⁵ They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict thine heritage.

¹⁵ What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord GOD of hosts.

⁶ And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

³ And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

² Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;

³ Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron.

³⁴ Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out.

²⁰ Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms;

²¹ And with thee will I break in pieces the horse and his rider; and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and his rider;

²² With thee also will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces old and young; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the maid;

²³ I will also break in pieces with thee the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke of oxen; and with thee will I break in pieces captains and rulers.

¹¹ Because ye were glad, because ye rejoiced, O ye destroyers of mine heritage, because ye are grown fat as the heifer at grass, and bellow as bulls;

¹⁷ But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.

⁵ Now therefore, what have I here, saith the LORD, that my people is taken away for nought? they that rule over them make them to howl, saith the LORD; and my name continually every day is blasphemed.

² Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth: yet they have not prevailed against me.

³ The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows.

⁷ For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling place.

² The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.

³ Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them.

¹⁹ O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked: forget not the congregation of thy poor for ever.

²⁰ Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.

⁸ They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.

²² Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.

⁴ Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.

² Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.

²³ And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage.

²⁴ And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.