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1Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel:[#Jr 7:29; 9:10,17; Ezk 19:1]
2She has fallen;
Virgin Israel will never rise again.
She lies abandoned on her land,
with no one to raise her up.
3For the Lord God says:
The city that marches out a thousand strong
will have only a hundred left,
and the one that marches out a hundred strong
will have only ten left in the house of Israel.
4For the Lord says to the house of Israel:
Seek Me and live!
5Do not seek Bethel[#1Kg 12:28-29]
or go to Gilgal
or journey to Beer-sheba,
for Gilgal will certainly go into exile,
and Bethel will come to nothing.
6Seek Yahweh and live,[#Is 55:3,6-7]
or He will spread like fire
throughout the house of Joseph;
it will consume everything,
with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.
7Those who turn justice into wormwood[#Am 6:12]
throw righteousness to the ground.
8The One who made the Pleiades and Orion,[#Jb 9:9; 38:31]
who turns darkness into dawn
and darkens day into night,
who summons the waters of the sea
and pours them out over the face of the earth —
Yahweh is His name.
9He brings destruction on the strong,[#Hb obscure; #Or stronghold; #Is 29:5]
and it falls on the stronghold.
10They hate the one who convicts the guilty[#Is 29:21]
at the city gate
and despise the one who speaks with integrity.
11Therefore, because you trample on the poor[#Am 3:9; 8:6; Jms 1:27]
and exact a grain tax from him,
you will never live in the houses of cut stone
you have built;
you will never drink the wine
from the lush vineyards
you have planted.
12For I know your crimes are many
and your sins innumerable.
They oppress the righteous, take a bribe,
and deprive the poor of justice at the gates.
13Therefore, the wise person will keep silent[#Or the prudent will perish; #Ec 3:7; Hs 4:4]
at such a time,
for the days are evil.
14Seek good and not evil
so that you may live,
and the Lord , the God of Hosts,
will be with you,
as you have claimed.
15Hate evil and love good;[#Rm 12:9]
establish justice in the gate.
Perhaps the Lord , the God of Hosts, will be gracious
to the remnant of Joseph.
16Therefore Yahweh, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says:
There will be wailing in all the public squares;
they will cry out in anguish in all the streets.
The farmer will be called on to mourn,
and professional mourners to wail.
17There will be wailing in all the vineyards,[#Is 16:10; Jr 48:33]
for I will pass among you.
The Lord has spoken.
18Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord ![#Is 5:19; Jl 1:15; 2:1,11,31]
What will the Day of the Lord be for you?
It will be darkness and not light.
19It will be like a man who flees from a lion[#Jb 20:24; Is 24:17; Jr 15:2-3]
only to have a bear confront him.
He goes home and rests his hand against the wall
only to have a snake bite him.
20Won’t the Day of the Lord
be darkness rather than light,
even gloom without any brightness in it?
21I hate, I despise your feasts![#Is 1:11-16; 66:3; Am 6:8]
I can’t stand the stench
of your solemn assemblies.
22Even if you offer Me
your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
I will have no regard
for your fellowship offerings of fattened cattle.
23Take away from Me the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24But let justice flow like water,
and righteousness, like an unfailing stream.
25“House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to Me during the 40 years in the wilderness?[#Dt 32:17; Jos 24:14; Neh 9:18-21; Ac 7:42-43]
26But you have taken up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, images you have made for yourselves.[#Or you will lift up; #LXX, Sym, Syr, Vg read the tent ; Ac 7:43; #Probably a Mesopotamian war god also called Adar or Ninurta; #LXX reads up the tent of Molech and Rephan ; Ac 7:43; #Probably a Mesopotamian god identified with Saturn; #Is 44:12-20]
27So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus.” Yahweh, the God of Hosts, is His name. He has spoken.[#2Kg 17:5-6; Ac 7:42-43; #Am 4:13]