Hear this word,
O heifers of Bashan, which are on the mountain of Samaria,
Who oppress the poor
And crush the needy,
Who say to their lords,
Bring, and let us drink.

The Lord Jehovah has sworn by His holiness
Indeed days are coming upon you
When one will take you away with hooks,
And your posterity, with fish hooks.

And you will go out through the breaches, each one straight ahead of her;
And you will cast yourselves into Harmon, declares Jehovah.

Come to Bethel, and transgress;
To Gilgal, and multiply transgression;
And bring your sacrifices every morning
And your tithes every three days,

And offer in smoke a thank offering out of what is leavened;
And proclaim freewill offerings; make them known;
For you love them, O children of Israel,
Declares the Lord Jehovah.

And I also have given you
Cleanness of teeth in all your cities
And want of bread in all your places.
Yet you have not returned to Me,
Declares Jehovah.

And I have also withheld the rain from you
When there was yet three months until the harvest;
And I made it rain on one city,
But on another city I did not make it rain;
One portion was rained on,
And the portion that was not rained on dried up.

And two or three cities wandered to one city to drink water,
But they were not satisfied.
Yet you have not returned to Me,
Declares Jehovah.

I have stricken you with blight and mildew;
The multitudes of your gardens and your vineyards,
And your fig trees and your olive trees, the cutting locust has devoured.
Yet you have not returned to Me,
Declares Jehovah.

I have sent among you pestilence after the manner of Egypt;
I have slain your choice young men with the sword, taking your horses captive;
And I have caused the stench of your camp to go up even into your own nostrils.
Yet you have not returned to Me,
Declares Jehovah.

I have overturned cities among you,
As when God overturned Sodom and Gomorrah;
And you were like a brand plucked out of the burning.
Yet you have not returned to Me,
Declares Jehovah.

Therefore this is what I will do to you, O Israel;
And because I will do this to you,
 ¹Prepare to meet your God, O Israel.

For it is He who forms the mountains and creates the wind
And declares to man what His thought is;
He who makes the morning darkness
And treads upon the high places of the earth —
Jehovah the God of hosts is His name!

Hear this word that I take up as a lamentation over you, O house of Israel.

Fallen and no more to rise
Is the virgin of Israel;
She has been cast down upon her land;
There is none to raise her up.

For thus says the Lord Jehovah,
The city that sent forth a thousand
Will have a hundred left,
And that which sent forth a hundred
Will have ten left,
To the house of Israel.

For thus says Jehovah to the house of Israel,
Seek Me, and live;

And do not seek Bethel,
Nor go to Gilgal,
Nor pass on to Beer-sheba;
For Gilgal will surely go into captivity,
And Bethel will become vanity.

Seek Jehovah, and live;
Lest He rush upon the house of Joseph like fire,
And it devour it, and there be none to extinguish the fire in Bethel.

They turn justice to wormwood
And thrust righteousness down to the ground.

He who makes the Pleiades and Orion
And turns the shadow of death into the morning
And darkens the day with the night;
He who calls for the water of the sea
And pours it upon the surface of the earth,
Jehovah is His name,

Who causes destruction to flash forth upon the strong,
So that destruction comes upon the fortress.

They hate him who reproves in the  ¹gate,
And him who speaks with integrity they abhor.

Therefore because you trample upon the poor
And take a forced gift of wheat from them;
You have built houses of hewn stone,
But you will not dwell in them;
You have planted desirable vineyards,
But you will not drink their wine.

For I know that your transgressions are many
And that your sins are mighty,
You who vex the righteous and take  ¹ransom payment
And turn aside justice for the needy in the gate.

Therefore he who has insight will keep silent at this time, for it is an evil time.

Seek good and not evil,
In order that you may live;
And so Jehovah the God of hosts will be with you,
As you say.

Hate evil and love good,
And set up justice in the gate.
Perhaps Jehovah the God of hosts will be gracious
To the remnant of Joseph.

Therefore thus says Jehovah,
The God of hosts, the Lord:
In all the open plazas there will be wailing,
And in all the streets they will say, Alas! Alas!
And they will call the farmer to mourning,
And for wailing to those skilled in lamentation.

In all the vineyards there will be wailing,
For I will pass through your midst, says Jehovah.

Woe to you who desire The  ¹day of Jehovah!
What good is the day of Jehovah to you?
It will be darkness and not light,

As when a man flees from before a lion
And encounters a bear,
Or goes into the house and leans his hand against the wall,
And a serpent bites him.

Will not the day of Jehovah be darkness and not light,
Even deep darkness and no brightness to it?

I hate, I despise, your  ¹feasts,
And I will not  ²delight in your solemn assemblies.

For if you offer up to Me burnt offerings
And your meal offerings, I will not accept them;
Nor will I regard the peace offerings of your fatted animals.

Take the noise of your songs away from Me,
For I will not hear the melody of your harps.

But let  ¹justice roll down like water,
And  ¹righteousness, like an ever-flowing river.

Did you bring Me sacrifices and meal offerings
In the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel?

Indeed, you took up  ¹Sikkuth your king
And Kiyyun your images, the star of your gods that you made for yourselves.

Thus I will bring you into captivity
Beyond Damascus, says Jehovah;
The God of hosts is His name.

Woe to those who are at ease in Zion
And to those who are secure in the mountain of Samaria,
The distinguished among the chief of the nations,
To whom the house of Israel comes!

Go over into Calneh, and see;
And go from there to Hamath the great;
Then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are they better than these kingdoms?
Or is their territory greater than your territory?

You who thrust away the evil day
And cause the seat of violence to draw near,

You who lie upon beds of ivory
And sprawl out upon your couches
And eat the lambs from the flock
And the calves from the midst of the stall,

You who prattle to the tune of the harp,
Who make for yourselves instruments of song like David,

You who drink wine in sacrificial bowls
And anoint yourselves with the finest oils;
Yet you are not grieved about the destruction of Joseph.

Therefore they will now go into captivity with the first of the captives,
And the cry of revelry from those who sprawled themselves out will pass away.

The Lord Jehovah has sworn by Himself,
Declares Jehovah the God of hosts,
I abhor the pride of Jacob,
And his palaces I hate;
Therefore I will deliver up the city and its fullness.

And if ten men remain in one house, they will die.

When his kinsman, that is, he who should burn his body, takes him up to bring his bones from the house, and says to him who is in the innermost part of the house, Are there any more with you, and that one says, None; then he will say, Hush, for the name of Jehovah should not be mentioned.

For it is Jehovah who commands,
And He will strike the great house into fragments
And the little house into pieces.

Do horses run on rock?
Or does one plow there with oxen?
But you have turned justice into poison,
And the fruit of righteousness into wormwood,

You who rejoice in that which is nothing,
You who say, Have we not taken
By our own strength horns for ourselves?

For I am about to raise up a nation over you,
O house of Israel, declares Jehovah the God of hosts,
And they will oppress you
From the entrance of Hamath
To the brook of the Arabah.