for before the child knows to cry ‘My father’ and ‘My mother,’ the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Shomeron is taken away before the sovereign of Ashshur.”
Yet, before they were born or had done any good or evil – in order that the purpose of Elohim, according to choice, might stand, not of works but of Him who calls –
And the sovereign of Ashshur listened to him. And the sovereign of Ashshur went up against Dammeseq and captured it, and exiled it to Qir, and he killed Retsin.
‘And your little ones and your children, who you say are for a prey, who today have no knowledge of good and evil, they are going in there. And to them I give it, and they are to possess it.
and the fading flower of its splendid comeliness that is on the head of the fertile valley, like the first fruit before the summer, which, when one sees it, he eats it up while it is still in his hand.