Page:KJV 1772 Oxford Edition, vol. 2.djvu/40

Apocrypha. Yet they that received it perished, because they kept not the thing that was sown in them.

And, lo, it ls a custom, when the ground hath received seed, or the sea a ship, or any vessel meat or drink, that, that being perished wherein it was sown or cast into,

That thing also which was sown, or cast therein, or received, doth perish, and remaineth not with us: but with us it hath not happened so.

For we that have received the law perish by sin, and our heart also which received it

Notwithstanding the law perisheth not, but remaineth in his force.

And when I spake these things in my heart, I looked back with mine eyes, and upon the right side I saw a woman, and, behold, she mourned and wept with a loud voice, and was much grieved in heart, and her clothes were rent, and she had ashes upon her head.

Then let I my thoughts go that I was in, and turned me unto her,

And said unto her, Wherefore weepest thou? why art thou so grieved in thy mind?

And it so came to pass, that when my son was entered into his wedding chamber, he fell down, and died.

Then we all overthrew the lights, and all my neighbours rose up to comfort me: so I took my rest unto the second day at night.

And it came to pass, when they had all left off to comfort me, to the end I might be quiet; then rose I up by night and fled, and came hither into this field, as thou seest.

And I do now purpose not to return into the city, but here to stay, and neither to eat nor drink, but continually to mourn and to fast until I die.

Then left I the meditations wherein I was, and spake to her in anger, saying,

Thou foolish woman above all other, seest thou not our mourning, and what happeneth unto us?

How that Sion our mother is full of all heaviness, and much humbled, mourning very sore?

And now, seeing we all mourn and are sad, for we are all in heaviness, art thou grieved for one son?

For ask the earth, and she shall tell thee, that it is she which ought to mourn for the fall of so many that grow upon her.

For out of her came all at the first, and out of her shall all others come, and, behold, they walk almost all into destruction, and a multitude of them is utterly rooted out.

Who then should make more mourning than she, that hath lost so great a multitude; and not thou, which art sorry but for one?

But if thou sayest unto me, My lamentation is not like the earth's, because I have lost the fruit of my womb, which I brought forth with pains, and bare with sorrows;

But the earth not so: for the multitude present in it according to the course of the earth is gone, as it came:

Then say I unto thee, Like as thou hast brought forth with labour; even so the earth also hath given her fruit, namely, man, ever since the beginning unto him that made her.

Now therefore keep thy sorrow to thyself, and bear with a good courage that which hath befallen thee.

For if thou shalt acknowledge the determination of God to be just, thou shalt both receive thy son in time, and shalt be commended among women.

Go thy way then into the city to thine husband.

And she said unto me, That will I not