And now I saw the Lord standing above the altar; Smite column there, he cried, lintel there dislodge, nest of ill-gotten gains!✻ To the last man, the sword must take its toll; refuge shall be none. Flee they, never a fugitive shall escape;

from the pit beneath I will dig them up, from heaven above I will drag them down;

hide they on Carmel’s heights, I will search and seize them, lurk they in the sea’s depths, my writ runs there; maw of monster shall devour them.

Let enemy drive them into exile, even there the sword shall be my pursuivant; watch and ward I keep over them, never doubt it, but to their undoing.

…

The Lord God of hosts, whose touch melts earth, to the hurt of all that dwell in it, makes it everywhere mount up and sink, like Egypt’s river in flood;

his the arched stairway of heaven, his the knitted frame of earth; beckons he to the waters of the sea, and over the earth spreads them, such the power of his name!

Ethiop or Israelite, what care I? the Lord says. God that brought you here from Egypt was God that brought the Philistines from Caphtor, brought the Syrians from Cir!✻

Divine regard that watches ever this kingdom, marks ever its guilt; I will blot it out, believe me, from the face of the earth.

And blot out the name of Jacob altogether? Nay, not that, the Lord says.

At my command, the whole world shall be a sieve, to sift the race of Israel as corn is sifted in the riddle, and never a grain✻ cast out loose on the bare ground;

at the sword’s point they shall die, all the guilty that are found among my people; the guilty, who now flatter themselves that evil shall never come next or nigh them.

Then, I mean to rebuild the fallen dwselling-place of David, all its breaches made good, all its ruins restored; it shall stand once more as it stood long ago;

empire it shall have over the Edomites, and all the Gentile folk I claim for my own.

A time is coming, the Lord says, when ploughman shall tread on the heels of reaper, sower’s task begin ere vintager’s is ended; never a mountain-side but shall run with sweet wine, never a hill but its rugged nature shall be tamed.✻

I will bring back my people of Israel from its exile, to rebuild ruined cities and dwell there, plant vineyards and drink of them, till gardens and eat the fruits of them.

Firm root they shall take in their native soil, never again to be torn away from the home I have given them, says the Lord, thy own God.