Confortamini, filii Benjamin, in medio Jerusalem: et in Thecua clangite buccina, et super Bethacarem levate vexillum, quia malum visum est ab aquilone, et contritio magna.

Strengthen yourselves, ye sons of Benjamin, in the midst of Jerusalem, and sound the trumpet in Thecua, and set up the standard over Bethacarem: for evil is seen out of the north, and a great destruction.

Rally, tribesmen of Benjamin that live in the midst of Jerusalem; at Thecua sound the trumpet, raise the standard on Bethacarem; it is from the north peril may be seen coming, peril of great calamity.

Speciosæ et delicatæ assimilavi filiam Sion.

I have likened the daughter of Sion to a beautiful and delicate woman.

Poor Sion, all too fair she seems, all too delicate!

Ad eam venient pastores et greges eorum; fixerunt in ea tentoria in circuitu: pascet unusquisque eos qui sub manu sua sunt.

The shepherds shall come to her with their flocks: they have pitched their tents against her round about: every one shall feed them that are under his hand.

Alas, what strange shepherds are these, what troops that follow them? See how they pitch their tents about her! See how many each has at his back, and there must be pasture for them all!

Sanctificate super eam bellum: consurgite, et ascendamus in meridie: væ nobis, quia declinavit dies; quia longiores factæ sunt umbræ vesperi!

Prepare ye war against her: arise, and let us go up at midday: woe unto us, for the day is declined, for the shadows of the evening are grown longer.

Sound we the attack on the city; to move now were best, and march up under the light of noon! Plague upon it, the day is already spent, the shadows of evening lengthen already;

Surgite, et ascendamus in nocte, et dissipemus domus ejus.

Arise, and let us go up in the night, and destroy her houses.

up, then, march we on by night, by night plunder their houses!

Quia hæc dicit Dominus exercituum: Cædite lignum ejus, et fundite circa Jerusalem aggerem. Hæc est civitas visitationis: omnis calumnia in medio ejus.

For thus saith the Lord of hosts: Hew down her trees, cast up a trench about Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited, all oppression is in the midst of her.

Down with yonder trees, the Lord of hosts says, and build siege-works about Jerusalem; here is a city must be called to account for all the oppression that is harboured there.

Sicut frigidam fecit cisterna aquam suam, sic frigidam fecit malitiam suam. Iniquitas et vastitas audietur in ea, coram me semper infirmitas et plaga.

As a cistern maketh its water cold, so hath she made her wickedness cold: violence and spoil shall be heard in her, infirmity and stripes are continually before me.

Never cistern kept its waters so fresh, as she her store of wickedness; no news from her but of wrong and waste, no sight I see there but distress and violence.

Erudire, Jerusalem, ne forte recedat anima mea a te; ne forte ponam te desertam, terram inhabitabilem.

Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee, lest I make thee desolate, a land uninhabited.

Jerusalem, be warned in time; else my love thou shalt forfeit, and I will make a ruin of thee, a land uninhabited.

Hæc dicit Dominus exercituum: Usque ad racemum colligent quasi in vinea reliquias Israël. Converte manum tuam quasi vindemiator ad cartallum.

Thus saith the Lord of hosts: They shall gather the remains of Israel, as in a vine, even to one cluster: turn back thy hand, as a grapegatherer into the basket.

Israel, says the Lord of hosts, is a vineyard for the gleaning; no cluster shall be left; back with thee, vintager, to the baskets!

Cui loquar, et quem contestabor ut audiat? ecce incircumcisæ aures eorum, et audire non possunt: ecce verbum Domini factum est eis in opprobrium, et non suscipient illud.

To whom shall I speak? and to whom shall I testify, that he may hear? behold, their ears are uncircumcised, and they cannot hear: behold the word of the Lord is become unto them a reproach: and they will not receive it.

Vain appeal, whom shall I cite for witness of it? Oh that it should fall on ears uncircumcised, oh that God’s word should be slighted, and find no welcome!

Idcirco furore Domini plenus sum; laboravi sustinens. Effunde super parvulum foris, et super consilium juvenum simul: vir enim cum muliere capietur; senex cum pleno dierum.

Therefore am I full of the fury of the Lord, I am weary with holding in: pour it out upon the child abroad, and upon the council of the young men together: for man and woman shall be taken, the ancient and he that is full of days.

Nay, but the divine anger burns within me, I can forbear no longer. I must blurt out my message to all, children playing in the streets, no less than warriors met in council; none shall be spared, husband or wife, greybeard or man of many summers.

Et transibunt domus eorum ad alteros, agri et uxores pariter, quia extendam manum meam super habitantes terram, dicit Dominus:

And their houses shall be turned over to others, with their lands and their wives together: for I will stretch forth my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord.

Homes, lands and wedded wives, all must pass into other hands; none that dwells in Juda, the Lord says, but shall feel my vengeance.

a minore quippe usque ad majorem omnes avaritiæ student, et a propheta usque ad sacerdotem cuncti faciunt dolum.

For from the least of them even to the greatest, all are given to covetousness: and from the prophet even to the priest, all are guilty of deceit.

High and low, ill-gotten gains they covet; treacherous the ways alike of prophet and of priest;

Et curabant contritionem filiæ populi mei cum ignominia, dicentes: Pax, pax! et non erat pax.

And they healed the breach of the daughter of my people disgracefully, saying: Peace, peace: and there was no peace.

here lies my people grievously hurt, and they tend her unconcernedly; All’s well, they say, all’s well, when in truth all goes amiss.

Confusi sunt, quia abominationem fecerunt: quin potius confusione non sunt confusi, et erubescere nescierunt. Quam ob rem cadent inter ruentes: in tempore visitationis suæ corruent, dicit Dominus.

They were confounded, because they committed abomination: yea, rather they were not confounded with confusion, and they knew not how to blush: wherefore they shall fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall fall down, saith the Lord.

Shamed they needs must be, that did so detestably; shamed, but never ashamed, for indeed they have lost the power to blush; theirs to fall amid the common ruin, crushed to earth, the Lord says, when I call all to account.

Hæc dicit Dominus: State super vias, et videte, et interrogate de semitis antiquis quæ sit via bona, et ambulate in ea: et invenietis refrigerium animabus vestris. Et dixerunt: Non ambulabimus.

Thus saith the Lord: Stand ye on the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, which is the good way, and walk ye in it: and you shall find refreshment for your souls. And they said: We will not walk.

The Lord’s message was, Halt at the cross-roads, look well, and ask yourselves which path it was that stood you in good stead long ago. That path follow, and you shall find rest for your souls. But follow they would not;

Et constitui super vos speculatores: Audite vocem tubæ. Et dixerunt: Non audiemus.

And I appointed watchmen over you, saying: Hearken ye to the sound of the trumpet. And they said: We will not hearken.

and next, I would set watchmen on the heights; let them only listen, when these sounded the trumpet; but listen they would not.

Ideo audite, gentes, et cognosce, congregatio, quanta ego faciam eis.

Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what great things I will do to them.

To the nations, then, I proclaim it; let my doom be pronounced in the public ear;

Audi, terra: ecce ego adducam mala super populum istum, fructum cogitationum ejus: quia verba mea non audierunt, et legem meam projecerunt.

Hear, O earth: Behold I will bring evils upon this people, the fruits of their own thoughts: because they have not heard my words, and they have cast away my law.

all earth shall hear it. I mean to bring upon this people of mine the punishment their scheming wickedness has earned, so deaf to my calls, of my law so defiant.

Ut quid mihi thus de Saba affertis, et calamum suave olentem de terra longinqua? Holocautomata vestra non sunt accepta, et victimæ vestræ non placuerunt mihi.

To what purpose do you bring me frankincense from Saba, and the sweet smelling cane from a far country? your holocausts are not acceptable, nor are your sacrifices pleasing to me.

What avails it to offer me incense from Saba, and the fragrant calamus that grows far away? Unwelcome to me your burnt-sacrifice, undesired your victims.

Propterea hæc dicit Dominus: Ecce ego dabo in populum istum ruinas: et ruent in eis patres et filii simul; vicinus et proximus peribunt.

Therefore thus saith the Lord: Behold I will bring destruction upon this people, by which fathers and sons together shall fall, neighbour and kinsman shall perish.

This doom the Lord pronounces; I mean so to entangle this people of mine that they shall stumble to their undoing all of them, father and son together, neighbour with neighbour, friend with friend.

Hæc dicit Dominus: Ecce populus venit de terra aquilonis, et gens magna consurget a finibus terræ.

Thus saith the Lord: Behold a people cometh from the land of the north, and a great nation shall rise up from the ends of the earth.

Here is a people marching from the north country, the Lord says, a great nation from the world’s end.

Sagittam et scutum arripiet: crudelis est et non miserebitur. Vox ejus quasi mare sonabit: et super equos ascendent, præparati quasi vir ad prælium adversum te, filia Sion.

They shall lay hold on arrow and shield: they are cruel, and will have no mercy. Their voice shall roar like the sea: and they shall mount upon horses, prepared as men for war, against thee, O daughter of Sion.

Arrow and shield they ply, and their hard hearts pity none; loud their battle-cry as the roaring of the sea. So they ride on, as warriors ride, poor Sion, thy enemies.

Audivimus famam ejus; dissolutæ sunt manus nostræ: tribulatio apprehendit nos, dolores ut parturientem.

We have heard the fame thereof, our hands grow feeble: anguish hath taken hold of us, as a woman in labour.

Unnerved our hands droop at the very rumour of it; grief overmasters us, sharp as the pangs of travail;

Nolite exire ad agros, et in via ne ambuletis, quoniam gladius inimici, pavor in circuitu.

Go not out into the fields, nor walk in the highway: for the sword of the enemy, and fear is on every side.

forbidden is the country-side, the high roads untravelled; the drawn sword threatens, and peril is all about us.

Filia populi mei, accingere cilicio, et conspergere cinere: luctum unigeniti fac tibi, planctum amarum, quia repente veniet vastator super nos.

Gird thee with sackcloth, O daughter of my people, and sprinkle thee with ashes: make thee mourning as for an only son, a bitter lamentation, because the destroyer shall suddenly come upon us.

Juda, poor widowed queen, put sackcloth about thee and strew thyself with ashes; as for an only son make loud lament; without warning the spoiler will be upon us.

Probatorem dedi te in populo meo robustum: et scies, et probabis viam eorum.

I have set thee for a strong trier among my people: and thou shalt know, and prove their way.

I have a task for thee to perform among my people; thou shalt be my trusty assayer, putting the quality of their lives to the test.

Omnes isti principes declinantes, ambulantes fraudulenter, æs et ferrum: universi corrupti sunt.

All these princes go out of the way, they walk deceitfully, they are brass and iron: they are all corrupted.

These faithless rulers that go about on their slanderous errands, what are they but copper and iron, base metal all?

Defecit sufflatorium; in igne consumptum est plumbum: frustra conflavit conflator, malitiæ enim eorum non sunt consumptæ.

The bellows have failed, the lead is consumed in the fire, the founder hath melted in vain: for their wicked deeds are not consumed.

Bellows have done their work, the lead streams away in the fire, carrying nothing with it; vain, smelter, thy toil, the dross remains unpurged.

Argentum reprobum vocate eos, quia Dominus projecit illos.

Call them reprobate silver, for the Lord hath rejected them.

Refuse-silver they shall be called; has not the Lord refused them?