And the LORD said, Doest thou well to be angry? Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the LORD God prepared a gourd, and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his evil case. So Jonah was exceeding glad because of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd, that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well to be angry even unto death. And the LORD said: Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night and should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city; wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

128

ii.

MICAH

i. A Discourse of Judgment and Salvation The LORD'S Controversy before the Mountains The LORD'S Cry and the Man of Wisdom

iii.

i

A Discourse of Judgment and Salvation

I

Hear, ye peoples, all of you; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord GOD be witness among you, the Lord from his holy temple. For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, as waters that are poured down a steep place. For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem? Therefore I will make Samaria as an heap of the field, and as the plantings of a vineyard: and I will pour down the stones thereof into the valley, and I will discover the foundations thereof. And all her graven images shall be beaten to pieces, and all her hires shall be burned with fire, and all her idols will I lay desolate: for of the hire of an harlot hath she gathered them, and unto the hire of an harlot shall they return.

2

For this will I wail and howl;

I will go stripped and naked:

I will make a wailing like the jackals,
And a mourning like the ostriches.

For her wounds are incurable:

For it is come even unto Judah;

It reacheth to the gate of my people,
Even to Jerusalem.

Tell it not in Gath:

Weep not at all;

At Beth-le-Aphrah roll thyself in the dust;

Pass ye away, O inhabitant of Shaphir, in nakedness

and shame.

The inhabitant of Zaanan is not come forth;

The wailing of Beth-ezel shall take from you the stay thereof;

For the inhabitant of Maroth waiteth anxiously for

good:

Because evil is come down from the LORD unto the

gate of Jerusalem.

Bind the chariot to the 'swift steed,' O inhabitant of 'Lachish':

She was the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion,
For the transgressions of Israel were found in thee.