My woe [is] to me, for I have been As gatherings of summer-fruit, As gleanings of harvest, There is no cluster to eat, The first-ripe fruit desired hath my soul.
And left in him have been gleanings, As the compassing of an olive, Two — three berries on the top of a branch, Four — five on the fruitful boughs, The affirmation of Jehovah, God of Israel!
From the skirt of the earth we heard songs, The desire of the righteous. And I say, ‘Leanness [is] to me, Leanness [is] to me, woe [is] to me.’ Treacherous dealers dealt treacherously, Yea, treachery, treacherous dealers dealt treacherously.
And the fading flower of the beauty of his glory That [is] on the head of the fat valley, Hath been as its first-fruit before summer, That its beholder seeth, While it [is] yet in his hand he swalloweth it.
And I say, ‘Woe to me, for I have been silent, For a man — unclean of lips [am] I, And in midst of a people unclean of lips I am dwelling, Because the King, Jehovah of Hosts, have my eyes seen.’
Woe to me, my mother, For thou hast borne me a man of strife, And a man of contention to all the land, I have not lent on usury, Nor have they lent on usury to me — All of them are reviling me.
For a voice as of a sick woman I have heard, Distress, as of one bringing forth a first-born, The voice of the daughter of Zion, She bewaileth herself, she spreadeth out her hands, ‘Woe to me now, for weary is my soul of slayers!’
Go to and fro in streets of Jerusalem, And see, I pray you, and know, And seek in her broad places, if ye find a man, If there be one doing judgment, seeking stedfastness — Then am I propitious to her.
As grapes in a wilderness I found Israel, As the first-fruit in a fig-tree, at its beginning, I have seen your fathers, They — they have gone in [to] Baal-Peor, And are separated to a shameful thing, And are become abominable like their love.