Woe is me! For I am Like the fruit pickers, like the grape gatherers. There is not a cluster of grapes to eat, Or a first-ripe fig which my soul desires.
Yet gleanings will remain in it like the shaking of an olive tree, Two or three olives on the topmost branch, Four or five on the twigs of a fruitful tree, Declares Yahweh, the God of Israel.
From the ends of the earth we hear songs, “Glory to the Righteous One,” But I say, “I waste away! I waste away! Woe is me! The treacherous deal treacherously, And the treacherous deal very treacherously.”
And the fading flower of its glorious beauty, Which is at the head of the fertile valley, Will be like the first-ripe fig prior to summer, Which one sees, And as soon as it is in his hand, He swallows it.
Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, Yahweh of hosts.”
¶Woe to me, my mother, that you have borne me As a man of strife and a man of contention to all the land! I have not lent, nor have men lent money to me, Yet everyone curses me.
For I heard a sound as of a woman in labor pains, The distress as of one giving birth to her first child, The sound of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath, Stretching out her hands, saying, “Ah, woe is me, for my soul faints before murderers.”
“Roam to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, And see now and know, And seek in her open squares, If you can find a man, If there is one who does justice, who seeks faithfulness, Then I will pardon her.
¶I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season. But they came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to shame, And they became as detestable as that which they loved.