| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | Berean Study Bible |
| 1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1Hear this word, O house of Israel, this lamentation I take up against you: |
| 2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2“Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again. She lies abandoned on her land, with no one to raise her up.” |
| 3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3This is what the Lord GOD says: “The city that marches out a thousand strong will only see a hundred return, and the one that marches out a hundred strong will have but ten left in the house of Israel.” |
| 4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4For this is what the LORD says to the house of Israel: “Seek Me and live! |
| 5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal; do not journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will surely go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing. |
| 6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6Seek the LORD and live, or He will sweep like fire through the house of Joseph; it will devour everything, with no one at Bethel to extinguish it. |
| 7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7There are those who turn justice into wormwood and cast righteousness to the ground. |
| 8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8He who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the sea and pours them over the face of the earth—the LORD is His name— |
| 9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9He flashes destruction on the strong, so that fury comes upon the stronghold. |
| 10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10There are those who hate the one who reproves in the gate and despise him who speaks with integrity. |
| 11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact from him a tax of grain, you will never live in the stone houses you have built; you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted. |
| 12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 12For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins are numerous. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes; you deprive the poor of justice in the gate. |
| 13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13Therefore, the prudent keep silent in such times, for the days are evil. |
| 14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14Seek good, not evil, so that you may live. And the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be with you, as you have claimed. |
| 15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15Hate evil and love good; establish justice in the gate. Perhaps the LORD, the God of Hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.” |
| 16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says: “There will be wailing in all the public squares and cries of ‘Alas! Alas!’ in all the streets. The farmer will be summoned to mourn, and the mourners to wail. |
| 17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst,” says the LORD. |
| 18[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 18Woe to you who long for the Day of the LORD! What will the Day of the LORD be for you? It will be darkness and not light. |
| 19[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 19It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to encounter a bear, or who enters his house and rests his hand against the wall, only to be bitten by a snake. |
| 20[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 20Will not the Day of the LORD be darkness and not light, even gloom with no brightness in it? |
| 21[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 21“I hate, I despise your feasts! I cannot stand the stench of your solemn assemblies. |
| 22[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 22Even though you offer Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; for your peace offerings of fattened cattle I will have no regard. |
| 23[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 23Take away from Me the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. |
| 24[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 24But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. |
| 25[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 25Did you bring Me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? |
| 26[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 26You have taken along Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, the idols you made for yourselves. |
| 27[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 27Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the LORD, whose name is the God of Hosts. |
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