1 A lamentation for Israel. 4 An exhortation to repentance. 21 God rejects their hypocritical service.

¹ Hear you this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.

² The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken on her land; there is none to raise her up.

³ For thus says the Lord GOD; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel. ¶

⁴ For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel, Seek you me, and you shall live:

⁵ But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nothing.

⁶ Seek the LORD, and you shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.

⁷ You who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth,

⁸ Seek him that makes the seven stars and Orion, and turns the shadow of death into the morning, and makes the day dark with night: that calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out on the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:

⁹ That strengthens the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress.

¹⁰ They hate him that rebukes in the gate, and they abhor him that speaks uprightly.

¹¹ For as much therefore as your treading is on the poor, and you take from him burdens of wheat: you have built houses of hewn stone, but you shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards, but you shall not drink wine of them.

¹² For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

¹³ Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

¹⁴ Seek good, and not evil, that you may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as you have spoken.

¹⁵ Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶ Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD, says thus; Wailing shall be in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the farmer to mourning, and such as are skillful of lamentation to wailing.

¹⁷ And in all vineyards shall be wailing: for I will pass through you, says the LORD.

¹⁸ Woe to you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light.

¹⁹ As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

²⁰ Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it? ¶

²¹ I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.

²² Though you offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

²³ Take you away from me the noise of your songs; for I will not hear the melody of your viols.

²⁴ But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

²⁵ Have you offered to me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

²⁶ But you have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which you made to yourselves.

²⁷ Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, says the LORD, whose name is The God of hosts.