Then I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the witnesses to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly astonished.
He answered me, ‘The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is extremely great; the land is full of bloodshed, and the city full of perversity. For they say, “The Lord has abandoned the land; he does not see.”
Violence will never again be heard of in your land; devastation and destruction will be gone from your borders. You will call your walls Salvation and your city gates Praise.
Then Herod, when he realised that he had been outwitted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men.
My heart cries out over Moab, whose fugitives flee as far as Zoar, to Eglath-shelishiyah; they go up the Ascent of Luhith weeping; they raise a cry of destruction on the road to Horonaim.
For a fool speaks foolishness and his mind plots iniquity. He lives in a godless way and speaks falsely about the Lord. He leaves the hungry empty and deprives the thirsty of drink.
Let the wicked one abandon his way and the sinful one his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, so that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will freely forgive.
So I will choose their punishment, and I will bring on them what they dread because I called and no one answered; I spoke and they did not listen; they did what was evil in my sight and chose what I did not delight in.
Faithful people have vanished from the land; there is no one upright among the people. All of them wait in ambush to shed blood; they hunt each other with a net.