⁷ For they sow the wind, And they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.

⁸ He who sows wickedness reaps trouble, And the rod of his fury will be destroyed.

⁷ Don't be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that will he also reap.

⁹ Strangers have devoured his strength, And he doesn't realize it. Indeed, gray hairs are here and there on him, And he doesn't realize it.

⁸ According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity, And sow trouble, Reap the same.

³ Yahweh is slow to anger, and great in power, and will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. Yahweh has his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

¹² Sow to yourselves in righteousness, Reap according to kindness. Break up your fallow ground; For it is time to seek Yahweh, Until he comes and rains righteousness on you.

¹³ You have plowed wickedness. You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, For you trusted in your way, in the multitude of your mighty men.

⁹ Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, And my new wine in its season, And will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.

¹³ They have sown wheat, and have reaped thorns; they have put themselves to pain, and profit nothing: and you shall be ashamed of your fruits, because of the fierce anger of Yahweh.

¹⁵ For, behold, Yahweh will come with fire, and his chariots shall be like the whirlwind; to render his anger with fierceness, and his rebuke with flames of fire.

¹¹ In the day of your planting you hedge it in, and in the morning you make your seed to blossom; but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

¹⁶ This also is a grievous evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go. And what profit does he have who labors for the wind?

²⁹ In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath Pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel Beth Maacah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria.

¹⁹ There came against the land Pul the king of Assyria; and Menahem gave Pul one thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand.

³ The anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel, and he delivered them into the hand of Hazael king of Syria, and into the hand of Benhadad the son of Hazael, continually.

⁴ Jehoahaz begged Yahweh, and Yahweh listened to him; for he saw the oppression of Israel, how that the king of Syria oppressed them.

⁵ (Yahweh gave Israel a savior, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians; and the children of Israel lived in their tents as before.

⁶ Nevertheless they didn't depart from the sins of the house of Jeroboam, with which he made Israel to sin, but walked therein: and there remained the Asherah also in Samaria.)

⁷ For he didn't leave to Jehoahaz of the people save fifty horsemen, and ten chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the king of Syria destroyed them, and made them like the dust in threshing.

³ So it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east; they came up against them;

⁴ and they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, until you come to Gaza, and left no sustenance in Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor donkey.

⁵ For they came up with their cattle and their tents; they came in as locusts for multitude; both they and their camels were without number: and they came into the land to destroy it.

⁶ Israel was brought very low because of Midian; and the children of Israel cried to Yahweh.

³³ The fruit of your ground, and all your labors, shall a nation which you don't know eat up; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed always;