A Song of the Ascents, by Solomon. If Jehovah doth not build the house, In vain have its builders laboured at it, If Jehovah doth not watch a city, In vain hath a watchman waked.
Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, And the rock of thy strength hast not remembered, Therefore thou plantest plants of pleasantness, And with a strange slip sowest it,
In the day thy plant thou causest to become great, And in the morning thy seed makest to flourish, A heap `is' the harvest in a day of overflowing, And of mortal pain.
They sowed wheat, and have thorns reaped, They have become sick -- they profit not, And they have been ashamed of your increases, Because of the fierceness of the anger of Jehovah.
From that time `one' hath come to a heap of twenty, And it hath been ten, He hath come unto the wine-fat to draw out fifty purahs, And it hath been twenty.
and the anger of Jehovah hath burned against you, and He hath restrained the heavens, and there is no rain, and the ground doth not give her increase, and ye have perished hastily from off the good land which Jehovah is giving to you.
For a fire hath been kindled in Mine anger, And it burneth unto Sheol -- the lowest, And consumeth earth and its increase, And setteth on fire foundations of mountains.