1. Israel Does Not Return Despite the LORD’s Judgment

^4:4Come to Bethel, and transgress; at Gilgal multiply transgression; and bring your sacrifices every morning, [and] your tithes after three years: ⁵And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with leaven, and proclaim [and] publish the free offerings: for this liketh you, O ye children of Israel, saith the Lord GOD. ⁶And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. ⁷And also I have withholden the rain from you, when [there were] yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered. ⁸So two [or] three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. ⁹I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmerworm devoured [them]: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. ¹⁰I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. ¹¹I have overthrown [some] of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. ¹²Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: [and] because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. ¹³For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what [is] his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, [is] his name.

2. A Lament for Israel

ch5 ¹Hear ye this word which I take up against you, [even] a lamentation, O house of Israel. ²The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; [there is] none to raise her up. ³For thus saith 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.

3. Seek the LORD and Live

⁴For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live: ⁵But seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought. ⁶Seek the LORD, and ye 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. ⁷Ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth, ⁸Seek him] that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD [is] his name: ⁹That strengtheneth the spoiled against the strong, so that the spoiled shall come against the fortress. ¹⁰They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly. ¹¹Forasmuch therefore as your treading [is] upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. ¹²For 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]. ¹³Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it [is] an evil time. ¹⁴Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken. ¹⁵Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. ¹⁶Therefore the LORD, the God of hosts, the Lord, saith thus; Wailing [shall be] in all streets; and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing. ¹⁷And in all vineyards [shall be] wailing: for I will pass through thee, saith the LORD. ¹⁸Woe unto 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. ¹⁹As 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. ²⁰Shall] not the day of the LORD [be] darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it? ²¹I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. ²²Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept [them]: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. ²³Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. ²⁴But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. ²⁵Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel? ²⁶But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. ²⁷Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the LORD, whose name [is] The God of hosts.

4. The Fall of Israel

ch6 ¹Woe to them [that are] at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, [which are] named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came! ²Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines: [be they] better than these kingdoms? or their border greater than your border? ³Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; ⁴That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall; ⁵That chant to the sound of the viol, [and] invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David; ⁶That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph. ⁷Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed. ⁸The Lord GOD hath sworn by himself, saith the LORD the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein. ⁹And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die. ¹⁰And a man's uncle shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring out the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that [is] by the sides of the house, [Is there] yet [any] with thee? and he shall say, No. Then shall he say, Hold thy tongue: for we may not make mention of the name of the LORD. ¹¹For, behold, the LORD commandeth, and he will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts. ¹²Shall horses run upon the rock? will [one] plow [there] with oxen? for ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock: ¹³Ye which rejoice in a thing of nought, which say, Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength? ¹⁴But, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel, saith the LORD the God of hosts; and they shall afflict you from the entering in of Hemath unto the river of the wilderness.