[A song of ascents. Of Solomon.] Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain that build it: unless the LORD keeps the city, the watchman wakes, but in vain.
Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not been mindful of the rock of your strength, therefore shall you plant pleasant plants, and shall set it with imported seedlings:
In the day shall you make your plant to grow, and in the morning shall you make your seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap of ruins in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing, and in vain: yet surely my due justice is with the LORD, and my recompense with my God.
They have sown wheat, but shall reap thorns: they have put themselves to pain, but shall not profit: and they shall be ashamed of your harvest because of the fierce anger of the LORD.
Since those days were, when one came to a heap of twenty measures, there were but ten: when one came to the winepress to draw out fifty vessels out of the press, there were but twenty.
And then the LORD'S wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and lest you perish quickly from off the good land which the LORD gives you.
For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with its increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.