Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

The graces of the Church.

CHAP. V. VI.

5 Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.

6 Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frank

incense.

7 Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

8 Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards.

9 Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck.

io How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!

11 Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honey-comb; honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

12 A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

13 Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard.

14 Spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices:

15 A fountain of gardens, a well of living

waters, and streams from Lebanon.

16 Awake, O north wind; and come,

thou south; blow upon my garden, that

the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits.

CHAP. V.

1 Christ awaketh the Church with his Calling. 2 The Church, having a Taste of Christ's Love, is sick of Love. 9 A Description of Christ by his Graces.

AM come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice: I have eaten my honey-comb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved."

2 I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night.

3 I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?

4 My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him.

5 I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh, upon

the handles of the lock.

6 I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake; I sought him,

A description of Christ. but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.

7 The watchmen that went about the city found me. they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my vail from me.

8 I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.

9 What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women ? what is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?

10 My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand.

11 His head is as the most fine gold; his locks are bushy, and black as a raven:

12 His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set:

13 His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers; his lips like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh:

14 His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl; his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires:

15 His legs are as pillars of marble set upon sockets of fine gold; his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars :

16 His mouth is most sweet; yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

[ocr errors]

CHAP. VI.

The Church professeth her Faith in Christ. 4 Christ sheweth the Graces of the Church, 10 and his Love toward her.

fairest among women? whither is thy beloved turned aside, that we may seek him with thee?

THITHER is thy beloved gone, O thou

2 My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies

3 I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.

4 Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah; comely as Jerusalem; terrible as an army with banners.

5 Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me: thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead:

6 Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep, which go up from the washing, whereof every one beareth twins, and there is not one barren among them.

7 As a piece of a pomegranate are thy temples within thy locks.

8 There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number.

9 My dove, my undefiled, is but one: she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her: the daughters saw her, and blessed hier; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.

10 Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with bạnners?

11 I went down into the garden of nuts, to see the fruits of the valley, and to see

The graces of the church.

SOLOMON's SONG. whether the vine flourished, and the pomegranates budded.

12 Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Ammi-nadib.

13 Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies.

[blocks in formation]

4 Thy neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fish-pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim; thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon, which looketh toward Damascus :

5 Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, and the hair of thine head like purple: the King is held in the galleries.

6 How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!

7 This thy stature is like to a palm-tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.

8 I said, I will go up to the palin-tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof; now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples:

9 And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak.

10 I am my beloved's, and his desire is

toward me.

11 Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field; let us lodge in the villages.

12 Let us get up early to the vineyards; jet us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth there will I give thee my loves.

13 The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.

The church's love to Christ. CHAP. VIII.

1 The Love of the Church to Christ. 6 The Vehemency of Love. 8 The Calling of the Gentiles. 14 The Church prayeth for

Christ's Coming.

[ocr errors]

that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yet I should not be despised.

2 I would lead thee, and bring thee into me: I would cause thee to drink of spiced my mother's house, who would instruct wine of the juice of my pomegranate.

3 His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me.

41 charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please.

5 (Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness leaning upon her beloved?) I raised thee up under the apple-tree: there thy mother brought thee forth; there she brought thee forth that bare thee.

6 Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.

8 We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?

'9 If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of silver: and if she be a door, we will inclose her with boards of cedar.

10 I am a wall, and my breasts like towers then was I in his eyes as one that found favour.

11 Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-hamon; he let out the vineyard unto keepers : every one for the fruit thereof was to bring a thousand pieces of silver.

12 My vineyard, which is mine, is before me: thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand, and those that keep the fruit thereof two hundred.

13 Thou that dwellest in the gardens, the companions hearken to thy voice: cause me to hear it.

14 Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe, or to a young hart, upon the mountains of spices.

The Book of the Prophet ISAIAH.

CHAP. I.

1 Isaiah's Complaint of Judah: 10 He upbraideth their Service, 16 and exhorteth them to Repentance, with promises and threatenings.

HE Isaiah the of

The vision of concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

2 Hear, O heavens; and give ear, O earth; for the LORD hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me:

3 The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.

4 Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children that are corrupters! they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.

5 Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.

6 From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

7 Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

8 And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.

9 Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.

10 Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah:

11 To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.

12 When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand to tread my courts?

13 Bring no more vain oblations: incense is an abomination unto me; the new icons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with: it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

14 Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto I them.

to me am weary to bear tour hands

I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear: your hands are full of bloo 1,

16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;

17 Learn to do well: seek judgment, relieve the oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for the widow.

18 Come now, and let us reason together,

saith the LORD. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:

20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

21 How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.

22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:

23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards; they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.

24 Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies:

25 And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:

26 And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, The faithful city.

27 Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.

28 And the destruction of the transgressors and of the sinners shall be together, and they that forsake the LORD shall be consumed.

29 For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have

chosen.

30 For ye shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water.

31 And the strong shall be as tow, and the maker of it as a spark, and they shall both burn together, and none shall quench them.

CHAP. II.

1 Isaiah prophesieth the Coming of Christ's Kingdom. 6 Wickedness is the Cause of God's forsaking. 10 He exhorteth to fear, because of the powerful Effects of God's Majesty.

HE word that Isaiah son of Amoz

Taw concerning Judah and Jerusalem

2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of

Christ's peaceable kingdom.

ISAIAH, the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of

Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall reburke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shalt not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any

more.

5 O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

6 Therefore thou hast forsaken thy people, the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the east, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.

7 Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures; their land is also full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots:

8 Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.

9 And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself: therefore forgive them not.

10 Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty.

11 The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down; and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.

12 For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be upon every one that is proud and lofty, and upon every one that is lifted up, and he shall be brought low.

13 And upon all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan.

14 And upon all the high mountains, and upon all the hills that are lifted up, 15 And upon every high tower, and upon every fenced wall,

16 And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.

17 And the loftiness of man shall be howed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low; and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.

18 And the idols he shall utterly abolish. 19 And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.

20 In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles, and to the bats;

21 To go into the clefts of the rocks, and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the

earth.

22 Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?

The calamities coming upon Judah.

CHAP. III.

1 The great Confusion which cometh by Sin. 9 The Impudence of the People. 12 The Oppression and Covetousness of the Rulers. 16 The Judgments which shall be for the Pride of the Women.

FOR, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem, and from Judah, the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,

2 The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,

3 The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.

4 And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.

5 And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.

6 When a man shall take hold of his brother, of the house of his father, saying, Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand:

7 In that day shall he swear, saying, I will not be an healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing: make me not a ruler of the people.

8 For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen; because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

9 The shew of their countenance doth witness against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not: woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.

10 Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.

11 Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him; for the reward of his hands shall be given him.

12 As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.

13 The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people.

14 The LORD will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard: the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

15 What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the Lord GoD of hosts.

16 Moreover, the LORD saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks, and wanton eyes, walking, and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:

17 Therefore the LORD will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the LORD will discover their secret parts.

18 In that day the LORD will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like the moon,

for their pride, &c.

CHAP. IV. V. 19 The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers,

20 The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the head-bands, and the tablets, and the ear-rings,

21 The rings, and nose-jewels,

22 The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins,

23 The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vaiis.

24 And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell, there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle, a rent; and instead of weli-set hair, baldness; and instead of a stomacher, a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.

25 Thy men shall fall by the sword, and thy mighty in the war.

26 And her gates shall lament and mourn and she, being desolate, shall sit upon the ground.

[blocks in formation]

AND in that day seven women shall

take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel; only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

2 In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel.

3 And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem:

4 When the LORD shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof, by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

5 And the LORD will create upon every dwelling-place of mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night for upon all the glory shall be a defence.

6 And there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the day-time from the heat, and for a place of refuge, and for a covert from storm and from rain.

CHAP. V.

A Under the Type of a Vineyard God excuseth his severe Judgments: 8 His Judgments upon Covetousness, 11 upon Lasciviousness, 19 upon Impiety, 20 and upon Injustice. 26 The Executioners of God's Judgments. Now

JOW will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

2 And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine-press therein and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild

[blocks in formation]

God's judgments upon sinners. and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, be twixt me and my vineyard.

4 What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

5 And now, go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up: and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down.

6 And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judal his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

8 Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no

place, that they may be placed alone in the

midst of the earth!

9 In mine ears, said the LORD of hosts,

of a truth, many houses shall be desolate,

even great and fair, without inhabitant.

10 Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of an homer shall yield an ephah.

11 Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!

12 And the harp and the viol, the tabret and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the LORD, neither consider the operation of his hands.

13 Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.

14 Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.

15 And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled:

16 But the LORD of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God, that is holy, shall be sanctified in righteousness.

17 Then shall the lambs feed after their manner, and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat.

18 Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart-rope!

19 That say, Let him make speed, and hasten his work, that we may see it and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come, that we may know it!

20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

22 Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:

23 Which justify the wicked for reward,

« AnteriorContinuar »