The inhabitants of Samaria have worshipped the king of Bethaven: for the people thereof have mourned over it, and the wardens of its temple that rejoiced over it in its glory because it is departed from it.
For behold, the days shall come, wherein they will say: Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the paps that have not given suck.
Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of the children of Ammon, and for four I will not convert him: because he hath ripped up the women with child of Galaad to enlarge his border.
If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, and attain to a great age, and his soul make no use of the goods of his substance, and he be without burial: of this man I pronounce, that the untimely born is better than he.
His beauty as of the firstling of a bullock, his horns as the horns of a rhinoceros: with them shall he push the nations even to the ends of the earth. These are the multitudes of Ephraim; and these the thousands of Manasses.
And the filth of the afterbirths, that come forth from between her thighs, and the children that are born the same hour. For they shall eat them secretly for the want of all things, in the siege and distress, wherewith thy enemy shall oppress thee within thy gates.
And aid shall cease from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus: and the remnant of Syria shall be as the glory of the children of Israel, saith the Lord of hosts.