The light in his tent grows dark; his lamp above him is extinguished. ¹ 

“Who is this ¹  who darkens counsel ²  with words without knowledge?

May their eyes be blinded! ¹  Make them shake violently! ² 

He made it dark; ¹  they did not disobey his orders. ² 

Let its morning stars ¹  be darkened; let it wait ²  for daylight but find none, ³  nor let it see the first rays ⁴  of dawn,

even the darkness is not too dark for you to see, ¹  and the night is as bright as ²  day; darkness and light are the same to you. ³ 

before the sun and the light ¹  of the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds disappear ²  after the rain;

Because of this, our hearts are sick; ¹  because of these things, we can hardly see ²  through our tears. ³ 

when those who keep watch over the house ¹  begin to tremble, ²  and the virile men begin to stoop over, ³  and the grinders ⁴  begin to cease because they grow few, and those who look through the windows grow dim, ⁵ 

At that time ¹  they will growl over their prey, ²  it will sound like sea waves crashing against rocks. ³  One will look out over the land and see the darkness of disaster, clouds will turn the light into darkness. ⁴ 

Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations no longer give out their light; ¹  the sun is darkened as soon as it rises, and the moon does not shine. ² 

Show the Lord your God the respect that is due him. ¹  Do it before he brings the darkness of disaster. ²  Do it before you stumble ³  into distress like a traveler on the mountains at twilight. ⁴  Do it before he turns the light of deliverance you hope for into the darkness and gloom of exile. ⁵ 

ח (Khet) Now their appearance ¹  is darker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it is dried up, like tree bark.

In Tahpanhes the day will be dark ¹  when I break the yoke of Egypt there. Her confident pride will cease within her; a cloud will cover her, and her daughters will go into captivity.

(But there is one who made the constellations Pleiades and Orion; he can turn the darkness into morning and daylight ¹  into night. He summons the water of the seas and pours it out on the earth’s surface. The Lord is his name!

In that day,” says the sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun set at noon, and make the earth dark in the middle of the day. ¹ 

Therefore night will fall, and you will receive no visions; ¹  it will grow dark, and you will no longer be able to read the omens. ²  The sun will set on these prophets, and the daylight will turn to darkness over their heads. ³ 

They covered ¹  the surface ²  of all the ground, so that the ground became dark with them, ³  and they ate all the vegetation of the ground and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Nothing green remained on the trees or on anything that grew in the fields throughout the whole land of Egypt.