CHAP. III.

The Ninevites repent.

Jonah repineth at God's Mercy. BUT it displeased Jonah exceed

ingly, and he was very angry. 2 And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.

3 Therefore now, O LORD, take,

ND the word of the LORD I beseech thee, my life from me; came unto Jonah the second for it is better for me to die than to time, saying, live.

2 Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.

3 So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.

4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

5 1 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

4 T Then said the LORD, Doest thou well to be angry?

5 So Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city.

6 And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his grief. So Jonah was exceeding glad of the gourd.

7 But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered.

6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his 8 And it came to pass, when the throne, and he laid his robe from sun did arise, that God repared a him, and covered him with sack-vehement east wind; and the sun cloth, and sat in ashes. beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and wished in himself to die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live.

7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:

8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?

10 T And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil

2 L2

9 And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd ? And he said, I do well to be angry, even unto death.

10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:

11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle?

801

THE

CHAP. I.

¶ MICAH.

God's Wrath against Jacob. HE word of the LORD that came to Micah the Morasthite in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw concerning Samaria and Jerusalem.

2 Hear, all ye people; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is and let the Lord God be witness ngainst you, the Lord from his holy temple.

3 For behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth.

4 And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place.

5 For the transgression of Jacob 18 all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem?

6 Therefore, I will make Samaria as a heap of the field, and as plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof.

7 And all the graven images thereof shall be beaten to pieces, and all the hires thereof shall be burned with the fire, and all the idols thereof will I lay desolate for she gathered it of the hire of a harlot, and they shall return to the hire of a harlot.

8 Therefore, I will wail and howl; I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.

9 For her wound is incurable; for it is come unto Judah; he is come unto the gate of iny people, even to Jerusalem.

10 Declaro ye it not at Gath, weep ye not at all in the house of Aphirah roll thyself in the dust.

11 Pass ye away, thou inhabitant of Saphir, having thy shame naked: the inhabitant of Zaanan enme not forth in the mourning of Beth-ezel: he shall receive of you his stand

For the inhabitant of Maroth aited carefully for good: but evil Same down from the LORD unto gate of Jerusalem. 802

13 O thou inhabitant of Lachish, bind the chariot to the swift beast she is the beginning of the sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee.

14 Therefore shalt thou give presents to Moreshth-gath: the houses of Achzib shall be a lie to the kings of Israel.

15 Yet will I bring an heir unte thee, O inhabitant of Mareshah: he shall come unto Adullam the glory of Israel.

16 Make thee bald, and poll thee for thy delicate children: enlarge thy baldness as the eagle: for they are gone into captivity from thee.

CHAP. II. Against Oppression, Injustice, &e to them iniqui W ty, and work evil upon ther beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.

2 And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress man and his house, even a man and his heritage.

3 Therefore thus saith the LORD: Behold, against this family do devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily: for this une is evil.

4 1 In that day shall one take p a parable against you, and lamen with a doleful lamentation, and say, We be, utterly spoiled; he hath changed the portion of m people: how bath he removed from me! turning away he hath dr vided our fields.

5 Therefore, thou shalt have nose that shall cast a cord by lot in the congregation of the LORD.

6 Prophesy ye not, say they to them that prophesy: they shall no prophesy to them, that they shal not take shame.

70 thou that art named The house of Jacob, is the Spirit of the LORD straitened? are those ha doings? do not my words do good to him that walketh uprightly

8 Even of late my people is riset up as an enemy: ye pull off the robe with the garment from the from war. that pass by securely as men averse

9 The women of my people have ye cast out from their pleasa houses; from their children have

Restoration promised.

CHAP. IV. ye taken away my glory away my glory for

10 Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is pol-heads of the house of Jacob, and luted, it shall destroy you, even princes of the house of Israel, that with a sore destruction. abhor judgment, and pervert all equity.

II The heads thereof judge for 12 I will surely assemble, O reward, and the priests thereof Jacob, all of thee; 1 will surely teach for hire, and the prophets gather the remnant of Israel; I will thereof divine for money: yet will put them together as the sheep of they lean upon the LORD, and say, Bozrah, as the flock in the midst of Is not the LORD among us? none their fold: they shall make great evil can come upon us. noise by reason of the multitude of

come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted it not for you to know judg-above the hills; and people shall ment? flow unto it. 2 Who hate the good, and love 2 And many nations shall come, the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones;

8 But truly I am full of power forth, even for ever. by the Spirit of the LORD, and of 8 And thou, O tower of the judgment, and of might, to de-flock, the strong hold of the

Christ's birth, kingdom,

MICAH,

daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.

9 Now, why dost thou cry out aloud? is there no king in thee? is thy counsellor, perished? for pangs have taken thee as a woman in travail.

10 Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail; for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon there shalt thou be delivered; there the LORD shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies.

11 1 Now also many nations are gathered against thee, that say, Let her be defiled, and let our eye look upon Zion.

12 But they know not the thoughts of the LORD, neither understand they his counsel: for he shall gather them as the sheaves into the floor.

13 Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thy horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the LORD, and their substance unto the LORD of the whole earth.

CHAP. V.

The Birth of Christ foretold.

NO daughter of troops: he hath

OW gather thyself in troops,

laid siege against us: they shall smite the Judge of Israel with a rod upon the cheek.

2 But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be Ruler in Israel; whose 50 ings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

3 Therefore, will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel.

4 And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LoRD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth.

and conquest, foretold the land of Nimrod in the entrances thereof: thus shall be deliver from the Assyrian, when he cometh into our land, and when he treadeth within our borders.

7 And the remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the LORD, as the showers upon the grass, that tarrieth not for man, nor waite for the sons of men.

8 And the remnant of Jacob shall be among the Gentiles in the midst of many people as a lion among the beasts of the forest, as a young lion among the flocks of sheep: who, if he go through, both treadeth down, and teareth in pieces, and none can deliver..

9 Thy hand shall be lifted up upon thine adversaries, and all thine enemies shall be cut off.

10 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD, that I wil cut off thy horses out of the mids of thee, and I will destroy thy chariots:

11 And I will cut off the cities of thy land, and throw down all thy strong holds:

12 And I will cut off witchcrafts out of thy hand; and thou shal have no more sooth-sayers:

13 Thy graven images also will I cut off, and thy standing images out of the midst of thee; and thos shalt no more worship the work of thy hands.

14 And I will pluck up thy groves out of the midst of thee: so willi destroy thy cities.

15 And I will execute vengeance in anger and fury upon the heathen such as they have not heard. CHAP. VI. God's Controversy with Israel. H TEAR ye now what the LORD saith; Arise, contend thou be fore the mountaius, and let the hills hear thy voice.

2 Hear ye, O mountains, the LORD's controversy, and ye stront foundations of the earth: for the LORD hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.

3 O my people,, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against

me.

4 For I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed the out of the house of servants; and sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.

5 And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal| 5 O my people, remember now what Balak king. of Moab con sulted, and what Balaam the of Beor answered him from Shita

men.

6 And they shall waste the land Assyria with the sword, and

CHAP. VII. The Church's complaint wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.

7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten 4 The best of them is as a brier: thousands of rivers of oil? shall I the most upright is sharper than a give my first-born for my trans-thorn-hedge: the day of thy watchgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

9 I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned. against him, until he plead my 13 Therefore, also will I make cause, and execute judgment for thee sick in smiting thee, in ma-me: he will bring me forth to the king thee desolate because of thy light, and I shall behold his righte

2 The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none up-things. right among men: they all lie in