ould catch!
Like a cage that is full of birds, 27
Their houses are filled with deceit,(236)
And so they wax wealthy and great-- 28
They are fat, they are sleek!--
Overflowing with things of evil(?),
They defend not the right,
The right of the orphan to prosper,
Nor justice judge for the needy.(237)
Shall I not visit on these, 29
Rede of the Lord,
Nor on a people like this
Myself be avenged?(238)
Appalling and ghastly it is 30
That has come to pass in the land:
The prophets prophesy lies, 31
The priests bear rule at their hand,
And My people--they love so to have it;
But what will ye do in the end?

6. In the Sixth Song on the Scythians, VI. 1-5, which also is given
without introduction, Jerusalem is threatened--even Jerusalem to which in
the previous songs the country-folk had been bidden to fly for shelter--and
the foes are described in the attempt to rush her, as they rushed Askalon
according to Herodotus. That they are represented as faltering and no
success is predicted for them, and also that they are called _shepherds_,
are signs that it is the Scythians, though still nameless, who are meant
in verses 3-5. The next three verses, separately introduced, point rather
to a Chaldean invasion by their picture of besiegers throwing up a mound
against the walls, and may therefore be one of the additions to his
earlier Oracles made by the Prophet, when in 604 the enemy from the North
was clearly seen to be Nebuchadrezzar, with the siege-trains familiar to
us from the Assyrian and Babylonian monuments; upon which are represented
just such a hewing of timber and heaping of mounds against a city's walls.

Pack off, O Benjamin's sons, VI. 1
Out of Jerusalem!
Strike up the trump in Tekoa,(239)
O'er Beth-hakkerem lift up the signal!
For evil glowers out of the North,
And ruin immense.
O the charming (?) the pampered height(240) 2
Of the daughter of Sion!
Unto her shepherds are coming, 3
With their flocks around,(241)
They pitch against her their tents,
Each crops at his hand.
"Hallow(242) the battle against her,
Up, let us on by noon."
"Woe unto us! The day is turning, 4
The shadows of evening stretch."
"Up then and on by night, 5
That we ruin her palaces!"
For thus said the Lord of Hosts: 6
Hew down her(243) tre