5 Hear ye this word which I take up against you,
even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
² The virgin of Israel is fallen;
she shall no more rise:
she is forsaken upon her land;
there is none to raise her up.
³ For thus saith the Lord God;
The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred,
and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten,
to the house of Israel.

⁴ For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel,
Seek ye me, and ye shall live:
⁵ but seek not Beth-el, nor enter into Gilgal,
and pass not to Beer-sheba:
for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity,
and Beth-el shall come to nought.

⁶ Seek the Lord, and ye shall live;
lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it,
and there be none to quench it in Beth-el.
⁷ Ye who turn judgment to wormwood,
and leave off righteousness in the earth,
⁸ seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion,
and turneth the shadow of death into the morning,
and maketh the day dark with night:
that calleth for the waters of the sea,
and poureth them out upon the face of the earth:
The Lord is his name:
⁹ that strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong,
so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

¹⁰ They hate him that rebuketh in the gate,
and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.
¹¹ Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor,
and ye take from him burdens of wheat:
ye have built houses of hewn stone,
but ye shall not dwell in them;
ye have planted pleasant vineyards,
but ye shall not drink wine of them.
¹² For I know your manifold transgressions
and your mighty sins:
they afflict the just, they take a bribe,
and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.
¹³ Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time;
for it is an evil time.

¹⁴ Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live:
and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you,
as ye have spoken.
¹⁵ Hate the evil, and love the good,
and establish judgment in the gate:
it may be that the Lord God of hosts
will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶ Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus;
Wailing shall be in all streets;
and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas!
and they shall call the husbandman to mourning,
and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.
¹⁷ And in all vineyards shall be wailing:
for I will pass through thee, saith the Lord.

¹⁸ Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord!
to what end is it for you?
the day of the Lord is darkness, and not light.
¹⁹ As if a man did flee from a lion,
and a bear met him;
or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall,
and a serpent bit him.
²⁰ Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light?
even very dark, and no brightness in it?

²¹ I hate, I despise your feast days,
and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.
²² Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings,
I will not accept them:
neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.
²³ Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs;
for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.
²⁴ But let judgment run down as waters,
and righteousness as a mighty stream.
²⁵ Have ye offered unto me sacrifices
and offerings in the wilderness forty years,
O house of Israel?
²⁶ But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images,
the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.
²⁷ Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,
saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts.