You will each go straight out through breaches in the wall, and you will be cast out toward Harmon,” declares the Lord.

Burn leavened bread as a thank offering and brag about your freewill offerings— boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do,” declares the Sovereign Lord.

“I gave you empty stomachs in every city and lack of bread in every town, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

People staggered from town to town for water but did not get enough to drink, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

“Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards, destroying them with blight and mildew. Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

“I sent plagues among you as I did to Egypt. I killed your young men with the sword, along with your captured horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

“I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord.

He who forms the mountains, who creates the wind, and who reveals his thoughts to mankind, who turns dawn to darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth— the Lord God Almighty is his name.

This is what the Sovereign Lord says to Israel: “Your city that marches out a thousand strong will have only a hundred left; your town that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left.”

This is what the Lord says to Israel: “Seek me and live;

Seek the Lord and live, or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire; it will devour them, and Bethel will have no one to quench it.

He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns midnight into dawn and darkens day into night, who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out over the face of the land— the Lord is his name.

Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is.

Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the courts. Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the remnant of Joseph.

Therefore this is what the Lord, the Lord God Almighty, says: “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail.

There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the Lord.

The Day of the Lord

Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light.

Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light— pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?

Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is God Almighty.

The Lord Abhors the Pride of Israel

The Sovereign Lord has sworn by himself—the Lord God Almighty declares: “I abhor the pride of Jacob and detest his fortresses; I will deliver up the city and everything in it.”

And if the relative who comes to carry the bodies out of the house to burn them asks anyone who might be hiding there, “Is anyone else with you?” and he says, “No,” then he will go on to say, “Hush! We must not mention the name of the Lord.”

For the Lord has given the command, and he will smash the great house into pieces and the small house into bits.

For the Lord God Almighty declares, “I will stir up a nation against you, Israel, that will oppress you all the way from Lebo Hamath to the valley of the Arabah.”

Locusts, Fire and a Plumb Line

This is what the Sovereign Lord showed me: He was preparing swarms of locusts after the king’s share had been harvested and just as the late crops were coming up.

When they had stripped the land clean, I cried out, “Sovereign Lord, forgive! How can Jacob survive? He is so small!”