Thus will this latter, as the former world,

Still tend from bad to worse; till God at last,

Wearied with their iniquities, withdraw

His presence from among them, and avert

His holy eyes; resolving from thenceforth

To leave them to their own polluted ways;

And one peculiar nation to select

From all the rest, of whom to be invoked,

A nation from one faithful man to spring:

Him on this side Euphrates yet residing,

Bred up in idol-worship: O, that men

(Canst thou believe?) should be so stupid grown,

While yet the patriarch lived, who ’scaped the flood,

As to forsake the living God, and fall

To worship their own work in wood and stone

For Gods! Yet him God the Most High vouchsafes

To call by vision, from his father’s house,

His kindred, and false Gods, into a land

Which he will show him; and from him will raise

A mighty nation; and upon him shower

His benediction so, that in his seed

All nations shall be blest: he straight obeys;

Not knowing to what land, yet firm believes:

I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith

He leaves his Gods, his friends, and native soil,

Ur of Chaldaea, passing now the ford

To Haran; after him a cumbrous train

Of herds and flocks, and numerous servitude;

Not wandering poor, but trusting all his wealth

With God, who called him, in a land unknown.

Canaan he now attains; I see his tents

Pitched about Sechem, and the neighbouring plain

Of Moreh; there by promise he receives

Gift to his progeny of all that land,

From Hameth northward to the Desart south;

(Things by their names I call, though yet unnamed;)

From Hermon east to the great western Sea;

Mount Hermon, yonder sea; each place behold

In prospect, as I point them; on the shore

Mount Carmel; here, the double-founted stream,

Jordan, true limit eastward; but his sons

Shall dwell to Senir, that long ridge of hills.

This ponder, that all nations of the earth

Shall in his seed be blessed: By that seed

Is meant thy great Deliverer, who shall bruise

The Serpent’s head; whereof to thee anon

Plainlier shall be revealed. This patriarch blest,

Whom faithful Abraham due time shall call,

A son, and of his son a grand-child, leaves;

Like him in faith, in wisdom, and renown:

The grandchild, with twelve sons increased, departs

From Canaan to a land hereafter called

Egypt, divided by the river Nile

See where it flows, disgorging at seven mouths

Into the sea. To sojourn in that land

He comes, invited by a younger son

In time of dearth, a son whose worthy deeds

Raise him to be the second in that realm

Of Pharaoh. There he dies, and leaves his race

Growing into a nation, and now grown

Suspected to a sequent king, who seeks

To stop their overgrowth, as inmate guests

Too numerous; whence of guests he makes them slaves

Inhospitably, and kills their infant males: