8 And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands, neither shall gaze upon what his ﬁngers made, either the Asherim or the sun-images.

9 In that day shall his strong cities be as the forsaken tract of -the woodland and the mountain crest, which men forsook from before the children of Israel 5 and there shall be a desolation.

10 For thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the rock of thy strength; therefore thou plantest plants of pleasantness, and settest them with slips of a stranger;

11 In the day of thy planting dost thou make a hedge, and in the morning thou makest thy seed to bud; a harvest heap in the day; of pain and deadly sorrow.

12 Ah, the uproar of many peoples, they roar like the roaring of seas; and the tumult of nations, they are tumultuous like the tumult of mighty waters l

13 Nations are tumultuous like the tumult of many waters; and (one) rebuketh him, and he ﬂeeth afar off, and is chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and as whirling dust before the tempest.

5. Or, ‘and with his arm...6. Or, perhaps, ‘four or ﬁve in its fruit-bearing ’7, 8. ‘gaze ’ i. e. with regard or respect.9. Heb. ‘of the HORESH and the AMIR’; not, unlike ‘Hivite and in some scripts: Lagarde emends accordingly. (Cf. Greek, note inverse order.)10. Lit. ‘plants of pleasant ones’ (‘plants of Adonis,’11. Or, ‘the harvest ﬂeeth away in the day of’... ‘pain’ has been by some for a different word, meaning (expected) ‘possession.’

14 At eventide, and behold terror; before the morning, he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.

XVIII. 1 Ah, land of the rustling of wings, whichart beyond the rivers of Cush !

2 That sendest envoys on the sea, and in vessels of papyrus on the face of the waters: Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation tall and polished, to a people terrible since it was and onward, a nation of line, line, and treading down, whose land the rivers divide.

3 All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, when a standard is lifted up on (the) mountains, see ye: and when a trumpet is blown, hear ye.

4 For so the Lord said unto me: I will be quiet, and I will behold in my dwelling place, while there is clear heat upon the light, a mist-cloud in the heat of harvest.

5 For afore the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the ﬂower becometh a ripening grape-bunch, he shall cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and remove and cut down the branches.

6 They shall be left together unto the bird of prey of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth; and the bird-of prey shall summer upon it, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon it.