May his children ¹  be fatherless, and his wife a widow!

The Lover to His Beloved: Like ¹  a lily among the thorns, ²  so is my darling among the maidens.

My people will sow wheat, but will harvest weeds. ¹  They will work until they are exhausted, but will get nothing from it. They will be disappointed in their harvests ²  because the Lord will take them away in his fierce anger. ³ 

The ¹  seed sown among thorns is the person who hears the word, but worldly cares and the seductiveness of wealth ²  choke the word, ³  so it produces nothing.

because the person who sows to his own flesh ¹  will reap corruption ²  from the flesh, ³  but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat the grain ¹  of the field.

The one who sows ¹  iniquity will reap trouble, and the rod of his fury ²  will end.

With bow and arrow ¹  men will hunt ²  there, for the whole land will be covered ³  with thorns and briers.

Your chosen ¹  cities have become a desert; Zion has become a desert, Jerusalem ²  is a desolate ruin.

The desolate land will be plowed, instead of being desolate in the sight of everyone who passes by.

Others are the ones sown among thorns: They are those who hear the word,

But if it produces thorns and thistles, it is useless and about to be cursed; ¹  its fate is to be burned.

Therefore, as surely as I live,” says the Lord who commands armies, the God of Israel, “be certain that Moab will become like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah. They will be overrun by weeds, ¹  filled with salt pits, ²  and permanently desolate. Those of my people who are left ³  will plunder their belongings; ⁴  those who are left in Judah ⁵  will take possession of their land.”

I will not drive them out before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild animals ¹  multiply against you.

He will not escape the darkness; ¹  a flame will wither his shoots and he will depart by the breath of God’s mouth. ² 

Yes, ¹  the Lord has this to say to the people of Judah and Jerusalem: “Like a farmer breaking up hard unplowed ground, you must break your rebellious will and make a new beginning; just as a farmer must clear away thorns lest the seed is wasted, you must get rid of the sin that is ruining your lives. ² 

Pack your bags for exile, you inhabitants of poor dear Egypt. ¹  For Memphis will be laid waste. It will lie in ruins ²  and be uninhabited.

But Babylonia will be put to great shame. The land where you were born ¹  will be disgraced. Indeed, ²  Babylonia will become the least important of all nations. It will become a dry and barren desert.

He said, ‘An enemy has done this.’ So ¹  the slaves replied, ‘Do you want us to go and gather them?’

and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels.