Old/New Testament
Israel Will Not Return
4 Listen to this message, you rich women on the Mountain of Samaria.
You take things from the poor
and crush people who are in need.
You tell your husbands,
“Bring us money so we can drink!”
2 The Lord God has promised this:
“It is certain that I am a holy God.
So it is certain that the time will come
when some of you will be taken away by hooks.
The rest of you will be taken away with fishhooks.
3 You will go straight out of the city
through holes in the walls.
And you will be thrown on the garbage dump,” says the Lord.
4 “Go to the city of Bethel and sin.
Go to Gilgal and sin even more.
Offer your sacrifices every morning.
Bring one-tenth of your crops on the third day.
5 Offer bread made with yeast as a sacrifice to show your thanks.
And brag about the offerings you bring to show thanks to the Lord.
Brag about these things, Israelites.
This is what you love to do,” says the Lord God.
6 “I did not give you any food to eat.
There was not enough food in any of your towns.
But you did not come back to me,” says the Lord.
7 “I held back the rain from you
three months before harvest time.
Then I let it rain on one city
but not on another.
Rain fell on one field,
but another field got none and dried up.
8 People weak from thirst went from town to town for water.
But they could not get enough water to drink.
But you still did not come back to me,” says the Lord.
9 “I made your crops die from disease and mildew.
I destroyed your gardens and your vineyards.
Locusts ate your fig trees and olive trees.
But you still did not come back to me,” says the Lord.
10 “I sent disasters against you,
as I did to Egypt.
I killed your young men with swords.
I also killed your horses.
I made you smell the stink from all the dead bodies.
But you still did not come back to me,” says the Lord.
11 “I destroyed some of you
as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.
You were like a burning stick pulled from a fire.
But you still have not come back to me,” says the Lord.
12 “So this is what I will do to you, Israel.
And because I will do this to you,
get ready to meet your God, Israel.”
13 He is the one who makes the mountains.
He creates the wind.
He makes his thoughts known to man.
He changes the dawn into darkness.
He walks over the mountains of the earth.
His name is the Lord God of heaven’s armies.
Israel Needs a Change of Heart
5 Listen to this funeral song that I sing about you, people of Israel.
2 “Israel has fallen.
It will not rise up again.
It was left alone in the land.
There is no one to lift it up.”
3 This is what the Lord God says:
“If 1,000 soldiers leave a city,
only 100 will return.
If 100 soldiers leave a city,
only 10 will return.”
4 This is what the Lord says to the nation of Israel:
“Come to me and live.
5 But do not look in Bethel.
Do not go to Gilgal,
and do not go down to Beersheba.
The people of Gilgal will be taken away as captives.
And Bethel will become nothing.”
6 Come to the Lord and live.
If you don’t, he will destroy the descendants of Joseph as a fire would.
The fire will burn.
But there will be no one to put it out for Bethel.
7 You change the justice of the courts into something unfair.
You reject what is right.
8 God is the one who made the star groups Pleiades and Orion.
He changes darkness into the morning light.
And he changes the day into the dark night.
He calls for the waters of the sea
to pour out on the earth.
The Lord is his name.
9 He destroys the protected city.
And he ruins the strong, walled city.
10 You hate those who speak in court against evil.
And you hate those who tell the truth.
11 You walk on poor people.
You force them to give you grain.
You have built fancy houses of cut stone.
But you will not live in them.
You have planted beautiful vineyards.
But you will not drink the wine from them.
12 It is because I know your many crimes.
I know your terrible sins.
You hurt people who do right.
You accept money to do wrong.
You keep the poor from getting justice in court.
13 In such times the wise man will keep quiet,
because it is a bad time.
14 Try to do good, not evil.
Then you will live.
And the Lord God of heaven’s armies will be with you
just as you say he is.
15 Hate evil and love good.
Be fair in the courts.
Maybe the Lord God of heaven’s armies will be kind
to the people of Joseph who are left alive.
16 This is what the Lord, the Lord God of heaven’s armies, says:
“People will be crying in all the public places.
They will be saying, ‘Oh, no!’ in the streets.
They will call the farmers to come and weep.
They will pay people to cry out loud for them.
17 People will be crying in all the vineyards.
This is because I will pass among you to punish you,” says the Lord.
The Lord’s Day of Judging
18 How terrible it will be for you who want
the Lord’s day of judging to come.
Why do you want that day to come?
It will bring darkness for you, not light.
19 It will be like a man who runs from a lion
and meets a bear.
It will be like him going into his house
and putting his hand on the wall.
And then a snake bites him.
20 So the Lord’s day of judging will bring darkness, not light.
It will be a time of sadness, not joy.
21 The Lord says, “I hate and reject your feasts.
I cannot stand your religious meetings.
22 You offer me burnt offerings and grain offerings.
But I won’t accept them.
You bring the best fellowship offerings.
But I will ignore them.
23 Take the noise of your songs away from here!
I won’t listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice flow like a river.
Let goodness flow like a never-ending stream.
25 “People of Israel, you did not bring me sacrifices and offerings
while you traveled in the desert for 40 years.
26 But now you will have to carry with you
your king, the false god Sakkuth,
and Kaiwan your idol
and the idols of your other star gods you have made.
27 This is because I will send you away as captives beyond Damascus,”
says the Lord. His name is God of heaven’s armies.
Israel Will Be Destroyed
6 How terrible it will be for you who have it easy in Jerusalem.
How terrible for you who live on Mount Samaria and feel safe.
You think you are important people of the best nation in the world.
The Israelites come to you for help.
2 Go look at the city of Calneh.
From there go to the great city Hamath.
Go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are you better than these kingdoms?
Are their lands larger than yours?
3 You put off the day of punishment.
But you bring near the day when you can do evil to others.
4 You lie on beds decorated with ivory.
You stretch out on your couches.
You eat tender lambs
and fattened calves.
5 You play your harps.
Like David, you compose songs on musical instruments.
6 You drink wine by the bowlful.
You use the best perfumed lotions.
But you are not sad over the ruin of Israel, Joseph’s descendants.
7 So you will be some of the first ones taken as slaves.
Your feasting and lying around will come to an end.
8 The Lord God made this promise. The Lord God of heaven’s armies says:
“I hate the pride of the people of Israel.
I hate their strong towers.
So I will let the enemy take the city
and everything in it.”
9 At that time there might be ten people left alive in a house. But they will also die. 10 A relative and one who is to prepare bodies for burial may come to get the bodies. One of them will take the bodies out to burn them. He will call to the other and ask, “Are there any other dead bodies with you?”
That person will answer, “No.”
Then the one who asked will say, “Hush! We must not speak the name of the Lord.”
11 The Lord has given the command.
The large house will be broken into pieces.
And the small house will be broken into bits.
12 Horses do not run on rocks.
People do not plow rocks with oxen.
But you have changed fairness into poison.
You have changed what is right into something wrong.
13 You are happy that the town of Lo Debar[a] was taken.
You say, “We have taken Karnaim[b] by our own strength.”
14 The Lord God of heaven’s armies says,
“Israel, I will bring a nation against you.
It will bring trouble for you from Lebo Hamath in the north
to the valley south of the Dead Sea.”
The 144,000 People of Israel
7 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth. The angels were holding the four winds of the earth. They were stopping the wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree. 2 Then I saw another angel coming from the east. This angel had the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels. These were the four angels that God had given power to harm the earth and the sea. He said to the four angels, 3 “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees before we put the sign on the people who serve our God. We must put the sign on their foreheads.” 4 Then I heard how many people were marked with the sign. There were 144,000. They were from every tribe of the people of Israel.
5 From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were marked with the sign,
from the tribe of Reuben 12,000,
from the tribe of Gad 12,000,
6 from the tribe of Asher 12,000,
from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000,
from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000,
7 from the tribe of Simeon 12,000,
from the tribe of Levi 12,000,
from the tribe of Issachar 12,000,
8 from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000,
from the tribe of Joseph 12,000,
from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.
The Great Crowd
9 Then I looked, and there was a great number of people. There were so many people that no one could count them. They were from every nation, tribe, people, and language of the earth. They were all standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They wore white robes and had palm branches in their hands. 10 They were shouting in a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” 11 The elders[a] and the four living things were there. All the angels were standing around them and the throne. The angels bowed down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God. 12 They were saying, “Amen! Praise, glory, wisdom, thanks, honor, power, and strength belong to our God forever and ever. Amen!”
13 Then one of the elders asked me, “Who are these people in white robes? Where did they come from?”
14 I answered, “You know who they are, sir.”
And the elder said, “These are the people who have come out of the great suffering. They have washed their robes[b] with the blood of the Lamb. Now they are clean and white. 15 And they are before the throne of God. They worship God day and night in his temple. And the One who sits on the throne will protect them. 16 Those people will never be hungry again. They will never be thirsty again. The sun will not hurt them. No heat will burn them. 17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd. He will lead them to springs of water that give life. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.