_For ...[396] treacherous, An arrogant fellow, and is not ...[397] Who opens his desire wide as Sheol; He is like death, unsatisfied; And hath swept to himself all the nations, And gathered to him all peoples. Shall not these, all of them, take up a proverb upon him, And a taunt-song against him? and say:—_
FIRST TAUNT-SONG (ii. 6_b_-8).
_Woe unto him who multiplies what is not his own, —How long?— And loads him with debts![398] Shall not thy creditors[399] rise up, And thy troublers awake, And thou be for spoil[400] to them? Because thou hast spoiled many nations, All the rest of the peoples shall spoil thee. For men’s blood, and earth’s waste, Cities and all their inhabitants._[401]
SECOND TAUNT-SONG (ii. 9-11).
_Woe unto him that gains evil gain for his house,[402] To set high his nest, to save him from the grasp of calamity! Thou hast planned shame for thy house; Thou hast cut off[403] many people, While forfeiting thine own life.[404] For the stone shall cry out from the wall, And the lath[405] from the timber answer it._
THIRD TAUNT-SONG (ii. 12-14).
_Woe unto him that builds a city in blood,[406] And stablishes a town in iniquity![407] Lo, is it not from Jehovah of hosts, That the nations shall toil for smoke,[408] And the peoples wear themselves out for nought? But earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of Jehovah,[409] Like the waters that cover the sea._
FOURTH TAUNT-SONG (ii. 15-17).
_Woe unto him that gives his neighbour to drink, From the cup of his wrath[410] till he be drunken, That he may gloat on his[411] nakedness! Thou art sated with shame—not with glory; Drink also thou, and stagger.[412] Comes round to thee the cup of Jehovah’s right hand, And foul shame[413] on thy glory. For the violence to Lebānon shall cover thee, The destruction of the beasts shall affray thee.[414] For men’s blood, and earth’s waste, Cities and all their inhabitants.[415]_
FIFTH TAUNT-SONG (ii. 18-20).
_What boots an image, when its artist has graven it, A cast-image and lie-oracle, that its moulder has trusted upon it, Making dumb idols? Woe to him that saith to a block, Awake! To a dumb stone, Arise! Can it teach? Lo, it ...[416] with gold and silver; There is no breath at all in the heart of it. But Jehovah is in His Holy Temple: Silence before Him, all the earth!_