I also could speak as you do: if your soul were in my soul’s place, I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you.
Ecclesiastes 4:1 - King James 2000 So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. Tuilleadh leaganachaKing James Version (Oxford) 1769 So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. Amplified Bible - Classic Edition THEN I returned and considered all the oppressions that are practiced under the sun: And I beheld the tears of the oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they [too] had no comforter. American Standard Version (1901) Then I returned and saw all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and, behold, the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. Common English Bible When I next observed all the oppressions that take place under the sun, I saw the tears of the oppressed—and they have no one to comfort them. Their oppressors wield power—but they have no one to comfort them. Catholic Public Domain Version I turned myself to other things, and I saw the false accusations which are carried out under the sun, and the tears of the innocent, and that there was no one to console them; and that they were not able to withstand their violence, being destitute of all help. Douay-Rheims version of The Bible - 1752 version I turned myself to other things, and I saw the oppressions that are done under the sun, and the tears of the innocent, and they had no comforter; and they were not able to resist their violence, being destitute of help from any. |
I also could speak as you do: if your soul were in my soul’s place, I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you.
Because of the multitude of oppressions they make the oppressed to cry: they cry out because of the arm of the mighty.
Return, I pray you, let it not be injustice; yea, return again, my righteousness is in it.
The earth is given into the hand of the wicked: he covers the faces of its judges; if not he, who then is it?
For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, says the LORD; I will set him in safety from him that sneers at him.
I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would acknowledge me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.
I cried unto you, O LORD: I said, you are my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.
My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is your God?
I will say unto God my rock, Why have you forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
Reproach has broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.
They gave me also gall for my food; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
You feed them with the bread of tears; and give them tears to drink in great measure.
And he said, When you serve as a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then you shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.
And Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, Every son that is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.
All the brethren of the poor do hate him: how much more do his friends go far from him? he pursues them with words, yet they are nothing to him.
A poor man that oppresses the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaves no food.
When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked bears rule, the people mourn.
And moreover I saw under the sun the place of justice, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.
If you see the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of justice and righteousness in a province, marvel not at the matter: for the high official is watched by a higher one ; and there are yet higher ones over them.
Surely oppression makes a wise man mad; and a bribe destroys the heart.
All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: there is a time in which one man rules over another to his own hurt.
For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for justice, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.
But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict you; who have said to your soul, Bow down, that we may go over: and you have laid your body like the ground, and as the street, for them that pass over.
Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.
Neither shall men break bread for those in mourning, to comfort them for the dead; neither shall men give them the cup of consolation to drink for their father or for their mother.
For these things I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water, because the comforter that should relieve my soul is far from me: my children are desolate, because the enemy prevailed.
Zion spreads forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her: the LORD has commanded concerning Jacob, that his adversaries should be round about him: Jerusalem is as an unclean thing among them.
She weeps bitterly in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she has none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies.
Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembers not her latter end; therefore she came down awesomely: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy has magnified himself.
For they know not to do right, says the LORD, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.
Publish in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the great tumults in its midst, and the oppressed in its midst.
And this have you done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, because he regards not the offering any more, or receives it with good will at your hand.
Then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not.
And I will come near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the sojourner from his right, and fear not me, says the LORD of hosts.
But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.
The fruit of your land, and all your labors, shall a nation which you know not eat up; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually:
Therefore shall you serve your enemies which the LORD shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon your neck, until he has destroyed you.
Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, cries: and the cries of them who have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts.
And the children of Israel cried unto the LORD: for he had nine hundred chariots of iron; and for twenty years he mightily oppressed the children of Israel.