The Pillars of Three Faiths: Tanakh, Bible & Qu'ran. Various Authors

the land of trouble and anguish,From whence come the lioness and the lion,The viper and flying serpent,They carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses,And their treasures upon the humps of camels,To a people that shall not profit them.⁷For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose;Therefore have I called her arrogancy that sitteth still.⁸Now go, write it before them on a tablet,And inscribe it in a book,That it may be for the time to comeFor ever and ever.⁹For it is a rebellious people,Lying children,Children that refuse to hear the teaching of the Lord;¹⁰That say to the seers: 'See not',And to the prophets: 'Prophesy not unto us right things,Speak unto us smooth things, prophesy delusions;¹¹Get you out of the way,Turn aside out of the path,Cause the Holy One of IsraelTo cease from before us.'¹²Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel:Because ye despise this word,And trust in oppression and perverseness,And stay thereon;¹³Therefore this iniquity shall be to youAs a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall,Whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.¹⁴And He shall break it as a potter's vessel is broken,Breaking it in pieces without sparing;So that there shall not be found among the pieces thereof a sherdTo take fire from the hearth,Or to take water out of the cistern. ¹⁵For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:In sitting still and rest shall ye be saved,In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength;And ye would not.¹⁶But ye said: 'No, for we will flee upon horses';Therefore shall ye flee;And: 'We will ride upon the swift';Therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.¹⁷One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one,At the rebuke of five shall ye flee;Till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain,And as an ensign on a hill.¹⁸And therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you,And therefore will He be exalted, that He may have compassion upon you;For the Lord is a God of justice,Happy are all they that wait for Him. ¹⁹For, O people that dwellest in Zion at Jerusalem,Thou shalt weep no more;He will surely be gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry,When He shall hear, He will answer thee.²⁰And though the Lord give you sparing bread and scant water,Yet shall not thy Teacher hide Himself any more,But thine eyes shall see thy Teacher;²¹And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying:'This is the way, walk ye in it,When ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.'²²And ye shall defile thy graven images overlaid with silver,And thy molten images covered with gold;Thou shalt put them far away as one unclean;Thou shalt say unto it: 'Get thee hence.'²³And He will give the rain for thy seed, wherewith thou sowest the ground,And bread of the increase of the ground, and it shall be fat and plenteous;In that day shall thy cattle feed in large pastures.²⁴The oxen likewise and the young asses that till the groundShall eat savoury provender,Which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan.²⁵And there shall be upon every lofty mountain, and upon every high hillStreams and watercourses,In the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall.²⁶Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun,And the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of the seven days,In the day that the Lord bindeth up the bruise of His people,And healeth the stroke of their wound. ²⁷Behold, the name of the Lord cometh from far,With His anger burning, and in thick uplifting of smoke;His lips are full of indignation,And His tongue is as a devouring fire;²⁸And His breath is as an overflowing stream,That divideth even unto the neck,To sift the nations with the sieve of destruction;And a bridle that causeth to err shall be in the jaws of the peoples.²⁹Ye shall have a songAs in the night when a feast is hallowed;And gladness of heart, as when one goeth with the pipeTo come into the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel.³⁰And the Lord will cause His glorious voice to be heard,And will show the lighting down of His arm,With furious anger, and the flame of a devouring fire,With a bursting of clouds, and a storm of rain, and hailstones.³¹For through the voice of the Lord shall Asshur be dismayed,The rod with which He smote.³²And in every place where the appointed staff shall pass,Which the Lord shall lay upon him,It shall be with tabrets and harps;And in battles of wielding will He fight with them.³³For a hearth is ordered of old;Yea, for the king it is prepared,Deep and large;The pile thereof is fire and much wood;The breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it. 31Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help,And rely on horses,And trust in chariots, because they are many,And in horsemen, because they are exceeding mighty;But they look not unto the Holy One of Israel,Neither seek the Lord!²Yet He also is wise,And bringeth evil,And doth not call back His words;But will arise against the house of the evil-doers,And against the help of them that work iniquity.³Now the Egyptians are men, and not God,And their horses flesh, and not spirit;So when the Lord shall stretch out His hand,Both he that helpeth shall stumble, and he that is helped shall fall,And they all shall perish together. ⁴For thus saith the Lord unto me:Like as the lion, or the young lion, growling over his prey,Though a multitude of shepherds be called forth against him,Will not be dismayed at their voice,Nor abase himself for the noise of them;So will the Lord of hosts come downTo fight upon mount Zion, and upon the hill thereof.⁵As birds hovering,So will the Lord of hosts protect Jerusalem;He will deliver it as He protecteth it,He will rescue it as He passeth over.⁶Turn ye unto HimAgainst whom ye have deeply rebelled, O children of Israel.⁷For in that day they shall cast awayEvery man his idols of silver, and his idols of gold,Which your own hands have made unto you for a sin.⁸Then shall Asshur fall with the sword, not of man,And the sword, not of men, shall devour him;And he shall flee from the sword,And his young men shall become tributary.⁹And his rock shall pass away by reason of terror,And his princes shall be dismayed at the ensign,Saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion,And His furnace in Jerusalem. 32 Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness,And as for princes, they shall rule in justice.²And a man shall be as in a hiding-place from the wind,And a covert from the tempest;As by the watercourses in a dry place,As in the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.³And the eyes of them that see shall not be closed,And the ears of them that hear shall attend.⁴The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge,And the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly.⁵The vile person shall be no more called liberal,Nor the churl said to be noble.⁶For the vile person will speak villainy,And his heart will work iniquity,To practise ungodliness, and to utter wickedness against the Lord,To make empty the soul of the hungry,And to cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.⁷The instruments also of the churl are evil;He deviseth wicked devicesTo destroy the poor with lying words,And the needy when he speaketh right.⁸But the liberal deviseth liberal things;And by liberal things shall he stand. ⁹Rise up, ye women that are at ease, and hear my voice;Ye confident daughters, give ear unto my speech.¹⁰After a year and days shall ye be troubled, ye confident women;For the vintage shall fail, the ingathering shall not come.¹¹Tremble, ye women that are at ease;Be troubled, ye confident ones;Strip you, and make you bare,And gird sackcloth upon your loins,¹²Smiting upon the breastsFor the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine;¹³For the land of my peopleWhereon thorns and briers come up;Yea, for all the houses of joyAnd the joyous city.¹⁴For the palace shall be forsaken;The city with its stir shall be deserted;The mound and the tower shall be for dens for ever,A joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks;¹⁵Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high,And the wilderness become a fruitful field,And the fruitful field be counted for a forest.¹⁶Then justice shall dwell in the wilderness,And righteousness shall abide in the fruitful field.¹⁷And the work of righteousness shall be peace;And the effect of righteousness quietness and confidence for ever.¹⁸And my people shall abide in a peaceable habitation,And in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting-places.¹⁹And it shall hail, in the downfall of the forest;But the city shall descend into the valley.²⁰Happy are ye that sow beside all waters,That send forth freely the feet of the ox and the ass. 33Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled;And dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee!When thou hast ceased to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled;And when thou art weary with dealing treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee. ²O Lord, be gracious unto us;We have waited for Thee;Be Thou their arm every morning,Our salvation also in the time of trouble.³At the noise of the tumult the peoples are fled;At the lifting up of Thyself the nations are scattered.⁴And your spoil is gathered as the caterpillar gathereth;As locusts leap do they leap upon it.⁵The Lord is exalted, for He dwelleth on high;He hath filled Zion with justice and righteousness.⁶And