tants to the walls, when as the people find no cause of the fear of an enemy? no more would God by his prophets denounce these imminent judgments, if there were not just cause to expect and fear their speedy execution; and who shall or can execute them, but the just and powerful hand of God? can there be any evil of punishment in the city, yea in the world, which is not of his sending, his inflicting?

III. 8. The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord GOD hath spoken, who can but prophesy?

The Lord, like a dreadful and strong lion, hath roared out these menaces of judgments; who can choose but fear? The Lord hath committed his word of reproof and threatening to his prophets, who can then hold his peace, and forbear to publish it?

III. 9. Publish in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the great tumults in the midst thereof, and the oppressed in the midst thereof.

Ye, O my prophets, publish this in the very palaces of the Philistines and of the Egyptians; and call to those heathenish nations, to be witnesses and judges of the heinous sins of my people wish them to assemble themselves into the midst of Israel, and to take view of the great oppressions and tumultuous disorders that are amongst them.

III. 10. Who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.

Who store up in their houses those treasures, which they have gotten together by rapine and violence.

III. 11. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; An adversary there shall be even round about the land; &c.

Therefore thus saith the Lord; A mighty adversary, even the Assyrian, shall come and invade thy land, and shall spoil and waste it round about.

III. 12. Thus saith the LORD; As the shepherd taketh out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria in the corners of a bed, and in Damascus in a couch.

As the shepherd, when a lion hath been devouring amongst his flock, finds left some mangled remnants of a leg or an ear, which he carries home, to shew the spoil that hath been done by that fierce beast; so shall it be with Israel: of all the body of Samaria, there shall be some one or two left undevoured, for proof of that general slaughter and captivity; and those two perhaps sick and feeble persons which were not able to stir out of their beds or couches: and thus shall it be both with Samaria and Damascus.

III. 14. That in the day that I shall visit the transgressions of Israel upon him I will also visit the altars of Beth-el: and

the horns of the altar shall be cut off, and fall to the ground.

In the day that I shall punish Israel, and call him to account for his many sins, I will reckon with him for his idolatries in Dan and Beth-el; and for those altars, which he hath erected there; and will cause those miserected altars to be beaten down to the ground.

III. 15. And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, saith the LORD.

And the stately houses of their kings, both their warm winter houses, and their pleasant summer houses, and their curious and beautiful houses of ivory, shall be utterly demolished and perish.

IV. 1. Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to your masters, Bring, and let us drink.

Hear this, O ye great and rich men of Samaria, that feed full and carelessly, like the kine in the fat pastures of Bashan: ye, who oppress the poor, and crush the needy; and say to your princes and judges, Set deep fines, and condemn freely, that we may feast upon the offences of the people.

IV. 2. That he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.

That he will, by the power of the Assyrian, snatch you away out of your country, as the fish is caught up out of the water, by the hook of the angler.

IV. 3. And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the LORD.

And ye shall go forth of your cities, as a herd of cattle out of a close, every cow through that gap of the hedge which lies before her; so shall ye pass through the next breaches which are made in your walls, and shall cast away whatsoever is dear and precious to you in your forsaken palaces.

IV. 4. Come to Beth-el, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, and your tithes after three years.

Go ye up now, O ye foolish Israelites, to your Beth-el, if you please, and sin your fill: go up to Gilgal, and glut yourselves with the full scope of your iniquities: bring those your morning sacrifices, which are due unto God, bring and offer them to your idols; and, that, which the law of God requires of you, for the maintenance of his Levites, viz. to lay aside the tithes every third year for sacred use, do ye that to the priests of your idols. So also verse 5.

IV. 6. And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all

your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

Also, I have desired to reclaim you by afflictions, and therefore have sent want and scarcity amongst you, in all your cities, &c.

IV. 10. I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt.

I have sent unto you a very noisome and deadly pestilence, such a one as I sent upon the land of Egypt.

IV. 11. I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

I have overthrown some of your cities by the fire of the Assyrians, as Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with fire from heaven; and ye of Samaria were left out of the common destruction, as a brand taken out of the fire: yet all this hath not moved you to return unto me, saith the Lord.

IV. 12. Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

Therefore, since thou hast slighted all these judgments and mercies, I am resolved to execute upon thee the severest of all my vengeances; and, since thou hearest I have taken up this determination to proceed against thee, therefore prepare thyself, O Israel, to meet thy God with unfeigned humiliation and repentance.

IV. 13. For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his

name.

For well thou knowest, it is no hoping to resist the power of the Almighty: it is He, that formeth the mountains, and infuseth the spirit into man, and knoweth and declareth the thoughts of man's hearts before he conceives them: it is He, that can cloud the brightest day at pleasure, and can bring down the highest and strongest fortifications upon earth: he is the Lord of Hosts; all things are at his command.

V. 2. The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up. That Israelitish commonwealth, which was as a virgin untouched, is now fallen under the yoke of bondage; and so fallen, as that she shall no more rise: so is she forsaken, as that there is none to raise her up again.

V. 3. The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, &c.

For so few shall be left alive, after the hard and long sieges of the Assyrians, that, in those cities of Israel, whereout a thousand able men had wont to go forth to war, there now shall be left but a hundred, &c.

V. 5. But seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beer-sheba: for &c.

But go not up to the calves of Beth-el, nor to the high places and idolatrous altars of Gilgal and Beer-sheba: for &c.

V. 6. Lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph.

Lest he send the enemy upon you, which, like a consuming fire, shall devour the royal tribe of Ephraim, the posterity of Joseph.

V. 7. Ye who turn judgment to wormwood.

Ye, who corrupt judgment, and make it grievous and hateful to my people.

V. 8. Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name.

Seek ye him, who maketh the great frame of the heaven, and all the glorious stars therein; who turneth the blackest night into a clear morning, and causeth the brightest day to end in a dark night; who causeth the waters of the sea to overswell their banks, and to drown the face of the earth: the Lord is his name.

V. 10. They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

They hate him, that judgeth uprightly, and that doth freely and unpartially rebuke the wicked man upon the bench of justice; and they abhor him, that speaketh justly.

V. 11. Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat; ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them.

Forasmuch therefore as ye do grievously oppress the poor, and extort from him costly gifts; howsoever ye have, by your bribes and exactions, built unto yourselves houses of hewn stone, yet ye shall not dwell in them.

V. 13. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

Therefore, those, that are prudent, when they shall see these foretold calamities to fall upon Israel, shall lay their hands upon their mouths, in an humble silence, and acknowledge the justice of God in these events; for the times shall be very grievous and miserable.

V. 14. Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live.

Wherefore, that ye may avoid these plagues, frame your

selves to all holy and good ways, and avoid those wicked courses of the rest of Israel: so shall ye live.

V. 16. And they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.

And husbandmen shall have their part in the common sorrow, forasmuch as their corn shall be wasted and devoured; and those, whose trade, and practice, is to make common lamentation, shall now mourn in earnest, without a hire.

V. 18. Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light.

Woe to those amongst you, that mock at the tidings of this sad day of the Lord; and scornfully ask, why it doth not come, and when it will come! they shall find that it will come, smally to their comfort: they shall find it is not a day for mirth or pleasure, but for heaviness and sorrow.

V. 19. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

It shall be with you, as with a man, who, flying from a lion, meets in his way with a bear; and, to escape both, flies into a house, and, laying his hand upon the wall, to get over, is bitten by a serpent: so shall you, shunning one danger, fall into another.

V. 23. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; &c. Do not think to please me with the musical harmony of your formal devotions, while I hear and abhor the discordous noise of your sins.

V. 24. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

No; notwithstanding all these your outward services, I will cause my judgments to gush out upon you as waters; and my righteous vengeance, as a mighty stream, shall bear you over.

V. 25. Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

Have ye not whole forty years together, in the wilderness, bewrayed your averseness from me, and your inclination to idolatry? was it to me, that in this while ye offered your sacrifices, Ŏ ye house of Israel? Ó

V. 26. But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chium your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

No; howsoever ye pretended to bear my tabernacle, yet indeed ye did your services and oblations to your god Moloch, and the other images of those planetary gods, whom ye worshipped.

VI. 1. Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in