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And they have scornfully and proudly tyrannized over my people, and have cast lots upon them, as some slight commodities for sale or exchange; and have given a boy for the price of their lust, to a harlot; and sold a girl only for a cup of wine, to drink.

III. 4. Yea, and what have you to do with me, O Tyre and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head.

And for you, O ye neighbour nations of Tyre and Zidon, and all the coast of Palestine, what can ye have to plead for yourselves with me? Are ye able to make me amends for the wrongs ye have done me? or do ye think thus to recompense unto me the hard measure, which you may pretend to have received from me? Surely if you think thus to recompense me with injuries to my servants, I shall speedily return unto you the due recompence of your sins, upon your own heads.

III. 10. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

Turn the instruments of your husbandry into weapons of wars; and let those, that are weak and fearful, pull up their spirits, and rouse up their courage.

III. 11. Thy mighty ones.

Thy saints and angels.

III. 12. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.

Let the heathen be stirred up, by my summons, and come together into the valley of judgment, which is in the face of my Church: there will I shew myself a just and unpartial retributor, of all the wrongs of the heathen, round about.

III. 13. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great.

Put ye in execution those judgments, which I have awarded to the enemies of my Church; for the time of my vengeance is now fully come: their wickedness is come to the height.

III. 14. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

Oh, what multitudes, what infinite multitudes of wicked sinners shall then and there be adjudged to torments, in that place of the Great and Last Judgment! for that great day of the Lord is near at hand; the terror whereof shall be unspeakable in that dreadful place of judicature.

III. 15. The sun and th emoon shall be darkened, &c. See chapter ii. 31.

III. 16. The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall

VOL. IV.

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shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

Christ the Lord shall pass a most fearful sentence of judgment from heaven upon the ungodly; which shall be so terrible, that even the heavens and the earth shall shake therewith: but the Lord will be a gracious and merciful Redeemer and Comforter to his chosen ones, in the midst of all those terrors.

III. 17. So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.

So shall ye mine elect know, that I am the Lord your God, who dwell in the highest heaven, figured by Zion in earth: then shall my saints be gathered into that celestial Jerusalem, which is above, into which no unclean thing can or shall enter.

III. 18. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the LORD, and shall water the valley of Shittim.

And it shall come to pass in those last times, wherein the Gospel shall be published, that God shall give plenty of spiritual nourishment unto his Church; so as every part thereof shall abound with effectual help, and means of salvation: and from thence shall flow forth those waters of life, which shall water and refresh the souls of all that pertain to the election of God.

III. 19. Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land.

As for those of Egypt and Edom, and all other the professed enemies of his Church, they shall be confounded and brought to nought; for the violences which they have offered to God's children, and for the innocent blood which they have shed in their cruel persecutions.

III. 20. But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation.

But the elect of God shall dwell for ever in his holy habitation; and, after their translation from the Church militant on earth, shall reign everlastingly in the glory of heaven.

III. 21. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the LORD dwelleth in Zion.

For I will cleanse and purge away the sins of those mine elect, which I had not before done away; and will deliver the chosen of the Gentiles from those iniquities, wherewith they were polluted: which done, and the number of the elect being fully made up, the Lord shall dwell everlastingly with them in his heavenly Zion.

AMOS.

I. 1. The words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

The words of Amos, who was one of the herdmen of Tekoa in the land of Judah, which he received from God, concerning the Ten Tribes of Israel especially; in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, who was noted for his presumption in daring to offer incense in the temple; and in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash king of Israel; two years before that famous earthquake, which fell out in the days of Uzziah.

I. 2. And he said, The LORD will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither.

And he said, The Lord, who hath hitherto kept himself silent, and exercised his patient longsuffering, shall now shew himself terrible to the world: his judgments shall no less affright the people, than the roaring of a lion shall terrify the beasts of the field; so as his drought shall scorch the pastures, and cause the fruitfullest grounds to wither.

I. 3. Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof: because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron:

Thus saith the Lord; For the manifold transgressions of Damascus, I will surely punish that wicked city and people; because they have grievously oppressed Israel, and especially the nearest border thereof, which is Gilead.

I. 4. But I will send a fire into the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Ben-hadad.

But I will send a destruction upon the house of Hazael, the king thereof; which shall not rest in his person, but shall waste and devour the palaces of his son Ben-hadad; and this will I cause to be done by the hands of the king of Assyria.

I. 5. I will break also the bar of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitant from the plain of Aven, and him that holdeth the sceptre from the house of Eden: and the people of Syria shall go into captivity unto Kir, saith the LORD.

By whose power I will break down the forts of Damascus, and cut off the inhabitants of the borders of Syria, and slay Rezin their king from his palace of pleasure; and the people of Syria shall go into captivity, into Kir. As 2 Kings xvi.

I. 6. Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Gaza, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment

thereof: because they carried away captive the whole captivity, to deliver them up to Edom:

For the many and great offences of the Philistines, and particularly of their city Gaza, I will be sure to inflict punishment upon them; because they carried away my people into an absolute and remediless captivity to the Edomites.

I. 7. But I will send a fire on the wall of Gaza.

I will therefore plague them accordingly; for I will send the sword and the fire of the enemy upon all the land of the Philistines, and specially upon the walls of Gaza.

I. 8. And I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon, and I will turn mine hand against Ekron: and the remnant of the Philistines shall perish, saith the Lord GOD.

And I will cut off the inhabitants of all the several cities thereof; and the king of that people will I cut off from his royal palace, and I will set myself against all the strong holds, and shall utterly extinguish the remainder of the Philistines, saith the Lord.

I. 9. And remembered not the brotherly covenant.

And remembered not that friendly league and covenant, that was betwixt Hiram their king, and Solomon.

I. 11. Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof: because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity; and his anger did tear perpetually, and kept his wrath for ever :

Because he hath been ever too forward to pursue the posterity of Jacob, brother to their ancestor Esau, in a hostile fashion, without all pity; and would not admit of any reconciliation, but hath still raged incessantly against those of his own blood:

I. 12. But I will send a fire upon Teman, which shall devour the palaces of Bozrah.

But I will send Nebuchadnezzar into his country, to waste and spoil it; who shall destroy the city and region of Teman, and raze the palaces of Bozrah.

I. 13. Because they have ripped up the women with child of Gilead, that they might enlarge their border.

Because they used extreme cruelty towards Israel, ripping up the women with child; that there might be no posterity left of them, to inherit those parts, which they had now taken in, to enlarge their own borders.

I. 14. But I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah, and it shall devour the palaces thereof, with shouting in the day of battle, with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind.

But I will bring upon them Nebuchadnezzar, who shall invade their country, and set a fire on their chief city Rabbah;

and shall come upon them with great fierceness and fury, like a tempestuous whirlwind, and shall utterly destroy all before him.

II. 1. Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime.

Because he so hated the Israelites, as that when the Edomites joined themselves to the aid of Israel, Moab, for extreme despite thereof, burnt the very bones of the king of Edom's son to ashes, in way of sacrifice to his gods.

II. 2. But I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kirioth: and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of a trumpet.

There I will send Nebuchadnezzar, as a fire upon Moab, which shall utterly destroy the chief city Kirioth; and Moab shall die in much horror, in the midst of the tumults and shrieks of war.

II. 6. Because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes.

For that, upon every base and worthless bribe, they have yielded so far to be corrupted, as to sell justice, and to betray innocence, and to undo the poor and helpless.

II. 7. That pant after the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, and turn aside the way of the meek: and a man and his father will go in unto the same maid, to profane my holy

name:

All their desire is after this unprofitable dust of the earth, silver and gold; which they eagerly affect to gain, even by trampling on the heads of the poor; and those, that are meek spirited, do they tyrannize over, and proudly oppress and so are they given over to their filthy and incestuous lust, as that the father and the son shame not to defile themselves with one and the same strumpet, to the great profanation and dishonour of my Name, which they have professed.

II. 8. And they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge upon every altar, and they drink the wine of the condemned in the house of their God.

In their feasts, which they make to their idols, they lay themselves down upon the carpets, which are laid to pawn for the need of their brethren: wherein their idolatry is not less odious, than their cruelty; for thus do they before every altar; and in the same feasts, they drink that wine, which is bought with the fines and mulcts of those, whom they have unjustly condemned; even in the house of their idols.

II. 9. Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath.

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