Three Things . . . Four Things
21The earth shudders at three things,
At four which it cannot bear:
22A slave who becomes king;
A scoundrel sated with food;
23A loathsome woman who gets married;
A slave-girl who supplants her mistress.
24Four are among the tiniest on earth,
Yet they are the wisest of the wise:
25Ants are a folk without power,
Yet they prepare food for themselves in summer;
26The badger is a folk without strength,
Yet it makes its home in the rock;
27The locusts have no king,
Yet they all march forth in formation;
28You can catch the lizarda in your hand,
Yet it is found in royal palaces.
Notes
Or “spider.”
Credits
Reprinted from Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures by permission of the University of Nebraska Press. Copyright 1985 by the Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 1.
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