CHAPTER 3
1 For lo! the lordly governor, the Lord of hosts, shall take away from Jerusalem and from Judah a mighty man, and strong, and all the strength of bread, and all the strength of water;
2 a strong man, and a man a warrior, and a doomsman, and a prophet, and a false diviner in altars, and an eld [or old] man,
3 a prince over fifty men, and a worshipful man in cheer, and a counsellor, and a wise man of principal craftsmen, and a prudent man of mystic, either ghostly, speech.
4 And I shall give children to be the princes of them, and men of women’s conditions shall be lords of them.
5 And the people shall fall down, a man to a man, each man to his neighbour; a child shall make noise against an eld [or old] man, and an unnoble man against a noble man.
6 For a man shall take his brother, the menial of his father, and shall say, A cloth is to thee, be thou our prince; forsooth this falling be under thine hand.
7 And he shall answer in that day, and say, I am no leech, and neither bread, neither cloth is in mine house; do not ye make me prince of the people.
8 For why Jerusalem fell down, and Judah fell down altogether; for the tongue of them, and the findings of them, were against the Lord, for to stir to wrath the eyes of his majesty.
9 The knowing of their cheer hall answer to them; and they preached their sin, as Sodom did, and hid not. Woe to the soul of them, for why evils be yielded to them.
10 Say ye to the just [or rightwise] man, that it shall be to him well; for he shall eat the fruit of his findings.
11 Woe to the wicked man into evil; for why the yielding of his hands shall be made to him.
12 The wrongful askers of my people robbed it, and women were lords thereof. My people, they that say thee blessed, deceive thee, and destroy the way of thy steps.
13 The Lord standeth for to deem, and he standeth for to deem [the] peoples;
14 the Lord shall come to doom, with the elder men of his people, and with his princes; for ye have wasted my vineyard, and the raven of a poor man is in your house.
15 Why all-break ye my people, and grind together the faces of poor men? saith the Lord God of hosts.
16 And the Lord God said, For that that the daughters of Zion were raised, and went with neck stretched forth, and went by signs of eyes, and clapped with hands, and went, and with their feet went in well-arrayed going,
17 the Lord shall make bald the noll of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord shall make naked the hair of them.
18 In that day the Lord shall take away the ornament of shoes, and golden little bells like the moon,
19 and ribbons, and brooches, and ornaments of arms nigh the shoulders,
20 and mitres, either chaplets, and combs, and ornaments of arms nigh the hands, and golden ornaments like lampreys, and little vessels of ointments, and earrings,
21 and rings, and precious stones hanging in the forehead,
22 and changing clothes, and mantles, and sheets, either smocks, and needles [or pins],
23 and mirrors, and small linen clothes about the shoulders, and kerchiefs, and rochets.
24 And stink shall be for sweet odour, and a cord for the girdle; baldness shall be for the crisp hair, and an hair-shirt for a breast-girdle.
25 Also thy fairest men shall fall by sword, and thy strong men shall fall in battle.
26 And the gates thereof shall wail, and mourn; and it shall sit desolate in [the] earth.