains, where shall we turn, and on what can we rely ? Can no support be offered ; can no source of confidence be

named? Oh yes ! there is one Being to whom we can 10 look with a perfect conviction of finding that security,

which nothing about us can give, and which nothing about us can take away. To this Being we can lift up our souls, and on him we may rest them, exclaiming in

the language of the monarch of Israel, “ Before the 15 mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst form

ed the earth and the world, even froin everlasting to everlasting thou art God.” 16 Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work

of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure, 20 yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment, as a ves

ture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end."

The eternity of God is a subject of contemplation, 25 which, at the same time that it overwhelms us with as

tonishment and awe, affords us an immoveable ground of confidence in the midst of a changing world. All things which surround us, all these dying, mouldering

inhabitants of time, must have had a Creator, for the plain 30 reason, that they could not have created themselves.

And their Creator must have existed from all eternity, for the plain reason, that the first cause must necessarily be uncaused. As we cannot suppose a beginning

without a cause of existence, that which is the cause of 35 all existence, must be self-existent, and could have had

no beginning. And, as it had no beginning, so also, as it is beyond the reach of all influence and control, as it is independent and almighty, it will have no end.