“If there is famine in the land, if there is pestilence, if there be blight or mildew, locust or caterpillar, if their enemy should besiege them in the land of their cities, whatever plague or sickness,
“When there is famine in the land, when there is pestilence, blight, mildew, locust or grasshopper, when their enemies besiege them in the land by their gates, whatever plague or sickness may come,
Behold, Adonai is strong and mighty, like a hailstorm, a destructive tempest, like a downpour of overflowing water, He hurls it down to earth with His hand.
Their inhabitants are weak handed, shattered and ashamed. They are like the grass of the field and green herb, like grass on roofs, scorched before it is grown up.
So He poured out on him the fury of His anger, and the fierceness of battle. it blazed all around him, yet he did not understand it. it burned him, yet he did not take it to heart.
Adonai has sworn by His right hand and by His strong arm: “Surely I will never again give your grain as food for your enemies, nor will foreigners drink your new wine, for which you have labored.
Adonai, do Your eyes not look for faithfulness? You struck them, but they did not grieve. You disciplined them, but they refused correction. They made their faces harder than stone. They refused to return.
“So also, I myself have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities and lack of bread in all your places— yet you have not returned to Me,” declares Adonai.
For I have called for drought on the land, the hills and the grain, on the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on mankind and beast, as well as all labor of hands.”
You sowed much but bring in little. You eat but are never satisfied. You drink but not enough to get filled. You put on clothes but no one is warm. And whoever earns wages works for a bag full of holes.”
“You have looked for much, but indeed, there is little. What you have brought home, I have blown away. Why is this?”—it is a declaration of Adonai-Tzva’ot—“because My House lies in ruins, while you are running, each to his own house.
how were things? When one came to a grain-heap of twenty measures, there were ten; when one came to the wine vat to draw fifty measures, there were twenty.
I will rebuke the devouring pest for you, so it will not destroy the fruit of your land, nor will your vine be barren in the field,” Adonai-Tzva’ot says.