The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond: it is engraved upon the tablet of their heart, and upon the horns of your altars;
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George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
The. Grabe (de Vit. p. 8.) observes that the four first verses were omitted in the Septuagint by some careless transcriber, long before the days of Origen, who restored them from the Hebrew and the other Greek versions. On such occasions his work was very useful; but the marks being soon neglected, great confusion ensued. (St. Jerome) (Kennicott, Dis. ii.)
Grabe has restored these verses in his edition. (Haydock)
Eusebius (Dem. x.) and Theodoret acknowledged them; and Nobilius found the first verse thus expressed in many copies, (Calmet) as it is in Grabe: "The sin of Juda is expressed in writing with a finger nail of adamant, cleaving to the breast of "(Haydock)
Altars, to appear more conspicuously to the latest times. This excited God's indignation. (Calmet)
These figurative expressions show the inveterate malice of the people. (Worthington)