1 Listen to this word, the lament I raise over you, house of Israel:
2 The virgin Israel has fallen and will rise no more; she is left lying on her own ground, and there is none to raise her.
3 For thus says the Lord GOD: The city that sends out a thousand will keep a hundred, and the one that sends out a hundred will keep ten, for the house of Israel.
4 For thus says the LORD to the house of Israel: Seek me, and live.
5 Do not look to Bethel, do not enter Gilgal, do not cross over to Beersheba; for Gilgal will surely be carried off, and Bethel will become nothing.
6 Seek the LORD and you will live; otherwise he will sweep like fire through the house of Joseph, and it will burn, and Bethel will have no one to quench it.
7 You who change justice into wormwood and fling righteousness to the ground!
8 It is he who made the Pleiades and Orion; he changes the shadow of death into morning and darkens day into night; he summons the waters of the sea and spills them over the face of the land. The LORD is his name.
9 He makes ruin flash out against the strong, and ruin falls upon the fortress.
10 They hate whoever rebukes in the gate, and they detest whoever speaks blamelessly.
11 So then, since you tread down the poor and extract a grain tax from him, you may build houses of dressed stone, but you will never live in them; you may plant lovely vineyards, but you will never drink their wine.
12 I know your many transgressions and your countless sins: you oppress the righteous, accept hush money, and push the needy aside in the gate.
13 So in times like these the sensible keep quiet, for the times are evil.
14 Pursue good, not evil, so that you may live; then the LORD, the God of hosts, will truly be with you, just as you say he is.
15 Hate what is evil, love what is good, and set justice firmly in place in the gate; perhaps the LORD, the God of hosts, will show favor to the remnant of Joseph.
16 Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord: There will be wailing in every square, and in every street they will cry, "Alas! Alas!" They will call the farmer to mourn, and the professional mourners to wail.
17 There will be wailing in every vineyard, for I will pass through your midst, says the LORD.
18 Woe to those who crave the day of the LORD! Why do you want the day of the LORD? It will be darkness, not light.
19 It will be like a man fleeing from a lion only to run into a bear, or who gets home, rests his hand on the wall, and is bitten by a snake.
20 Will not the day of the LORD be darkness rather than light, pitch-black with not a gleam of brightness?
21 I hate your festivals, I reject them; your sacred gatherings give me no pleasure.
22 If you bring me burnt offerings, and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; I will not give a glance to the peace offerings of your fatted beasts.
23 Spare me the din of your songs; I will not listen to the playing of your harps.
24 Instead, let justice surge like the waters, and righteousness like a stream that never runs dry.
25 Was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you brought me in the wilderness those forty years, house of Israel?
26 Yet you have carried Sikkuth your king and Kiyyun your images, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves.
27 So I will drive you into exile beyond Damascus, says the one whose name is the LORD, the God of hosts.