¹⁷ and saying, We piped unto you, and ye did not dance, we lamented to you, and ye did not smite the breast.

⁹ By whom doth He teach knowledge? And by whom doth He cause to understand the report? The weaned from milk, the removed from breasts,

¹⁰ For rule `is' on rule, rule on rule, line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there,

¹¹ For by scorned lip, and by another tongue, Doth He speak unto this people.

¹² Unto whom He hath said, `This `is' the rest, give ye rest to the weary, And this -- the refreshing:' And they have not been willing to hear,

¹³ And to whom a word of Jehovah hath been, Rule on rule, rule on rule, line on line, line on line, A little here, a little there, So that they go and have stumbled backward, And been broken, and snared, and captured.

⁴⁰ And all the people come up after him, and the people are piping with pipes, and rejoicing -- great joy, and the earth rendeth with their voice.

²⁹ Singing is to you as in a night sanctified for a festival, And joy of heart as he who is going with a pipe, To go in to the mountain of Jehovah, Unto the rock of Israel.

¹⁷ Thus said Jehovah of Hosts: Consider ye, and call for mourning women, And they come, And to the wise women send, and they come,

¹⁸ And they hasten, and lift up for us a wailing. And run down our eyes do tears, And from our eyelids do waters flow.

¹⁹ For -- a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: How have we been spoiled! We have been greatly ashamed, Because we have forsaken the land, Because they have cast down our tabernacles.

²⁰ But hear, ye women, a word of Jehovah, And your ear receiveth a word of His mouth, And teach ye your daughters wailing, and each her neighbour lamentation.

⁴ Again do I build thee, And thou hast been built, O virgin of Israel, Again thou puttest on thy tabrets, And hast gone out in the chorus of the playful.

¹⁵ And Jesus said to them, `Can the sons of the bride-chamber mourn, so long as the bridegroom is with them? but days shall come when the bridegroom may be taken from them, and then they shall fast.

²³ And Jesus having come to the house of the ruler, and having seen the minstrels and the multitude making tumult,

¹⁹ for being free from all men, to all men I made myself servant, that the more I might gain;

²⁰ and I became to the Jews as a Jew, that Jews I might gain; to those under law as under law, that those under law I might gain;

²¹ to those without law, as without law -- (not being without law to God, but within law to Christ) -- that I might gain those without law;

²² I became to the infirm as infirm, that the infirm I might gain; to all men I have become all things, that by all means I may save some.

²³ And this I do because of the good news, that a fellow-partaker of it I may become;

²⁵ `And his elder son was in a field, and as, coming, he drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing,