6 Hear what the Lord is saying:
Arise, lay out the lawsuit before the mountains;
        let the hills hear your voice!
² Hear, mountains, the lawsuit of the Lord!
        Hear, eternal foundations of the earth!
The Lord has a lawsuit against his people;
        with Israel he will argue.
³ “My people, what did I ever do to you?
        How have I wearied you? Answer me!
⁴ I brought you up out of the land of Egypt;
        I redeemed you from the house of slavery.
        I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam before you.
⁵ My people, remember what Moab’s King Balak had planned,
        and how Balaam, Beor’s son, answered him!
        Remember everything^[a] from Shittim to Gilgal,
        that you might learn to recognize the righteous acts of the Lord!”

⁶ With what should I approach the Lord
        and bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings,
        with year-old calves?
⁷ Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
        with many torrents of oil?
Should I give my oldest child for my crime;
        the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?
⁸ He has told you, human one, what is good and
        what the Lord requires from you:
            to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.

⁹ The voice of the Lord calls out to the city;
        wisdom appears when one fears your name.^[b]
        Hear, tribe, and who appointed her!^[c]
10 Are the treasures of wickedness still in the house of wickedness,
        while the shorted basket^[d] is denounced?^[e]
11 Can I approve wicked scales and a bag of false weights
¹²     in a city^[f] whose wealthy are full of violence
        and whose inhabitants speak falsehood
            with lying tongues in their mouths?
¹³ So I have made you sick by striking you!
        I have struck you because of your sins.
¹⁴ You devour, but you aren’t satisfied;
        a gnawing emptiness is within you.
    You put something aside,
        but you don’t keep it safe.
        That which you do try to keep safe,
            I will give to the sword.
¹⁵ You sow, but you don’t gather.
    You tread down olives, but you don’t anoint with oil;
        you tread grapes, but don’t drink wine.
¹⁶ Yet you^[g] have kept the policies of Omri,
        all the practices of the house of Ahab;
    you have followed their counsels.
    Therefore, I will make you a sign of destruction,
            your^[h] inhabitants an object of hissing!
You must bear the reproach of my people.