O Lord our God, you answered them. They found you to be a forgiving God, but also one who punished their sinful deeds. ¹ 

The Lover to His Beloved: Oh, ¹  how beautiful you are, my beloved! ²  Oh, how beautiful you are! Your eyes ³  are like doves! ⁴ 

Your lips are like a scarlet thread; ¹  your mouth is lovely. Your forehead ²  behind your veil is like a slice of pomegranate.

His eyes are like doves by streams of water, washed in milk, mounted like jewels.

Certainly ¹  caraway seed is not threshed with a sledge, nor is the wheel of a cart rolled over cumin seed. ²  Certainly caraway seed is beaten with a stick, and cumin seed with a flail.

Therefore the Lord who rules over all says, ¹  “I will now purify them in the fires of affliction ²  and test them. The wickedness of my dear people ³  has left me no choice. What else can I do? ⁴ 

Set the empty pot on the coals, ¹  until it becomes hot and its copper glows, until its uncleanness melts within it and its rot ²  is consumed.

And ¹  in that you saw iron mixed with wet clay, so people will be mixed ²  with one another ³  without adhering to one another, just as ⁴  iron does not mix with clay.

They lie around on beds decorated with ivory, ¹  and sprawl out on their couches. They eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the middle of the pen.

Nineveh ¹  is taken into exile ²  and is led away; ³  her slave girls moan ⁴  like doves ⁵  while they beat ⁶  their breasts. ⁷ 

On that day the Lord their God will deliver them as the flock of his people, for they are the precious stones of a crown sparkling over his land.

“Learn this parable from the fig tree: Whenever its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.

when people lie about us, we answer in a friendly manner. We are the world’s dirt and scum, even now.

You have lived indulgently and luxuriously on the earth. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. ¹ 

save ¹  others by snatching them out of the fire; have mercy ²  on others, coupled with a fear of God, ³  hating even the clothes stained ⁴  by the flesh. ⁵ 

Let my lord go on ahead of his servant. I will travel more slowly, at the pace of the herds and the children, ¹  until I come to my lord at Seir.”

Likewise, the most ¹  tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, ²  will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters,

I discovered this: ¹  More bitter than death is the kind of ²  woman ³  who is like a hunter’s snare; ⁴  her heart is like a hunter’s net and her hands are like prison chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is captured by her.

“Speak kindly to ¹  Jerusalem, ²  and tell her that her time of warfare is over, ³  that her punishment is completed. ⁴  For the Lord has made her pay double ⁵  for all her sins.”

To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot; ¹  he then seeks a skilled craftsman to make ²  an idol that will not fall over.