This is what the Lord says: “For three sins of Judah, even for four, I will not relent. Because they have rejected the law of the Lord and have not kept his decrees, because they have been led astray by false gods, the gods their ancestors followed,

They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name.

They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines.

“Hear this and testify against the descendants of Jacob,” declares the Lord, the Lord God Almighty.

Israel Has Not Returned to God

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, “Bring us some drinks!”

“Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel, and because I will do this to you, Israel, prepare to meet your God.”

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.

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.

You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god— which you made for yourselves.

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.”

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.”

Those who swear by the sin of Samaria— who say, ‘As surely as your god lives, Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the god of Beersheba lives’— they will fall, never to rise again.”

I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,” says the Lord your God.