| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | Holman Christian Standard Bible |
| 1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament, house of Israel: |
| 2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 2She has fallen; Virgin Israel will never rise again. She lies abandoned on her land, with no one to raise her up. |
| 3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3For the Lord GOD says: The city that marches out a thousand strong will have only a hundred left, and the one that marches out a hundred strong will have only ten left in the house of Israel. |
| 4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4For 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 or journey to Beer-sheba, for Gilgal will certainly go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing. |
| 6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6Seek Yahweh and live, or He will spread like fire throughout the house of Joseph; it will consume everything, with no one at Bethel to extinguish it. |
| 7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7Those who turn justice into wormwood throw righteousness to the ground. |
| 8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8The One 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 out over the face of the earth-- Yahweh is His name. |
| 9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9He brings destruction on the strong, and it falls on the stronghold. |
| 10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10They hate the one who convicts the guilty at the city gate and despise the one who speaks with integrity. |
| 11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact a grain tax from him, you will never live in the houses of cut stone 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 your crimes are many and your sins innumerable. They oppress the righteous, take a bribe, and deprive the poor of justice at the gates. |
| 13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13Therefore, the wise person will keep silent at such a time, for the days are evil. |
| 14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14Seek good and 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 Yahweh, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says: There will be wailing in all the public squares; they will cry out in anguish in all the streets. The farmer will be called on to mourn, and professional mourners to wail. |
| 17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass among you. The LORD has spoken. |
| 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 have a bear confront him. He goes home and rests his hand against the wall only to have a snake bite him. |
| 20[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 20Won't the Day of the LORD be darkness rather than light, even gloom without any brightness in it? |
| 21[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 21I hate, I despise your feasts! I can't stand the stench of your solemn assemblies. |
| 22[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 22Even if you offer Me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; I will have no regard for your fellowship offerings of fattened cattle. |
| 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 flow like water, and righteousness, like an unfailing stream." |
| 25[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 25House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to Me during the 40 years in the wilderness? |
| 26[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 26But you have taken up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, images you have made for yourselves. |
| 27[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 27So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus." Yahweh, the God of Hosts, is His name. He has spoken. |
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