¹Hear this word that I take up against you

in lament, house of Isra’el:

²The virgin of Isra’el has fallen;

she will not rise again.

She lies abandoned on her own soil

with no one to lift her up.

³For thus says Adonai Elohim :

“The city from which a thousand marched

will be left with a hundred,

and the one from which a hundred marched

will be left with ten

from the house of Isra’el.”

⁴For here is what Adonai says

to the house of Isra’el:

“If you seek me, you will survive;

⁵but don’t seek Beit-El, or enter Gilgal

or pass on into Be’er-Sheva;

for Gilgal will certainly go into exile,

and Beit-El will come to nothing.”

⁶If you seek Adonai , you will survive.

Otherwise, he will break out against

the house of Yosef like fire,

devouring Beit-El,

with no one to quench the flames.

⁷You who turn justice to bitter wormwood

and throw righteousness to the ground!

⁸He who made the Pleiades and Orion,

who brings deathlike shadows over the morning,

who darkens the day into night,

who calls for the water in the sea

and with it floods the earth —

Adonai is his name —

⁹he flashes destruction on the strong,

so that destruction overcomes the fortress.

¹⁰They hate anyone promoting justice

at the city gate,

they detest anyone who speaks the truth.

¹¹Therefore, because you trample on the poor

and extort from them levies of grain;

although you have built houses of cut stone,

you will not live in them;

and though you have planted pleasant vineyards,

you will not drink their wine.

¹²For I know how numerous are your crimes

and how outrageous your sins —

bullying the innocent, extorting ransoms

pushing the poor aside at the gate.

¹³At times like these a prudent person stays silent,

for it is an evil time.

¹⁴Seek good and not evil, so that you will survive.

Then Adonai Elohei -Tzva’ot will be with you,

as you say he is.

¹⁵Hate evil, love good, and uphold justice at the gate.

Maybe Adonai Elohei -Tzva’ot

will take pity on the survivors of Yosef.

¹⁶Therefore thus says Adonai Elohei -Tzva’ot , Adonai :

“In all public squares there will be lamentation,

in all the streets they will cry, ‘Oh, no!’

They will summon farmers to mourn

and professional mourners to wail.

¹⁷There will be wailing in every vineyard,

for I will pass through among you,” says Adonai .

¹⁸Woe to you who want the Day of Adonai !

Why do you want it, this Day of Adonai ?

It is darkness, not light;

¹⁹as if someone were to run from a lion,

just to be met by a bear;

as if he entered a house, put his hand on the wall,

just to be bitten by a snake.

²⁰Won’t the Day of Adonai be darkness, not light,

completely dark, with no brightness at all?

²¹“I hate, I utterly loathe your festivals;

I take no pleasure in your solemn assemblies.

²²If you offer me burnt offerings and grain offerings,

I will not accept them;

nor will I consider the peace offerings

of your stall-fed cattle.

²³Spare me the noise of your songs!

I don’t want to hear the strumming of your lutes!

²⁴Instead, let justice well up like water,

and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

²⁵Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings

in the desert forty years, house of Isra’el?

²⁶No, but now you will bear Sikkut as your king

and Kiyun, your images,

the star of your god, which you made for yourselves;

²⁷as I exile you beyond Dammesek,”

says Adonai Elohei -Tzva’ot —

that is his name.