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So the law is slacked and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted.
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For lo, I am rousing the Chalde′ans, that bitter and hasty nation, who march through the breadth of the earth, to seize habitations not their own.
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Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men, whose own might is their god!
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Thou who art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on wrong, why dost thou look on faithless men, and art silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he?
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Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his seine; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich.
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Is he then to keep on emptying his net, and mercilessly slaying nations for ever?
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And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain upon tablets, so he may run who reads it.
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Behold, he whose soul is not upright in him shall fail, but the righteous shall live by his faith.
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Moreover, wine is treacherous; the arrogant man shall not abide. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations, and collects as his own all peoples.”
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The Woes of the Wicked
Shall not all these take up their taunt against him, in scoffing derision of him, and say, “Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own— for how long?— and loads himself with pledges!”
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Will not your debtors suddenly arise, and those awake who will make you tremble? Then you will be booty for them.
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Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples shall plunder you, for the blood of men and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell therein.
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Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm!
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Woe to him who builds a town with blood, and founds a city on iniquity!
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Behold, is it not from the Lord of hosts that peoples labor only for fire, and nations weary themselves for nought?
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Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink of the cup of his wrath, and makes them drunk, to gaze on their shame!
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The violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you; the destruction of the beasts will terrify you, for the blood of men and violence to the earth, to cities and all who dwell therein.
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What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For the workman trusts in his own creation when he makes dumb idols!
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Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a dumb stone, Arise! Can this give revelation? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it.
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But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.
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Before him went pestilence, and plague followed close behind.
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Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, for the salvation of thy anointed. Thou didst crush the head of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck. Selah
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Thou didst pierce with thy shafts the head of his warriors, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret.
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I hear, and my body trembles, my lips quiver at the sound; rottenness enters into my bones, my steps totter beneath me. I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.
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God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like hinds’ feet, he makes me tread upon my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
