The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, disaster, and plague against many lands and great kingdoms.

从古以来，在你我以前的先知，向多国和大邦说预言，论到争战、灾祸、瘟疫的事。

从古以来，在你我以前的众先知，向多国和大邦说预言，论到战争、灾祸、瘟疫的事。

从古以来，在你我以前的众先知，向多国和大邦说预言，论到战争、灾祸、瘟疫的事。

在你我之前的古代先知曾预言许多地方和强国要遭遇战争、灾祸和瘟疫。

自古以来，在你我以前的先知，已经预言有战争、灾祸和瘟疫要临到许多地方和强国。

從古以來，在你我以前的先知，向多國和大邦說預言，論到爭戰、災禍、瘟疫的事。

從古以來，在你我以前的眾先知，向多國和大邦說預言，論到戰爭、災禍、瘟疫的事。

從古以來，在你我以前的眾先知，向多國和大邦說預言，論到戰爭、災禍、瘟疫的事。

在你我之前的古代先知曾預言許多地方和強國要遭遇戰爭、災禍和瘟疫。

自古以來，在你我以前的先知，已經預言有戰爭、災禍和瘟疫要臨到許多地方和強國。

從古以來、你我以前的神言人向許多地區許多大國傳神言、都是論到戰爭、災禍、或瘟疫的。

爾我以前之先知、自古對多國大邦、預言戰爭、災害疫癘、

粵稽古昔、爾我之前、有先知、或言眾國大邦、必遇戰鬥、遘災害、罹疫癘、

自亙古以來、爾我前之先知、言諸國與大邦未來之事、有先知預言將有爭戰、災害、瘟疫、

From early times the prophets who preceded you and me have prophesied war, disaster and plague against many countries and great kingdoms.

There have been prophets long before you and I were ever born. They have prophesied against many countries and great kingdoms. They have spoken about war, trouble and plague.

The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms.

The ancient prophets who preceded you and me spoke against many nations, always warning of war, disaster, and disease.

The prophets who were before me and before you from ancient times also prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms regarding war, disaster, and plague.

The prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries and great kingdoms— of war and disaster and pestilence.

The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence.

The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, disaster, and plague against many lands and great kingdoms.

The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence.

From earliest times, the prophets who preceded you and me invariably prophesied war, disaster, and plagues against many countries and great kingdoms.

The prophets who have been before me and before you of old prophesied against many countries, and against great kingdoms, of war, of evil, and of pestilence.

He said: The LORD roars from Zion and makes his voice heard from Jerusalem; the pastures of the shepherds mourn, and the summit of Carmel withers.

Now Elijah the Tishbite, from the Gilead settlers, said to Ahab,“ As the LORD God of Israel lives, in whose presence I stand, there will be no dew or rain during these years except by my command!”

Go tell Jeroboam,‘ This is what the LORD God of Israel says: I raised you up from among the people, appointed you ruler over my people Israel,tore the kingdom away from the house of David, and gave it to you. But you were not like my servant David, who kept my commands and followed me with all his heart, doing only what is right in my sight.You behaved more wickedly than all who were before you. In order to anger me, you have proceeded to make for yourself other gods and cast images, but you have flung me behind your back.Because of all this, I am about to bring disaster on the house of Jeroboam: I will wipe out all of Jeroboam’s males, both slave and free, in Israel; I will sweep away the house of Jeroboam as one sweeps away dung until it is all gone!Anyone who belongs to Jeroboam and dies in the city, the dogs will eat, and anyone who dies in the field, the birds will eat, for the LORD has spoken!’“ As for you, get up and go to your house. When your feet enter the city, the boy will die.All Israel will mourn for him and bury him. He alone out of Jeroboam’s house will be given a proper burial because out of the house of Jeroboam something favorable to the LORD God of Israel was found in him.The LORD will raise up for himself a king over Israel, who will wipe out the house of Jeroboam. This is the day, yes, even today!For the LORD will strike Israel so that they will shake as a reed shakes in water. He will uproot Israel from this good soil that he gave to their ancestors. He will scatter them beyond the Euphrates because they made their Asherah poles, angering the LORD.

I will sing about the one I love, a song about my loved one’s vineyard: The one I love had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.He broke up the soil, cleared it of stones, and planted it with the finest vines. He built a tower in the middle of it and even dug out a winepress there. He expected it to yield good grapes, but it yielded worthless grapes.So now, residents of Jerusalem and men of Judah, please judge between me and my vineyard.What more could I have done for my vineyard than I did? Why, when I expected a yield of good grapes, did it yield worthless grapes?Now I will tell you what I am about to do to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge, and it will be consumed; I will tear down its wall, and it will be trampled.I will make it a wasteland. It will not be pruned or weeded; thorns and briers will grow up. I will also give orders to the clouds that rain should not fall on it.For the vineyard of the LORD of Armies is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah, the plant he delighted in. He expected justice but saw injustice; he expected righteousness but heard cries of despair.Woe to those who add house to house and join field to field until there is no more room and you alone are left in the land.

As for me, however, I am filled with power by the Spirit of the LORD, with justice and courage, to proclaim to Jacob his rebellion and to Israel his sin.Listen to this, leaders of the house of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert everything that is right,who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with injustice.Her leaders issue rulings for a bribe, her priests teach for payment, and her prophets practice divination for silver. Yet they lean on the LORD, saying,“ Isn’t the LORD among us? No disaster will overtake us.”Therefore, because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become ruins, and the temple’s mountain will be a high thicket.

“ Get up and go to meet King Ahab of Israel, who is in Samaria. He’s in Naboth’s vineyard, where he has gone to take possession of it.Tell him,‘ This is what the LORD says: Have you murdered and also taken possession?’ Then tell him,‘ This is what the LORD says: In the place where the dogs licked up Naboth’s blood, the dogs will also lick up your blood!’”Ahab said to Elijah,“ So, my enemy, you’ve found me, have you?” He replied,“ I have found you because you devoted yourself to do what is evil in the LORD’s sight.This is what the LORD says:‘ I am about to bring disaster on you and will eradicate your descendants: I will wipe out all of Ahab’s males, both slave and free, in Israel;I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha son of Ahijah, because you have angered me and caused Israel to sin.’The LORD also speaks of Jezebel:‘ The dogs will eat Jezebel in the plot of land at Jezreel:Anyone who belongs to Ahab and dies in the city, the dogs will eat, and anyone who dies in the field, the birds will eat.’”

Yes, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,I will gather all the nations and take them to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. I will enter into judgment with them there because of my people, my inheritance Israel. The nations have scattered the Israelites in foreign countries and divided up my land.They cast lots for my people; they bartered a boy for a prostitute and sold a girl for wine to drink.And also: Tyre, Sidon, and all the territories of Philistia— what are you to me? Are you paying me back or trying to get even with me? I will quickly bring retribution on your heads.For you took my silver and gold and carried my finest treasures to your temples.You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks to remove them far from their own territory.Look, I am about to rouse them up from the place where you sold them; I will bring retribution on your heads.I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a distant nation, for the LORD has spoken.Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for holy war; rouse the warriors; let all the men of war advance and attack!Beat your plows into swords and your pruning knives into spears. Let even the weakling say,“ I am a warrior.”Come quickly, all you surrounding nations; gather yourselves. Bring down your warriors there, LORD.

I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that you will quickly perish from the land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not live long there, but you will certainly be destroyed.The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be reduced to a few survivors among the nations where the LORD your God will drive you.

The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat,“ There is still one man who can inquire of the LORD, but I hate him because he never prophesies good about me, but only disaster. He is Micaiah son of Imlah.”“ The king shouldn’t say that!” Jehoshaphat replied.

Their bows will cut young men to pieces. They will have no compassion on offspring; they will not look with pity on children.

“ But if you do not obey me and observe all these commands—if you reject my statutes and despise my ordinances, and do not observe all my commands— and break my covenant,then I will do this to you: I will bring terror on you— wasting disease and fever that will cause your eyes to fail and your life to ebb away. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it.I will turn against you, so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee even though no one is pursuing you.“ But if after these things you will not obey me, I will proceed to discipline you seven times for your sins.I will break down your strong pride. I will make your sky like iron and your land like bronze,and your strength will be used up for nothing. Your land will not yield its produce, and the trees of the land will not bear their fruit.“ If you act with hostility toward me and are unwilling to obey me, I will multiply your plagues seven times for your sins.I will send wild animals against you that will deprive you of your children, ravage your livestock, and reduce your numbers until your roads are deserted.“ If in spite of these things you do not accept my discipline, but act with hostility toward me,then I will act with hostility toward you; I also will strike you seven times for your sins.I will bring a sword against you to execute the vengeance of the covenant. Though you withdraw into your cities, I will send a pestilence among you, and you will be delivered into enemy hands.When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in a single oven and ration out your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.“ And if in spite of this you do not obey me but act with hostility toward me,I will act with furious hostility toward you; I will also discipline you seven times for your sins.You will eat the flesh of your sons; you will eat the flesh of your daughters.I will destroy your high places, cut down your shrines, and heap your lifeless bodies on the lifeless bodies of your idols; I will reject you.I will reduce your cities to ruins and devastate your sanctuaries. I will not smell the pleasing aroma of your sacrifices.I also will devastate the land, so that your enemies who come to live there will be appalled by it.But I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw a sword to chase after you. So your land will become desolate, and your cities will become ruins.“ Then the land will make up for its Sabbath years during the time it lies desolate, while you are in the land of your enemies. At that time the land will rest and make up for its Sabbaths.As long as it lies desolate, it will have the rest it did not have during your Sabbaths when you lived there.“ I will put anxiety in the hearts of those of you who survive in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a wind-driven leaf will put them to flight, and they will flee as one flees from a sword, and fall though no one is pursuing them.They will stumble over one another as if fleeing from a sword though no one is pursuing them. You will not be able to stand against your enemies.You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will devour you.Those who survive in the lands of your enemies will waste away because of their iniquity; they will also waste away because of their ancestors’ iniquities along with theirs.“ But when they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors— their unfaithfulness that they practiced against me, and how they acted with hostility toward me,and I acted with hostility toward them and brought them into the land of their enemies— and when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they make amends for their iniquity,then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. I will also remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.For the land abandoned by them will make up for its Sabbaths by lying desolate without the people, while they make amends for their iniquity, because they rejected my ordinances and abhorred my statutes.Yet in spite of this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or abhor them so as to destroy them and break my covenant with them, since I am the LORD their God.For their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God; I am the LORD.”These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws the LORD established between himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.

And he replied: Go! Say to these people: Keep listening, but do not understand; keep looking, but do not perceive.Make the minds of these people dull; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed.Then I said,“ Until when, Lord?” And he replied: Until cities lie in ruins without inhabitants, houses are without people, the land is ruined and desolate,and the LORD drives the people far away, leaving great emptiness in the land.

The pronouncement concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD takes vengeance and is fierce in wrath. The LORD takes vengeance against his foes; he is furious with his enemies.The LORD is slow to anger but great in power; the LORD will never leave the guilty unpunished. His path is in the whirlwind and storm, and clouds are the dust beneath his feet.

Hear this, you elders; listen, all you inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors?Tell your children about it, and let your children tell their children, and their children the next generation.What the devouring locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust has left, the young locust has eaten; and what the young locust has left, the destroying locust has eaten.Wake up, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you wine drinkers, because of the sweet wine, for it has been taken from your mouth.For a nation has invaded my land, powerful and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and it has the fangs of a lioness.It has devastated my grapevine and splintered my fig tree. It has stripped off its bark and thrown it away; its branches have turned white.Grieve like a young woman dressed in sackcloth, mourning for the husband of her youth.Grain and drink offerings have been cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, who are ministers of the LORD, mourn.The fields are destroyed; the land grieves; indeed, the grain is destroyed; the new wine is dried up; and the fresh oil fails.Be ashamed, you farmers, wail, you vinedressers, over the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.The grapevine is dried up, and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the date palm, and the apple— all the trees of the orchard— have withered. Indeed, human joy has dried up.Dress in sackcloth and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar. Come and spend the night in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, because grain and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.Announce a sacred fast; proclaim a solemn assembly! Gather the elders and all the residents of the land at the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.Woe because of that day! For the day of the LORD is near and will come as devastation from the Almighty.Hasn’t the food been cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?The seeds lie shriveled in their casings. The storehouses are in ruin, and the granaries are broken down, because the grain has withered away.How the animals groan! The herds of cattle wander in confusion since they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep and goats suffer punishment.I call to you, LORD, for fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness, and flames have devoured all the trees of the orchard.Even the wild animals cry out to you, for the river beds are dried up, and fire has consumed the pastures of the wilderness.

Be sure there is no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Be sure there is no root among you bearing poisonous and bitter fruit.When someone hears the words of this oath, he may consider himself exempt, thinking,‘ I will have peace even though I follow my own stubborn heart.’ This will lead to the destruction of the well-watered land as well as the dry land.The LORD will not be willing to forgive him. Instead, his anger and jealousy will burn against that person, and every curse written in this scroll will descend on him. The LORD will blot out his name under heaven,and single him out for harm from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.“ Future generations of your children who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant country will see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses the LORD has inflicted on it.All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown, producing nothing, with no plant growing on it, just like the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD demolished in his fierce anger.All the nations will ask,‘ Why has the LORD done this to this land? Why this intense outburst of anger?’Then people will answer,‘ It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their ancestors, which he had made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.They began to serve other gods, bowing in worship to gods they had not known— gods that the LORD had not permitted them to worship.Therefore the LORD’s anger burned against this land, and he brought every curse written in this book on it.The LORD uprooted them from their land in his anger, rage, and intense wrath, and threw them into another land where they are today.’

Look, the LORD is stripping the earth bare and making it desolate. He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants:people and priest alike, servant and master, female servant and mistress, buyer and seller, lender and borrower, creditor and debtor.The earth will be stripped completely bare and will be totally plundered, for the LORD has spoken this message.The earth mourns and withers; the world wastes away and withers; the exalted people of the earth waste away.The earth is polluted by its inhabitants, for they have transgressed teachings, overstepped decrees, and broken the permanent covenant.Therefore a curse has consumed the earth, and its inhabitants have become guilty; the earth’s inhabitants have been burned, and only a few survive.The new wine mourns; the vine withers. All the carousers now groan.The joyful tambourines have ceased. The noise of the jubilant has stopped. The joyful lyre has ceased.They no longer sing and drink wine; beer is bitter to those who drink it.The city of chaos is shattered; every house is closed to entry.In the streets they cry for wine. All joy grows dark; earth’s rejoicing goes into exile.Only desolation remains in the city; its gate has collapsed in ruins.For this is how it will be on earth among the nations: like a harvested olive tree, like a gleaning after a grape harvest.They raise their voices, they sing out; they proclaim in the west the majesty of the LORD.Therefore, in the east honor the LORD! In the coasts and islands of the west honor the name of the LORD, the God of Israel.From the ends of the earth we hear songs: The Splendor of the Righteous One. But I said,“ I waste away! I waste away! Woe is me.” The treacherous act treacherously; the treacherous deal very treacherously.Panic, pit, and trap await you who dwell on the earth.Whoever flees at the sound of panic will fall into a pit, and whoever escapes from the pit will be caught in a trap. For the floodgates on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth are shaken.The earth is completely devastated; the earth is split open; the earth is violently shaken.The earth staggers like a drunkard and sways like a hut. Earth’s rebellion weighs it down, and it falls, never to rise again.On that day the LORD will punish the army of the heights in the heights and the kings of the ground on the ground.They will be gathered together like prisoners in a pit. They will be confined to a dungeon; after many days they will be punished.The moon will be put to shame and the sun disgraced, because the LORD of Armies will reign as king on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, and he will display his glory in the presence of his elders.

Then Jeshurun became fat and rebelled— you became fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.They provoked his jealousy with different gods; they enraged him with detestable practices.They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known, new gods that had just arrived, which your ancestors did not fear.You ignored the Rock who gave you birth; you forgot the God who gave birth to you.When the LORD saw this, he despised them, angered by his sons and daughters.He said,“ I will hide my face from them; I will see what will become of them, for they are a perverse generation— unfaithful children.They have provoked my jealousy with what is not a god; they have enraged me with their worthless idols. So I will provoke their jealousy with what is not a people; I will enrage them with a foolish nation.For fire has been kindled because of my anger and burns to the depths of Sheol; it devours the land and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains.“ I will pile disasters on them; I will use up my arrows against them.They will be weak from hunger, ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will unleash on them wild beasts with fangs, as well as venomous snakes that slither in the dust.Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, there will be terror; the young man and the young woman will be killed, the infant and the gray-haired man.“ I would have said: I will cut them to pieces and blot out the memory of them from mankind,if I had not feared provocation from the enemy, or feared that these foes might misunderstand and say,‘ Our own hand has prevailed; it wasn’t the LORD who did all this.’”Israel is a nation lacking sense with no understanding at all.If only they were wise, they would comprehend this; they would understand their fate.How could one pursue a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?But their“ rock” is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede.For their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; their clusters are bitter.Their wine is serpents’ venom, the deadly poison of cobras.“ Is it not stored up with me, sealed up in my vaults?Vengeance and retribution belong to me. In time their foot will slip, for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly.”The LORD will indeed vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants when he sees that their strength is gone and no one is left— slave or free.He will say,“ Where are their gods, the‘ rock’ they found refuge in?Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you; let it be a shelter for you.See now that I alone am he; there is no God but me. I bring death and I give life; I wound and I heal. No one can rescue anyone from my power.I raise my hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever,when I sharpen my flashing sword, and my hand takes hold of judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me.I will make my arrows drunk with blood while my sword devours flesh— the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders.”Rejoice, you nations, concerning his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will take vengeance on his adversaries; he will purify his land and his people.Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song in the presence of the people.

“ But if you do not obey the LORD your God by carefully following all his commands and statutes I am giving you today, all these curses will come and overtake you:You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.Your basket and kneading bowl will be cursed.Your offspring will be cursed, and your land’s produce, the young of your herds, and the newborn of your flocks.You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.The LORD will send against you curses, confusion, and rebuke in everything you do until you are destroyed and quickly perish, because of the wickedness of your actions in abandoning me.The LORD will make pestilence cling to you until he has exterminated you from the land you are entering to possess.The LORD will afflict you with wasting disease, fever, inflammation, burning heat, drought, blight, and mildew; these will pursue you until you perish.The sky above you will be bronze, and the earth beneath you iron.The LORD will turn the rain of your land into falling dust; it will descend on you from the sky until you are destroyed.The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.Your corpses will be food for all the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the earth, with no one to scare them away.“ The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt, tumors, a festering rash, and scabies, from which you cannot be cured.The LORD will afflict you with madness, blindness, and mental confusion,so that at noon you will grope as a blind person gropes in the dark. You will not be successful in anything you do. You will only be oppressed and robbed continually, and no one will help you.You will become engaged to a woman, but another man will rape her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not enjoy its fruit.Your ox will be slaughtered before your eyes, but you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away from you and not returned to you. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will help you.Your sons and daughters will be given to another people, while your eyes grow weary looking for them every day. But you will be powerless to do anything.A people you don’t know will eat your land’s produce and everything you have labored for. You will only be oppressed and crushed continually.You will be driven mad by what you see.The LORD will afflict you with painful and incurable boils on your knees and thighs— from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.“ The LORD will bring you and your king that you have appointed to a nation neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you will worship other gods, of wood and stone.You will become an object of horror, scorn, and ridicule among all the peoples where the LORD will drive you.“ You will sow much seed in the field but harvest little, because locusts will devour it.You will plant and cultivate vineyards but not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.You will have olive trees throughout your territory but not moisten your skin with oil, because your olives will drop off.You will father sons and daughters, but they will not remain yours, because they will be taken prisoner.Buzzing insects will take possession of all your trees and your land’s produce.The resident alien among you will rise higher and higher above you, while you sink lower and lower.He will lend to you, but you won’t lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.“ All these curses will come, pursue, and overtake you until you are destroyed, since you did not obey the LORD your God and keep the commands and statutes he gave you.These curses will be a sign and a wonder against you and your descendants forever.Because you didn’t serve the LORD your God with joy and a cheerful heart, even though you had an abundance of everything,you will serve your enemies that the LORD will send against you, in famine, thirst, nakedness, and a lack of everything. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.The LORD will bring a nation from far away, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you won’t understand,a ruthless nation, showing no respect for the old and not sparing the young.They will eat the offspring of your livestock and your land’s produce until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, fresh oil, young of your herds, or newborn of your flocks until they cause you to perish.They will besiege you within all your city gates until your high and fortified walls, that you trust in, come down throughout your land. They will besiege you within all your city gates throughout the land the LORD your God has given you.“ You will eat your offspring, the flesh of your sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you.The most sensitive and refined man among you will look grudgingly at his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children,refusing to share with any of them his children’s flesh that he will eat because he has nothing left during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you in all your towns.The most sensitive and refined woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her refinement and sensitivity, will begrudge the husband she embraces, her son, and her daughter,the afterbirth that comes out from between her legs and the children she bears, because she will secretly eat them for lack of anything else during the siege and hardship your enemy imposes on you within your city gates.“ If you are not careful to obey all the words of this law, which are written in this scroll, by fearing this glorious and awe-inspiring name— the LORD, your God—he will bring wondrous plagues on you and your descendants, severe and lasting plagues, and terrible and chronic sicknesses.He will afflict you again with all the diseases of Egypt, which you dreaded, and they will cling to you.The LORD will also afflict you with every sickness and plague not recorded in the book of this law, until you are destroyed.Though you were as numerous as the stars of the sky, you will be left with only a few people, because you did not obey the LORD your God.Just as the LORD was glad to cause you to prosper and to multiply you, so he will also be glad to cause you to perish and to destroy you. You will be ripped out of the land you are entering to possess.Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known.You will find no peace among those nations, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despondent spirit.Your life will hang in doubt before you. You will be in dread night and day, never certain of survival.In the morning you will say,‘ If only it were evening!’ and in the evening you will say,‘ If only it were morning!’— because of the dread you will have in your heart and because of what you will see.The LORD will take you back in ships to Egypt by a route that I said you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”

A man of God came to Eli and said to him,“ This is what the LORD says:‘ Didn’t I reveal myself to your forefather’s family when they were in Egypt and belonged to Pharaoh’s palace?Out of all the tribes of Israel, I chose your house to be my priests, to offer sacrifices on my altar, to burn incense, and to wear an ephod in my presence. I also gave your forefather’s family all the Israelite food offerings.Why, then, do all of you despise my sacrifices and offerings that I require at the place of worship? You have honored your sons more than me, by making yourselves fat with the best part of all of the offerings of my people Israel.’“ Therefore, this is the declaration of the LORD, the God of Israel:‘ I did say that your family and your forefather’s family would walk before me forever. But now,’ this is the LORD’s declaration,‘ no longer! For those who honor me I will honor, but those who despise me will be disgraced.Look, the days are coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your forefather’s family, so that none in your family will reach old age.You will see distress in the place of worship, in spite of all that is good in Israel, and no one in your family will ever again reach old age.

The LORD said to Moses,“ You are about to rest with your ancestors, and these people will soon prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land they are entering. They will abandon me and break the covenant I have made with them.My anger will burn against them on that day; I will abandon them and hide my face from them so that they will become easy prey. Many troubles and afflictions will come to them. On that day they will say,‘ Haven’t these troubles come to us because our God is no longer with us?’

The LORD said to Samuel,“ I am about to do something in Israel that will cause everyone who hears about it to shudder.On that day I will carry out against Eli everything I said about his family, from beginning to end.I told him that I am going to judge his family forever because of the iniquity he knows about: his sons are cursing God, and he has not stopped them.Therefore, I have sworn to Eli’s family: The iniquity of Eli’s family will never be wiped out by either sacrifice or offering.”