¹⁰ For before those days there was no payment for a man's work, or for the use of a beast, and there was no peace for him who went out or him who came in, because of the attacker: for I had every man turned against his neighbour.

¹⁶ How, when anyone came to a store of twenty measures, there were only ten: when anyone went to the wine-store to get fifty vessels full, there were only twenty.

¹⁷ And I sent burning and wasting and a rain of ice-drops on all the works of your hands; but still you were not turned to me, says the Lord.

¹⁸ And now, give thought; looking on from this day, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the time when the base of the Lord's house was put in its place, give thought to it.

⁴ And though they are taken away as prisoners by their attackers, even there will I give orders to the sword to put them to death: my eyes will be fixed on them for evil and not for good.

⁶ If the horn is sounded in the town will the people not be full of fear? will evil come on a town if the Lord has not done it?

² And I will send the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they will be fighting every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; town against town, and kingdom against kingdom.

³⁴ Do not have the thought that I have come to send peace on the earth; I came not to send peace but a sword.

³⁵ For I have come to put a man against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law:

³⁶ And a man will be hated by those of his house.

⁶ Much has been planted, but little got in; you take food, but have not enough; you take drink, but are not full; you are clothed, but no one is warm; and he who gets payment for his work, gets it to put it into a bag full of holes.

⁷ This is what the Lord of armies has said: Give thought to your ways.

⁸ Go up to the hills and get wood and put up the house; and I will take pleasure in it and be honoured, says the Lord.

⁹ You were looking for much, and it came to little; and when you got it into your house, I took it away with a breath. Why? says the Lord of armies. Because of my house which is a waste, while every man takes care of the house which is his.

¹⁰ For this cause the heaven over you is kept from giving dew, and the earth from giving her fruit.

¹¹ And by my order no rain came on the land or on the mountains or the grain or the wine or the oil or the produce of the earth or on men or cattle or on any work of man's hands.

¹⁶ See, I will send for great numbers of fishermen, says the Lord, and they will take them like fish in a net; and after that, I will send for numbers of bowmen, and they will go after them, driving them from every mountain and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.

⁵ In those times there was no peace for him who went out or for him who came in, but great trouble was on all the people of the lands.

⁶ And they were broken by divisions, nation against nation and town against town, because God sent all sorts of trouble on them.

⁷ But be you strong and let not your hands be feeble, for your work will be rewarded.

¹¹ Give ear to the women laughing by the water-springs; there they will give again the story of the upright acts of the Lord, all the upright acts of his arm in Israel.

⁶ In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were not used, and travellers went by side roads.

⁷ Country towns were no more in Israel, *** were no more, till you, Deborah, came up, till you came up as a mother in Israel.