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4 Listen to this, you women of Samaria, who grow fat like the well-fed cows of Bashan, who mistreat the weak, oppress the poor, and demand that your husbands keep you supplied with liquor! 2 As the Sovereign Lord is holy, he has promised, “The days will come when they will drag you away with hooks; every one of you will be like a fish on a hook. 3 You will be dragged to the nearest break in the wall and thrown out.”[a]
Israel's Failure to Learn
4 The Sovereign Lord says, “People of Israel, go to the holy place in Bethel and sin, if you must! Go to Gilgal and sin with all your might! Go ahead and bring animals to be sacrificed morning after morning, and bring your tithes every third day. 5 Go on and offer your bread in thanksgiving to God, and brag about the extra offerings you bring! This is the kind of thing you love to do.
6 (A)“I was the one who brought famine to all your cities, yet you did not come back to me. 7 I kept it from raining when your crops needed it most. I sent rain on one city, but not on another. Rain fell on one field, but another field dried up. 8 Weak with thirst, the people of several cities went to a city where they hoped to find water, but there was not enough to drink. Still you did not come back to me.
9 “I sent a scorching wind to dry up your crops. The locusts ate up all your gardens and vineyards, your fig trees and olive trees. Still you did not come back to me.
10 “I sent a plague on you like the one I sent on Egypt. I killed your young men in battle and took your horses away. I filled your nostrils with the stink of dead bodies in your camps. Still you did not come back to me.
11 (B)“I destroyed some of you as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Those of you who survived were like a burning stick saved from a fire. Still you did not come back to me,” says the Lord. 12 “So then, people of Israel, I am going to punish you. And because I am going to do this, get ready to face my judgment!”
13 God is the one who made the mountains
and created the winds.
He makes his thoughts known to people;
he changes day into night.
He walks on the heights of the earth.
This is his name: the Lord God Almighty!
A Call to Repentance
5 Listen, people of Israel, to this funeral song which I sing over you:
2 Virgin Israel has fallen,
Never to rise again!
She lies abandoned on the ground,
And no one helps her up.
3 The Sovereign Lord says, “A city in Israel sends out a thousand soldiers, but only a hundred return; another city sends out a hundred, but only ten come back.”
4 The Lord says to the people of Israel, “Come to me, and you will live. 5 Do not go to Beersheba to worship. Do not try to find me at Bethel—Bethel will come to nothing. Do not go to Gilgal—her people are doomed to exile.”
6 Go to the Lord, and you will live. If you do not go, he will sweep down like fire on the people of Israel. The fire will burn up the people of Bethel, and no one will be able to put it out. 7 You are doomed, you that twist justice and cheat people out of their rights!
8 (C)The Lord made the stars,
the Pleiades and Orion.
He turns darkness into daylight
and day into night.
He calls for the waters of the sea
and pours them out on the earth.
His name is the Lord.
9 He brings destruction on the mighty and their strongholds.
10 You people hate anyone who challenges injustice and speaks the whole truth in court. 11 You have oppressed the poor and robbed them of their grain. And so you will not live in the fine stone houses you build or drink wine from the beautiful vineyards you plant. 12 I know how terrible your sins are and how many crimes you have committed. You persecute good people, take bribes, and prevent the poor from getting justice in the courts. 13 And so, keeping quiet in such evil times is the smart thing to do!
14 Make it your aim to do what is right, not what is evil, so that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty really will be with you, as you claim he is. 15 Hate what is evil, love what is right, and see that justice prevails in the courts. Perhaps the Lord will be merciful to the people of this nation who are still left alive.
16 And so the Sovereign Lord Almighty says, “There will be wailing and cries of sorrow in the city streets. Even farmers will be called to mourn the dead along with those who are paid to mourn. 17 There will be wailing in all the vineyards. All this will take place because I am coming to punish you.” The Lord has spoken.
18 How terrible it will be for you who long for the day of the Lord! What good will that day do you? For you it will be a day of darkness and not of light. 19 It will be like someone who runs from a lion and meets a bear! Or like someone who comes home and puts his hand on the wall—only to be bitten by a snake! 20 The day of the Lord will bring darkness and not light; it will be a day of gloom, without any brightness.
21 (D)The Lord says, “I hate your religious festivals; I cannot stand them! 22 When you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; I will not accept the animals you have fattened to bring me as offerings. 23 Stop your noisy songs; I do not want to listen to your harps. 24 Instead, let justice flow like a stream, and righteousness like a river that never goes dry.
25 (E)“People of Israel, I did not demand sacrifices and offerings during those forty years that I led you through the desert. 26 But now, because you have worshiped images of Sakkuth, your king god, and of Kaiwan, your star god, you will have to carry those images 27 when I take you into exile in a land beyond Damascus,” says the Lord, whose name is Almighty God.
The Destruction of Israel
6 How terrible it will be for you that have such an easy life in Zion and for you that feel safe in Samaria—you great leaders of this great nation Israel, you to whom the people go for help! 2 Go and look at the city of Calneh. Then go on to the great city of Hamath and on down to the Philistine city of Gath. Were they any better than the kingdoms of Judah and Israel? Was their territory larger than yours? 3 You refuse to admit that a day of disaster is coming, but what you do only brings that day closer. 4 How terrible it will be for you that stretch out on your luxurious couches, feasting on veal and lamb! 5 You like to compose songs, as David did, and play them on harps. 6 You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest perfumes, but you do not mourn over the ruin of Israel. 7 So you will be the first to go into exile. Your feasts and banquets will come to an end.
8 The Sovereign Lord Almighty has given this solemn warning: “I hate the pride of the people of Israel; I despise their luxurious mansions. I will give their capital city and everything in it to the enemy.”
9 If there are ten men left in a family, they will die. 10 The dead man's relative, the one in charge of the funeral, will take the body out of the house. The relative will call to whoever is still left in the house, “Is anyone else there with you?”
The person will answer, “No!”
Then the relative will say, “Be quiet! We must be careful not even to mention the Lord's name.”[b]
11 When the Lord gives the command, houses large and small will be smashed to pieces. 12 Do horses gallop on rocks? Does anyone plow the sea with oxen? Yet you have turned justice into poison, and right into wrong.
13 You brag about capturing the town of Lodebar.[c] You boast, “We were strong enough to take Karnaim.”[d]
14 The Lord God Almighty himself says, “People of Israel, I am going to send a foreign army to occupy your country. It will oppress you from Hamath Pass in the north to the Brook of the Arabah in the south.”
The Message to Thyatira
18 “To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
“This is the message from the Son of God, whose eyes blaze like fire, whose feet shine like polished brass. 19 I know what you do. I know your love, your faithfulness, your service, and your patience. I know that you are doing more now than you did at first. 20 (A)But this is what I have against you: you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a messenger of God. By her teaching she misleads my servants into practicing sexual immorality and eating food that has been offered to idols. 21 I have given her time to repent of her sins, but she does not want to turn from her immorality. 22 And so I will throw her on a bed where she and those who committed adultery with her will suffer terribly. I will do this now unless they repent of the wicked things they did with her. 23 (B)I will also kill her followers, and then all the churches will know that I am the one who knows everyone's thoughts and wishes. I will repay each of you according to what you have done.
24 “But the rest of you in Thyatira have not followed this evil teaching; you have not learned what the others call ‘the deep secrets of Satan.’ I say to you that I will not put any other burden on you. 25 But until I come, you must hold firmly to what you have. 26-28 (C)To those who win the victory, who continue to the end to do what I want, I will give the same authority that I received from my Father: I will give them authority over the nations, to rule them with an iron rod and to break them to pieces like clay pots. I will also give them the morning star.
29 “If you have ears, then, listen to what the Spirit says to the churches!
The Message to Sardis
3 “To the angel of the church in Sardis write:
“This is the message from the one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know what you are doing; I know that you have the reputation of being alive, even though you are dead! 2 So wake up, and strengthen what you still have before it dies completely. For I find that what you have done is not yet perfect in the sight of my God. 3 (D)Remember, then, what you were taught and what you heard; obey it and turn from your sins. If you do not wake up, I will come upon you like a thief, and you will not even know the time when I will come. 4 But a few of you there in Sardis have kept your clothes clean. You will walk with me, clothed in white, because you are worthy to do so. 5 (E)Those who win the victory will be clothed like this in white, and I will not remove their names from the book of the living. In the presence of my Father and of his angels I will declare openly that they belong to me.
6 “If you have ears, then, listen to what the Spirit says to the churches!
A Prayer for Help
130 From the depths of my despair I call to you, Lord.
2 Hear my cry, O Lord;
listen to my call for help!
3 If you kept a record of our sins,
who could escape being condemned?
4 But you forgive us,
so that we should stand in awe of you.
5 I wait eagerly for the Lord's help,
and in his word I trust.
6 I wait for the Lord
more eagerly than sentries wait for the dawn—
than sentries wait for the dawn.
7 Israel, trust in the Lord,
because his love is constant
and he is always willing to save.
8 (A)He will save his people Israel
from all their sins.
21 If you give your servants everything they want from childhood on, some day they will take over everything you own.[a]
22 People with quick tempers cause a lot of quarreling and trouble.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.