Beginning

¹ Alas for those who are at ease in Zion,
    and for those who feel secure on the mount of Samaria,
the leaders of the most important of the nations
    to whom the people of Israel have recourse.
² Cross over to Calneh^[a] and see;
    travel on from there to Hamath the great,
    and then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are you better than these kingdoms?
    Is your territory greater than theirs?
³ You put aside all thoughts of the evil day
    and thereby hasten the reign of violence.
⁴ Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory
    and lounge on their couches.
They feast on lambs from the flock
    and stall-fattened calves.
⁵ They improvise on the music of the harp,
    and, like David, they invent musical instruments.
⁶ They drink wine by the bowlful
    and anoint themselves with the finest oils,
    but they feel no grief over the ruin of Joseph.
⁷ Therefore, they will now be the first to go into exile,
    and their wanton revelry will come to an end.

⁸ The Lord God has sworn by himself.
    Thus say I, the Lord, the God of hosts:
I abhor the pride of Jacob
    and hate his palaces,
I shall deliver up the city
    and all that is in it.
⁹ If ten men are left in a single house,
    they will die.
¹⁰ Only a few will be left
    to carry out the dead from the house.
If someone calls to a man inside the house,
    “Are there any more there?”
    and he answers, “No,”
then he will say, “Hush,”
    for the name of the Lord must not be mentioned.
¹¹ At the Lord’s command,
    the great house will be shattered to bits,
    and the small houses will be reduced to rubble.
¹² Can horses gallop over rocks?
    Can one plow the sea with oxen?
Yet you have turned justice into poison
    and the fruit of justice into venom—
¹³ you who rejoice in Lodebar,^[b]
    who say, “Have we not, by our own strength,
    seized Karnaim for ourselves?”
¹⁴ Beware, O house of Israel,
    for I am raising up against you a nation,
    says the Lord, the God of hosts,
and that nation shall oppress you
    from Lebo of Hamath even to the Wadi Arabah.

Lord God, forgive, I beg you.
    Jacob is so small;
    how can he survive?

Lord God, cease, I beg you.
    Jacob is so small;
    how can he survive?

Behold, I am setting a plumb line
    in the midst of my people Israel;
    never again will I forgive their offenses.
⁹ The high places of Isaac shall be laid waste,
    and the sanctuaries of Israel will be left desolate;
with sword in hand
    I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.

“ ‘Jeroboam will die by the sword,
    and the Israelites will be taken into captivity,
    far away from their native land.’ ”

“ ‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the city,
    and your sons and daughters will fall by the sword.
Your land will be parceled out by a measuring line;
    you yourself will die in a pagan country,
and Israel will be deported in captivity
    far from its native land.’ ”

The time is ripe for my people Israel;
    I will never again pardon their offenses.
³ The songs of the temple shall become wailings on that day;
    there will be corpses strewn everywhere.
    Be silent! Thus says the Lord God.

⁴ Hear this, you who crush the needy
    and trample upon the poor of the land.
⁵ “When will the new moon be over,” you ask,
    “so that we may sell our grain,
and the Sabbath,
    so that we may market our wheat?
Then we can make the bushel measure smaller
    and increase the shekel-weight
    by adjusting the scales fraudulently.
⁶ We can buy the poor man for silver
    and the needy for a pair of sandals;
    we can even sell the refuse of the wheat.”
⁷ The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
    Never will I forget any of their deeds.
⁸ Will not the land tremble because of this?
    Will not everyone mourn who dwells in it?
The whole earth will rise like the Nile,
    swelling and then subsiding
    like the River of Egypt.

⁹ On that day, says the Lord God,
    I will make the sun go down at noon
    and darken the earth in broad daylight.
¹⁰ I will turn your feasts into mourning,
    and all your songs into lamentation.
I will make you cover your loins with sackcloth
    and shave your heads.
I will make it like mourning for an only son
    and the end of it like a bitter day.^[e]
11 The days are surely coming, says the Lord God,
    when I will send a famine upon the land,
not a hunger for bread or a thirst for water,
    but for hearing the word of the Lord.
¹² People will stagger from sea to sea
    and wander from north to east,
in search of the word of the Lord,
    but they will not find it.
¹³ On that day, fair maidens and young men
    will faint from thirst.
¹⁴ Those who swear by the shameful idol of Samaria
    and say, “As your god lives, O Dan,”
and, “By the sacred path to Beer-sheba,”
    will all fall and never rise again.^[f]

Strike the tops of the pillars until the thresholds shake,
    and bring them down on the heads of all the people.
Should any survive,
    I will slay them with the sword.
Not one will be able to flee;
    not one will escape.
² Even should they dig down to the netherworld,
    from there my hand will take them.
Even though they climb up to heaven,
    I will bring them down.
³ Should they hide themselves on the summit of Carmel,
    there I will track them down and take them.
Should they hide from my sight at the bottom of the sea,
    I will command the serpent there to bite them.
⁴ If they are led by their enemies into captivity,
    there I shall command the sword to slay them.
I will fix my eyes on them
    for evil, and not for good.

⁵ The Lord, the God of hosts,
    touches the earth and it melts
    so that all who live on it mourn,
while the entire earth rises up like the Nile^[g]
    and then subsides like the River of Egypt.
⁶ He builds his upper chambers in the heavens
    and establishes his vault of the sky over the earth—
    the Lord is his name.

Are you not like the Ethiopians to me,
    O people of Israel?
Did I not bring Israel up from the land of Egypt,
    and the Philistines from Caphtor,
    and the Arameans from Kir?
⁸ Behold, I, the Lord God,
    have my eyes upon this sinful kingdom,
    and I will destroy it from the face of the earth.

However, I will not completely destroy the house of Jacob,
    says the Lord.
⁹ For I will give the command
    and shake out the house of Israel
    from among all the nations,
as one sifts with a sieve
    without one pebble falling to the ground.
¹⁰ All the sinners among my people shall die by the sword,
    those who say, “Evil will not approach or overtake us.”
¹¹ On that day I shall raise up
    the fallen hut of David.
I will repair the gaps in its walls,
    restore its ruins,
    and rebuild it as in the days of old,
¹² so that Israel may possess the remnant of Edom
    and of all the nations that bear my name;
    I, the Lord, will accomplish this.

¹³ The days are surely coming,
    says the Lord,
when the plowman shall overtake
    the one who reaps,
and the treader of grapes will overtake
    the one who sows the seed.
New wine will drip from the mountains,
    and every hill will flow with it.
¹⁴ I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel;
    they will rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them.
They will plant vineyards and drink their wine,
    cultivate gardens and eat their fruit.
¹⁵ I will plant them in their own soil,
    and they shall never again be uprooted
from the land I have given them.
    This is the word of the Lord, your God.