Go, and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: Thus saith the Lord: I have remembered thee, pitying thy youth and the love of thy espousals, when thou followedst me in the desert, in a land that is not sown.
Stand now with thy enchanters and with the multitude of thy sorceries, in which thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be it may profit thee any thing, or if thou mayst become stronger.
A gradual canticle. Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it.
Pharao therefore charged all his people, saying: Whatsoever shall be born of the male sex, ye shall cast into the river: whatsoever of the female, ye shall save alive.
And they committed fornication in Egypt: in their youth they committed fornication. There were their breasts pressed down, and the teats of their virginity were bruised.
Ghimel. Juda hath removed her dwelling-place because of her affliction and the greatness of her bondage: she hath dwelt among the nations and she hath found no rest: all her persecutors have taken her in the midst of straits.
And I will give her vinedressers out of the same place, and the valley of Achor for an opening of hope: and she shall sing there according to the days of her youth, and according to the days of her coming up out of the land of Egypt.
Now there was no smith to be found in all the land of Israel; for the Philistines had taken this precaution, lest the Hebrews should make them swords or spears.