The judgments with which God threatens Moab, Juda, and Israel for their
sins, and their ingratitude.
2:1. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Moab, and for four I will
not convert him: because he hath burnt the bones of the king of Edom
even to ashes.
2:2. And I will send a fire into Moab, and it shall devour the houses
of Carioth: and Moab shall die with a noise, with the sound of the
trumpet:
2:3. And I will cut off the judge from the midst thereof, and will slay
all his princes with him, saith the Lord.
2:4. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Juda, and for four I will
not convert him: because he hath cast away the law of the Lord, and
hath not kept his commandments: for their idols have caused them to
err, after which their fathers have walked.
2:5. And I will send a fire into Juda, and it shall devour the houses
of Jerusalem.
2:6. Thus saith the Lord: For three crimes of Israel, and for four I
will not convert him: because he hath sold the just man for silver, and
the poor man for a pair of shoes.
2:7. They bruise the heads of the poor upon the dust of the earth, and
turn aside the way of the humble: and the son and his father have gone
to the same young woman, to profane my holy name.
2:8. And they sat down upon garments laid to pledge by every altar: and
drank the wine of the condemned in the house of their God.
2:9. Yet I cast out the Amorrhite before their face: whose height was
like the height of cedars, and who was strong as an oak: and I
destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots beneath.
2:10. It is I that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and I led
you forty years through the wilderness, that you might possess the land
of the Amorrhite.
2:11. And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men
for Nazarites. Is it not so, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord?
2:12. And you will present wine to the Nazarites: and command the
prophets, saying: Prophesy not.
2:13. Behold, I will screak under you as a wain screaketh that is laden
with hay.
I will screak. . .Unable to bear any longer the enormous load of your
sins, etc. The spirit of God, as St. Jerome takes notice, accommodates
himself to the education of the prophet and inspires him with
comparisons taken from country affairs.
2:14. And flight shall perish from the swift, and the valiant shall not
possess his strength, neither shall the strong save his life.
2:15. And he that holdeth the bow shall not stand, and the swift of
foot shall not escape, neither shall the rider of the horse save his
life.
2:16. And the stout of heart among the valiant shall flee away naked in
that day, saith the Lord.