Old/New Testament
God’s Punishments Have Not Reformed Israel
4 Hear this word, you (A)cows of Bashan, who are on the mountain of Samaria,
Who oppress the (B)poor,
Who crush the needy,
Who say to [a]your husbands, “Bring wine, let us (C)drink!”
2 (D)The Lord God has sworn by His holiness:
“Behold, the days shall come upon you
When He will take you away (E)with fishhooks,
And your posterity with fishhooks.
3 (F)You will go out through broken walls,
Each one straight ahead of her,
And you will [b]be cast into Harmon,”
Says the Lord.
4 “Come(G) to Bethel and transgress,
At (H)Gilgal multiply transgression;
(I)Bring your sacrifices every morning,
(J)Your tithes every three [c]days.
5 (K)Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven,
Proclaim and announce (L)the freewill offerings;
For this you love,
You children of Israel!”
Says the Lord God.
Israel Did Not Accept Correction
6 “Also I gave you [d]cleanness of teeth in all your cities,
And lack of bread in all your places;
(M)Yet you have not returned to Me,”
Says the Lord.
7 “I also withheld rain from you,
When there were still three months to the harvest.
I made it rain on one city,
I withheld rain from another city.
One part was rained upon,
And where it did not rain the part withered.
8 So two or three cities wandered to another city to drink water,
But they were not satisfied;
Yet you have not returned to Me,”
Says the Lord.
9 “I(N) blasted you with blight and mildew.
When your gardens increased,
Your vineyards,
Your fig trees,
And your olive trees,
(O)The locust devoured them;
Yet you have not returned to Me,”
Says the Lord.
10 “I sent among you a plague (P)after the manner of Egypt;
Your young men I killed with a sword,
Along with your captive horses;
I made the stench of your camps come up into your nostrils;
Yet you have not returned to Me,”
Says the Lord.
11 “I overthrew some of you,
As God overthrew (Q)Sodom and Gomorrah,
And you were like a firebrand plucked from the burning;
Yet you have not returned to Me,”
Says the Lord.
12 “Therefore thus will I do to you, O Israel;
Because I will do this to you,
(R)Prepare to meet your God, O Israel!”
13 For behold,
He who forms mountains,
And creates the [e]wind,
(S)Who declares to man what [f]his thought is,
And makes the morning darkness,
(T)Who treads the high places of the earth—
(U)The Lord God of hosts is His name.
A Lament for Israel
5 Hear this word which I (V)take up against you, a lamentation, O house of Israel:
2 The virgin of Israel has fallen;
She will rise no more.
She lies forsaken on her land;
There is no one to raise her up.
3 For thus says the Lord God:
“The city that goes out by a thousand
Shall have a hundred left,
And that which goes out by a hundred
Shall have ten left to the house of Israel.”
A Call to Repentance
4 For thus says the Lord to the house of Israel:
(W)“Seek Me (X)and live;
5 But do not seek (Y)Bethel,
Nor enter Gilgal,
Nor pass over to (Z)Beersheba;
For Gilgal shall surely go into captivity,
And (AA)Bethel shall come to nothing.
6 (AB)Seek the Lord and live,
Lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph,
And devour it,
With no one to quench it in Bethel—
7 You who (AC)turn justice to wormwood,
And lay righteousness to rest in the earth!”
8 He made the (AD)Pleiades and Orion;
He turns the shadow of death into morning
(AE)And makes the day dark as night;
He (AF)calls for the waters of the sea
And pours them out on the face of the earth;
(AG)The Lord is His name.
9 He [g]rains ruin upon the strong,
So that fury comes upon the fortress.
10 (AH)They hate the one who rebukes in the gate,
And they (AI)abhor the one who speaks uprightly.
11 (AJ)Therefore, because you [h]tread down the poor
And take grain [i]taxes from him,
Though (AK)you have built houses of hewn stone,
Yet you shall not dwell in them;
You have planted [j]pleasant vineyards,
But you shall not drink wine from them.
12 For I (AL)know your manifold transgressions
And your mighty sins:
(AM)Afflicting the just and taking bribes;
(AN)Diverting the poor from justice at the gate.
13 Therefore (AO)the prudent keep silent at that time,
For it is an evil time.
14 Seek good and not evil,
That you may live;
So the Lord God of hosts will be with you,
(AP)As you have spoken.
15 (AQ)Hate evil, love good;
Establish justice in the gate.
(AR)It may be that the Lord God of hosts
Will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
The Day of the Lord
16 Therefore the Lord God of hosts, the Lord, says this:
“There shall be wailing in all streets,
And they shall say in all the highways,
‘Alas! Alas!’
They shall call the farmer to mourning,
(AS)And skillful lamenters to wailing.
17 In all vineyards there shall be wailing,
For (AT)I will pass through you,”
Says the Lord.
18 (AU)Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
For what good is (AV)the day of the Lord to you?
It will be darkness, and not light.
19 It will be (AW)as though a man fled from a lion,
And a bear met him!
Or as though he went into the house,
Leaned his hand on the wall,
And a serpent bit him!
20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light?
Is it not very dark, with no brightness in it?
21 “I(AX) hate, I despise your feast days,
And (AY)I do not savor your sacred assemblies.
22 (AZ)Though you offer Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings,
I will not accept them,
Nor will I regard your fattened peace offerings.
23 Take away from Me the noise of your songs,
For I will not hear the melody of your stringed instruments.
24 (BA)But let justice run down like water,
And righteousness like a mighty stream.
25 “Did(BB) you offer Me sacrifices and offerings
In the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
26 You also carried [k]Sikkuth[l] (BC)your king
And Chiun, your idols,
The star of your gods,
Which you made for yourselves.
27 Therefore I will send you into captivity (BD)beyond Damascus,”
Says the Lord, (BE)whose name is the God of hosts.
Warnings to Zion and Samaria
6 Woe (BF)to you who are at (BG)ease in Zion,
And (BH)trust in Mount Samaria,
Notable persons in the (BI)chief nation,
To whom the house of Israel comes!
2 (BJ)Go over to (BK)Calneh and see;
And from there go to (BL)Hamath the great;
Then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
(BM)Are you better than these kingdoms?
Or is their territory greater than your territory?
3 Woe to you who (BN)put far off the day of (BO)doom,
(BP)Who cause (BQ)the seat of violence to come near;
4 Who lie on beds of ivory,
Stretch out on your couches,
Eat lambs from the flock
And calves from the midst of the stall;
5 (BR)Who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments,
And invent for yourselves (BS)musical instruments (BT)like David;
6 Who (BU)drink wine from bowls,
And anoint yourselves with the best ointments,
(BV)But are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.
7 Therefore they shall now go (BW)captive as the first of the captives,
And those who recline at banquets shall be removed.
8 (BX)The Lord God has sworn by Himself,
The Lord God of hosts says:
“I abhor (BY)the pride of Jacob,
And hate his palaces;
Therefore I will deliver up the city
And all that is in it.”
9 Then it shall come to pass, that if ten men remain in one house, they shall die. 10 And when [m]a relative of the dead, with one who will burn the bodies, picks up the [n]bodies to take them out of the house, he will say to one inside the house, “Are there any more with you?”
Then someone will say, “None.”
And he will say, (BZ)“Hold your tongue! (CA)For we dare not mention the name of the Lord.”
11 For behold, (CB)the Lord gives a command:
(CC)He will break the great house into bits,
And the little house into pieces.
The Sealed of Israel
7 After these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, (A)holding the four winds of the earth, (B)that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree. 2 Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, 3 saying, (C)“Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God (D)on their foreheads.” 4 (E)And I heard the number of those who were sealed. (F)One hundred and forty-four thousand (G)of all the tribes of the children of Israel were sealed:
5 of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand were [a]sealed;
of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand were sealed;
6 of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand were sealed;
7 of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand were sealed;
8 of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand were sealed;
of the tribe of Benjamin twelve thousand were sealed.
A Multitude from the Great Tribulation
9 After these things I looked, and behold, (H)a great multitude which no one could number, (I)of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, (J)clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, saying, (K)“Salvation belongs to our God (L)who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 11 (M)All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and (N)worshiped God, 12 (O)saying:
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom,
Thanksgiving and honor and power and might,
Be to our God forever and ever.
Amen.”
13 Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “Who are these arrayed in (P)white robes, and where did they come from?”
14 And I said to him, [b]“Sir, you know.”
So he said to me, (Q)“These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and (R)washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple. And He who sits on the throne will (S)dwell among them. 16 (T)They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; (U)the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; 17 for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne (V)will shepherd them and lead them to [c]living fountains of waters. (W)And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.