⁴ “Go ahead and offer sacrifices to the idols at Bethel.
    Keep on disobeying at Gilgal.
Offer sacrifices each morning,
    and bring your tithes every three days.
⁵ Present your bread made with yeast
    as an offering of thanksgiving.
Then give your extra voluntary offerings
    so you can brag about it everywhere!
This is the kind of thing you Israelites love to do,”
    says the Sovereign Lord.

⁶ “I brought hunger to every city
    and famine to every town.
But still you would not return to me,”
    says the Lord.

⁷ “I kept the rain from falling
    when your crops needed it the most.
I sent rain on one town
    but withheld it from another.
Rain fell on one field,
    while another field withered away.
⁸ People staggered from town to town looking for water,
    but there was never enough.
But still you would not return to me,”
    says the Lord.

⁹ “I struck your farms and vineyards with blight and mildew.
    Locusts devoured all your fig and olive trees.
But still you would not return to me,”
    says the Lord.

¹⁵ Blow the ram’s horn in Jerusalem!
    Announce a time of fasting;
call the people together
    for a solemn meeting.
¹⁶ Gather all the people—
    the elders, the children, and even the babies.
Call the bridegroom from his quarters
    and the bride from her private room.
¹⁷ Let the priests, who minister in the Lord’s presence,
    stand and weep between the entry room to the Temple and the altar.
Let them pray, “Spare your people, Lord!
    Don’t let your special possession become an object of mockery.
Don’t let them become a joke for unbelieving foreigners who say,
    ‘Has the God of Israel left them?’”

¹³ Dress yourselves in burlap and weep, you priests!
    Wail, you who serve before the altar!
Come, spend the night in burlap,
    you ministers of my God.
For there is no grain or wine
    to offer at the Temple of your God.
¹⁴ Announce a time of fasting;
    call the people together for a solemn meeting.
Bring the leaders
    and all the people of the land
into the Temple of the Lord your God,
    and cry out to him there.
¹⁵ The day of the Lord is near,
    the day when destruction comes from the Almighty.
    How terrible that day will be!

¹⁶ Our food disappears before our very eyes.
    No joyful celebrations are held in the house of our God.
¹⁷ The seeds die in the parched ground,
    and the grain crops fail.
The barns stand empty,
    and granaries are abandoned.
¹⁸ How the animals moan with hunger!
    The herds of cattle wander about confused,
because they have no pasture.
    The flocks of sheep and goats bleat in misery.

¹⁹ Lord, help us!
The fire has consumed the wilderness pastures,
    and flames have burned up all the trees.
²⁰ Even the wild animals cry out to you
    because the streams have dried up,
    and fire has consumed the wilderness pastures.

¹⁵ Then I will return to my place
    until they admit their guilt and turn to me.
For as soon as trouble comes,
    they will earnestly search for me.”