11th December

¹ Lo, mine eye hath seen all this, mine ear hath heard and understood it.² What ye know, the same do I know also: I am not inferior unto you.³ Surely I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.⁴ But ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value.⁵ O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom.⁶ Hear now my reasoning, and hearken to the pleadings of my lips.⁷ Will ye speak wickedly for God? and talk deceitfully for him?⁸ Will ye accept his person? will ye contend for God?⁹ Is it good that he should search you out? or as one man mocketh another, do ye so mock him?¹⁰ He will surely reprove you, if ye do secretly accept persons.¹¹ Shall not his excellency make you afraid? and his dread fall upon you?¹² Your remembrances are like unto ashes, your bodies to bodies of clay.¹³ Hold your peace, let me alone, that I may speak, and let come on me what will.¹⁴ Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in mine hand?¹⁵ Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.¹⁶ He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him.¹⁷ Hear diligently my speech, and my declaration with your ears.¹⁸ Behold now, I have ordered my cause; I know that I shall be justified.¹⁹ Who is he that will plead with me? for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost.²⁰ Only do not two things unto me: then will I not hide myself from thee.²¹ Withdraw thine hand far from me: and let not thy dread make me afraid.²² Then call thou, and I will answer: or let me speak, and answer thou me.²³ How many are mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin.²⁴ Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy?²⁵ Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro? and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?²⁶ For thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.²⁷ Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.²⁸ And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.

¹ Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not;² The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots.³ The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:⁴ Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.⁵ Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts; and I will discover thy skirts upon thy face, and I will shew the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame.⁶ And I will cast abominable filth upon thee, and make thee vile, and will set thee as a gazingstock.⁷ And it shall come to pass, that all they that look upon thee shall flee from thee, and say, Nineveh is laid waste: who will bemoan her? whence shall I seek comforters for thee?⁸ Art thou better than populous No, that was situate among the rivers, that had the waters round about it, whose rampart was the sea, and her wall was from the sea?⁹ Ethiopia and Egypt were her strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers.¹⁰ Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honourable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.¹¹ Thou also shalt be drunken: thou shalt be hid, thou also shalt seek strength because of the enemy.¹² All thy strong holds shall be like fig trees with the firstripe figs: if they be shaken, they shall even fall into the mouth of the eater.¹³ Behold, thy people in the midst of thee are women: the gates of thy land shall be set wide open unto thine enemies: the fire shall devour thy bars.¹⁴ Draw thee waters for the siege, fortify thy strong holds: go into clay, and tread the morter, make strong the brickkiln.¹⁵ There shall the fire devour thee; the sword shall cut thee off, it shall eat thee up like the cankerworm: make thyself many as the cankerworm, make thyself many as the locusts.¹⁶ Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth, and fleeth away.¹⁷ Thy crowned are as the locusts, and thy captains as the great grasshoppers, which camp in the hedges in the cold day, but when the sun ariseth they flee away, and their place is not known where they are.¹⁸ Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria: thy nobles shall dwell in the dust: thy people is scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them.¹⁹ There is no healing of thy bruise; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee shall clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?

¹ Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,² Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,⁴ To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,⁵ Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.⁶ Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:⁷ That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:⁸ Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:⁹ Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.¹⁰ Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:¹¹ Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.¹² Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.¹³ Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;¹⁴ As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:¹⁵ But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation;¹⁶ Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.¹⁷ And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear:¹⁸ Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;¹⁹ But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:²⁰ Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,²¹ Who by him do believe in God, that raised him up from the dead, and gave him glory; that your faith and hope might be in God.²² Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:²³ Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.²⁴ For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:²⁵ But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.