18. Your covenant with death will be annulled;your agreement with the realm of the dead will not stand.When the overwhelming scourge sweeps by,you will be beaten down by it.
19. As often as it comes it will carry you away;morning after morning, by day and by night,it will sweep through.’The understanding of this messagewill bring sheer terror.
20. The bed is too short to stretch out on,the blanket too narrow to wrap around you.
21. The Lord will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim,he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon –to do his work, his strange work,and perform his task, his alien task.
22. Now stop your mocking,or your chains will become heavier;the Lord, the Lord Almighty, has told meof the destruction decreed against the whole land.
23. Listen and hear my voice;pay attention and hear what I say.
24. When a farmer ploughs for planting, does he plough continually?Does he keep on breaking up and working the soil?
25. When he has levelled the surface,does he not sow caraway and scatter cummin?Does he not plant wheat in its place,barley in its plot,and spelt in its field?
26. His God instructs himand teaches him the right way.
27. Caraway is not threshed with a sledge,nor is the cartwheel rolled over cummin;caraway is beaten out with a rod,and cummin with a stick.
28. Grain must be ground to make bread;so one does not go on threshing it for ever.The wheels of a threshing-cart may be rolled over it,but one does not use horses to grind grain.
29. All this also comes from the Lord Almighty,whose plan is wonderful,whose wisdom is magnificent.