2:1These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Moab, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because he had the bones of the king of Edom burned to dust. 2:2And I will send a fire on Moab, burning up the great houses of Kerioth: and death will come on Moab with noise and outcries and the sound of the horn: 2:3And I will have the judge cut off from among them, and all their captains I will put to death with him, says the Lord. 2:4These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Judah, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they have given up the law of the Lord, and have not kept his rules; and their false ways, in which their fathers went, have made them go out of the right way. 2:5And I will send a fire on Judah, burning up the great houses of Jerusalem. 2:6These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of Israel, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because they have given the upright man for silver, and the poor for the price of two shoes; 2:7Crushing the head of the poor, and turning the steps of the gentle out of the way: and a man and his father go in to the same young woman, putting shame on my holy name: 2:8By every altar they are stretched on clothing taken from those who are in their debt, drinking in the house of their god the wine of those who have made payment for wrongdoing. 2:9Though I sent destruction on the Amorite before them, who was tall as the cedar and strong as the oak-tree, cutting off his fruit from on high and his roots from under the earth. 2:10And I took you up out of the land of Egypt, guiding you for forty years in the waste land, so that you might take for your heritage the land of the Amorite. 2:11And some of your sons I made prophets, and some of your young men I made separate for myself. Is it not even so, O children of Israel? says the Lord. 2:12But to those who were separate you gave wine for drink; and to the prophets you said, Be prophets no longer. 2:13See, I am crushing you down, as one is crushed under a cart full of grain. 2:14And flight will be impossible for the quick-footed, and the force of the strong will become feeble, and the man of war will not get away safely: 2:15And the bowman will not keep his place; he who is quick-footed will not get away safely: and the horseman will not keep his life. 2:16And he who is without fear among the fighting men will go in flight without his clothing in that day, says the Lord.
3:1Give ear to this word which the Lord has said against you, O children of Israel, against all the family which I took up out of the land of Egypt, saying, 3:2You only of all the families of the earth have I taken care of: for this reason I will send punishment on you for all your sins. 3:3Is it possible for two to go walking together, if not by agreement? 3:4Will a lion give his loud cry in the woodland when no food is there? will the voice of the young lion be sounding from his hole if he has taken nothing? 3:5Is it possible for a bird to be taken in a net on the earth where no net has been put for him? will the net come up from the earth if it has taken nothing at all? 3:6If the horn is sounded in the town will the people not be full of fear? will evil come on a town if the Lord has not done it? 3:7Certainly the Lord will do nothing without making clear his secret to his servants, the prophets. 3:8The cry of the lion is sounding; who will not have fear? The Lord God has said the word; is it possible for the prophet to keep quiet? 3:9Give out the news in the great houses of Assyria and in the land of Egypt, and say, Come together on the mountains of Samaria, and see what great outcries are there, and what cruel acts are done in it. 3:10For they have no knowledge of how to do what is right, says the Lord, who are storing up violent acts and destruction in their great houses. 3:11For this reason, says the Lord, an attacker will come, shutting in the land on every side; and your strength will come down and your great houses will be made waste. 3:12These are the words of the Lord: As the keeper of sheep takes out of the mouth of the lion two legs or part of an ear; so will the children of Israel be made safe, who are resting in Samaria on seats of honour or on the silk cushions of a bed. 3:13Give ear now, and give witness against the family of Jacob, says the Lord God, the God of armies; 3:14For in the day when I give Israel punishment for his sins, I will send punishment on the altars of Beth-el, and the horns of the altar will be cut off and come down to the earth. 3:15And I will send destruction on the winter house with the summer house; the ivory houses will be falling down and the great houses will come to an end, says the Lord.
4:1Give ear to this word, you cows of Bashan, who are in the hill of Samaria, by whom the poor are kept down, and those in need are crushed; who say to their lords, Get out the wine and give us drink. 4:2The Lord God has taken an oath by his holy name, that the days are coming when they will take you away with hooks, and the rest of you with fish-hooks. 4:3And you will go out through the broken places, every one going straight before her, and you will be sent into Harmon, says the Lord. 4:4Come to Beth-el and do evil; to Gilgal, increasing the number of your sins; come with your offerings every morning and your tenths every three days: 4:5Let that which is leavened be burned as a praise-offering, let the news of your free offerings be given out publicly; for this is pleasing to you, O children of Israel, says the Lord. 4:6But in all your towns I have kept food from your teeth, and in all your places there has been need of bread: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord. 4:7And I have kept back the rain from you, when it was still three months before the grain-cutting: I sent rain on one town and kept it back from another: one part was rained on, and the part where there was no rain became a waste. 4:8So two or three towns went wandering to one town looking for water, and did not get enough: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord. 4:9I have sent destruction on your fields by burning and disease: the increase of your gardens and your vine-gardens, your fig-trees and your olive-trees, has been food for worms: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord. 4:10I have sent disease among you, as it was in Egypt: I have put your young men to the sword, and have taken away your horses; I have made the evil smell from your tents come up to your noses: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord. 4:11And I have sent destruction among you, as when God sent destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick pulled out of the fire: and still you have not come back to me, says the Lord. 4:12So this is what I will do to you, O Israel: and because I will do this to you, be ready for a meeting with your God, O Israel. 4:13For see, he who gave form to the mountains and made the wind, giving knowledge of his purpose to man, who makes the morning dark, and is walking on the high places of the earth: the Lord, the God of armies, is his name.
5:1Give ear to this word, my song of sorrow over you, O children of Israel. 5:2The virgin of Israel has been made low, never again to be lifted up: she is stretched out by herself on her land; there is no one to put her on her feet again. 5:3For these are the words of the Lord God: The town which was able to send out a thousand, will have only a hundred; and that which sent out a hundred, will have only ten, in Israel. 5:4For these are the words of the Lord to the children of Israel: Let your hearts be turned to me, so that you may have life: 5:5Do not be looking for help to Beth-el, and do not go to Gilgal, or make your way to Beer-sheba: for Gilgal will certainly be taken prisoner, and Beth-el will come to nothing. 5:6Go to the Lord for help so that you may have life; for fear that he may come like fire bursting out in the family of Joseph, causing destruction, and there will be no one to put it out in Beth-el. 5:7You who make the work of judging a bitter thing, crushing down righteousness to the earth; 5:8Go for help to him who makes Orion and the Pleiades, by whom the deep dark is turned into morning, who makes the day black with night; whose voice goes out to the waters of the sea, sending them out over the face of the earth: the Lord is his name; 5:9Who sends sudden destruction on the strong, so that destruction comes on the walled town. 5:10They have hate for him who makes protest against evil in the public place, and he whose words are upright is disgusting to them. 5:11So because the poor man is crushed under your feet, and you take taxes from him of grain: you have made for yourselves houses of cut stone, but you will not take your rest in them; the fair vine-gardens planted by your hands will not give you wine. 5:12For I have seen how your evil-doing is increased and how strong are your sins, you troublers of the upright, who take rewards and do wrong to the cause of the poor in the public place. 5:13So the wise will say nothing in that time; for it is an evil time. 5:14Go after good and not evil, so that life may be yours: and so the Lord, the God of armies, will be with you, as you say. 5:15Be haters of evil and lovers of good, and let right be done in the public place: it may be that the Lord, the God of armies, will have mercy on the rest of Joseph. 5:16So these are the words of the Lord, the God of armies, the Lord: There will be weeping in all the open spaces; and in all the streets they will say, Sorrow! sorrow! and they will get in the farmer to the weeping, and the makers of sad songs to give cries of grief. 5:17In all the vine-gardens there will be cries of grief: for I will go through among you, says the Lord. 5:18Sorrow to you who are looking for the day of the Lord! what is the day of the Lord to you? it is dark and not light. 5:19As if a man, running away from a lion, came face to face with a bear; or went into the house and put his hand on the wall and got a bite from a snake. 5:20Will not the day of the Lord be dark and not light? even very dark, with no light shining in it? 5:21Your feasts are disgusting to me, I will have nothing to do with them; I will take no delight in your holy meetings. 5:22Even if you give me your burned offerings and your meal offerings, I will not take pleasure in them: I will have nothing to do with the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. 5:23Take away from me the noise of your songs; my ears are shut to the melody of your instruments. 5:24But let the right go rolling on like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. 5:25Did you come to me with offerings of beasts and meal offerings in the waste land for forty years, O Israel? 5:26Truly, you will take up Saccuth your king and Kaiwan your images, the star of your god, which you made for yourselves. 5:27And I will send you away as prisoners farther than Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of armies.
6:1Sorrow to those who are resting in comfort in Zion, and to those who have no fear of danger in the mountain of Samaria, the noted men of the chief of the nations, to whom the people of Israel come! 6:2Go on to Calneh and see; and from there go to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines: are you better than these kingdoms? or is your land wider than theirs? 6:3You who put far away the evil day, causing the rule of the violent to come near; 6:4Who are resting on beds of ivory, stretched out on soft seats, feasting on lambs from the flock and young oxen from the cattle-house; 6:5Making foolish songs to the sound of corded instruments, and designing for themselves instruments of music, like David; 6:6Drinking wine in basins, rubbing themselves with the best oils; but they have no grief for the destruction of Joseph. 6:7So now they will go away prisoners with the first of those who are made prisoners, and the loud cry of those who were stretched out will come to an end. 6:8The Lord God has taken an oath by himself, says the Lord, the God of armies: the pride of Jacob is disgusting to me, and I have hate for his great houses: so I will give up the town with everything in it. 6:9Then it will come about that if there are still ten men in a house, death will overtake them. 6:10And when a man's relation, even the one who is responsible for burning his body, lifting him up to take his bones out of the house, says to him who is in the inmost part of the house, Is there still anyone with you? and he says, No; then he will say, Keep quiet, for the name of the Lord may not be named. 6:11For see, at the order of the Lord the great house will be full of cracks and the little house will be broken. 6:12Is it possible for horses to go running on the rock? may the sea be ploughed with oxen? for the right to be turned by you into poison, and the fruit of righteousness into a bitter plant? 6:13You whose joy is in a thing of no value, who say, Have we not taken for ourselves horns by the strength which is ours? 6:14For see, I will send against you a nation, O Israel, says the Lord, the God of armies, ruling you cruelly from the way into Hamath as far as the stream of the Arabah.
7:1This is what the Lord God let me see: and I saw that, when the growth of the late grass was starting, he made locusts; it was the late growth after the king's cutting was done. 7:2And it came about that after they had taken all the grass of the land, I said, O Lord God, have mercy: how will Jacob be able to keep his place? for he is small. 7:3The Lord, changing his purpose about this, said, It will not be. 7:4This is what the Lord let me see: and I saw that the Lord God sent for a great fire to be the instrument of his punishment; and, after burning up the great deep, it was about to put an end to the Lord's heritage. 7:5Then said I, O Lord God, let there be an end: how will Jacob be able to keep his place? for he is small. 7:6The Lord, changing his purpose about this, said, And this will not be. 7:7This is what he let me see: and I saw the Lord stationed by a wall made straight by a weighted line, and he had a weighted line in his hand. 7:8And the Lord said to me, Amos, what do you see? And I said, A weighted line. Then the Lord said, See, I will let down a weighted line among my people Israel; never again will my eyes be shut to their sin: 7:9And the high places of Isaac will be unpeopled, and the holy places of Israel will be made waste; and I will come up against the family of Jeroboam with the sword. 7:10Then Amaziah, the priest of Beth-el, sent to Jeroboam, king of Israel, saying, Amos has made designs against you among the people of Israel: the land is troubled by his words. 7:11For Amos has said, Jeroboam will be put to the sword, and Israel will certainly be taken away as a prisoner out of his land. 7:12And Amaziah said to Amos, O seer, go in flight into the land of Judah, and there get your living by working as a prophet: 7:13But be a prophet no longer at Beth-el: for it is the holy place of the king, and the king's house. 7:14Then Amos in answer said to Amaziah, I am no prophet, or one of the sons of the prophets; I am a herdman and one who takes care of sycamore-trees: 7:15And the Lord took me from the flock, and the Lord said to me, Go, be a prophet to my people Israel. 7:16Now then, give ear to the word of the Lord: You say, Be no prophet to Israel, and say not a word against the people of Isaac. 7:17So this is what the Lord has said: Your wife will be a loose woman in the town, and your sons and your daughters will be put to the sword, and your land will be cut up into parts by a line; and you yourself will come to your end in an unclean land, and Israel will certainly be taken away a prisoner out of his land.
8:1This is what the Lord God let me see: and I saw a basket of summer fruit. 8:2And he said, Amos, what do you see? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then the Lord said to me, The end has come to my people Israel; never again will my eyes be shut to their sin. 8:3And the songs of the king's house will be cries of pain in that day, says the Lord God: great will be the number of the dead bodies, and everywhere they will put them out without a word. 8:4Give ear to this, you who are crushing the poor, and whose purpose is to put an end to those who are in need in the land, 8:5Saying, When will the new moon be gone, so that we may do trade in grain? and the Sabbath, so that we may put out in the market the produce of our fields? making the measure small and the price great, and trading falsely with scales of deceit; 8:6Getting the poor for silver, and him who is in need for the price of two shoes, and taking a price for the waste parts of the grain. 8:7The Lord has taken an oath by the pride of Jacob, Truly I will ever keep in mind all their works. 8:8Will not the land be shaking with fear because of this, and everyone in it have sorrow? and all of it will be overflowing like the River; and it will be troubled and go down again like the River of Egypt. 8:9And it will come about in that day, says the Lord God, that I will make the sun go down in the middle of the day, and I will make the earth dark in daylight: 8:10Your feasts will be turned into sorrow and all your melody into songs of grief; everyone will be clothed with haircloth, and the hair of every head will be cut; I will make the weeping like that for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day. 8:11See, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send times of great need on the land, not need of food or desire for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord. 8:12And they will go wandering from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, running here and there in search of the word of the Lord, and they will not get it. 8:13In that day the fair virgins and the young men will be feeble from need of water. 8:14Those who make their oaths by the sin of Samaria and say, By the life of your God, O Dan; and, By the living way of Beer-sheba; even they will go down, never again to be lifted up.
9:1I saw the Lord stationed by the side of the altar, giving blows to the tops of the pillars so that the doorsteps were shaking: and he said, I will let all of them be broken with earth-shocks; I will put the last of them to the sword: if any one of them goes in flight he will not get away, not one of them will be safe. 9:2Even if they go deep into the underworld, my hand will take them up from there; if they go up to heaven, I will get them down: 9:3Though they take cover on the top of Carmel, I will go in search of them and get them out; though they keep themselves from my eyes in the bed of the sea, I will give orders to the great snake there and he will give them a bite: 9:4And though they are taken away as prisoners by their attackers, even there will I give orders to the sword to put them to death: my eyes will be fixed on them for evil and not for good. 9:5For the Lord, the God of armies, is he at whose touch the land is turned to water, and everyone in it will be given up to sorrow; all of it will be overflowing like the River, and will go down again like the River of Egypt; 9:6It is he who makes his rooms in the heaven, basing his arch on the earth; whose voice goes out to the waters of the sea, and sends them flowing over the face of the earth; the Lord is his name. 9:7Are you not as the children of the Ethiopians to me, O children of Israel? says the Lord. Have I not taken Israel up out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Aramaeans from Kir? 9:8See, the eyes of the Lord are on the evil kingdom, and I will put an end to it in all the earth; but I will not send complete destruction on Jacob, says the Lord. 9:9For see, I will give orders, and I will have Israel moved about among all the nations, as grain is moved about by the shaking of the tray, but not the smallest seed will be dropped on the earth. 9:10All those sinners among my people will be put to the sword who say, Evil will not overtake us or come face to face with us. 9:11In that day I will put up the tent of David which has come down, and make good its broken places; and I will put up again his damaged walls, building it up as in the past; 9:12So that the rest of Edom may be their heritage, and all the nations who have been named by my name, says the Lord, who is doing this. 9:13See, the days will come, says the Lord, when the ploughman will overtake him who is cutting the grain, and the crusher of the grapes him who is planting seed; and sweet wine will be dropping from the mountains, and the hills will be turned into streams of wine. 9:14And I will let the fate of my people Israel be changed, and they will be building up again the waste towns and living in them; they will again be planting vine-gardens and taking the wine for their drink; and they will make gardens and get the fruit of them. 9:15And I will have them planted in their land, and never again will they be uprooted from their land which I have given them, says the Lord your God.
Obadiah
1:1The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Lord has said about Edom: We have had word from the Lord, and a representative has been sent among the nations, saying, Up! and let us make war against her.
Jonah
1:1And the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Amittai, saying, 1:2Up! go to Nineveh, that great town, and let your voice come to it; for their evil-doing has come up before me. 1:3And Jonah got up to go in flight to Tarshish, away from the Lord; and he went down to Joppa, and saw there a ship going to Tarshish: so he gave them the price of the journey and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the Lord. 1:4And the Lord sent out a great wind on to the sea and there was a violent storm in the sea, so that the ship seemed in danger of being broken. 1:5Then the sailors were full of fear, every man crying to his god; and the goods in the ship were dropped out into the sea to make the weight less. But Jonah had gone down into the inmost part of the ship where he was stretched out in a deep sleep. 1:6And the ship's captain came to him and said to him, What are you doing sleeping? Up! say a prayer to your God, if by chance God will give a thought to us, so that we may not come to destruction. 1:7And they said to one another, Come, let us put this to the decision of chance and see on whose account this evil has come on us. So they did so, and Jonah was seen to be the man. 1:8Then they said to him, Now make clear to us what is your work, and where you come from? what is your country, and who are your people? 1:9And he said to them, I am a Hebrew, a worshipper of the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land. 1:10And the men were in great fear, and they said to him, What is this you have done? For the men had knowledge of his flight from the Lord because he had not kept it from them. 1:11And they said to him, What are we to do to you so that the sea may become calm for us? For the sea was getting rougher and rougher. 1:12And he said to them, Take me up and put me into the sea, and the sea will become calm for you: for I am certain that because of me this great storm has come on you. 1:13And the men were working hard to get back to the land, but they were not able to do so: for the sea got rougher and rougher against them. 1:14So, crying to the Lord, they said, Give ear to our prayer, O Lord, give ear, and do not let destruction overtake us because of this man's life; do not put on us the sin of taking life without cause: for you, O Lord, have done what seemed good to you. 1:15So they took Jonah up and put him into the sea: and the sea was no longer angry. 1:16Then great was the men's fear of the Lord; and they made an offering to the Lord and took oaths to him. 1:17And the Lord made ready a great fish to take Jonah into its mouth; and Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.
2:1Then Jonah made prayer to the Lord his God from the inside of the fish, and said, 2:2In my trouble I was crying to the Lord, and he gave me an answer; out of the deepest underworld I sent up a cry, and you gave ear to my voice. 2:3For you have put me down into the deep, into the heart of the sea; and the river was round about me; all your waves and your rolling waters went over me. 2:4And I said, I have been sent away from before your eyes; how may I ever again see your holy Temple? 2:5The waters were circling round me, even to the neck; the deep was about me; the sea-grass was twisted round my head. 2:6I went down to the bases of the mountains; as for the earth, her walls were about me for ever: but you have taken up my life from the underworld, O Lord my God. 2:7When my soul in me was overcome, I kept the memory of the Lord: and my prayer came in to you, into your holy Temple. 2:8The worshippers of false gods have given up their only hope. 2:9But I will make an offering to you with the voice of praise; I will give effect to my oaths. Salvation is the Lord's. 2:10And at the Lord's order, the fish sent Jonah out of its mouth on to the dry land.
3:1And the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 3:2Up! go to Nineveh, that great town, and give it the word which I have given you. 3:3So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh as the Lord had said. Now Nineveh was a very great town, three days' journey from end to end. 3:4And Jonah first of all went a day's journey into the town, and crying out said, In forty days destruction will overtake Nineveh. 3:5And the people of Nineveh had belief in God; and a time was fixed for going without food, and they put on haircloth, from the greatest to the least. 3:6And the word came to the king of Nineveh, and he got up from his seat of authority, and took off his robe, and covering himself with haircloth, took his seat in the dust. 3:7And he had it given out in Nineveh, By the order of the king and his great men, no man or beast, herd or flock, is to have a taste of anything; let them have no food or water: 3:8And let man and beast be covered with haircloth, and let them make strong prayers to God: and let everyone be turned from his evil way and the violent acts of their hands. 3:9Who may say that God will not be turned, changing his purpose and turning away from his burning wrath, so that destruction may not overtake us? 3:10And God saw what they did, how they were turned from their evil way; and God's purpose was changed as to the evil which he said he would do to them, and he did it not.
4:1But this seemed very wrong to Jonah, and he was angry. 4:2And he made prayer to the Lord and said, O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still in my country? This is why I took care to go in flight to Tarshish: for I was certain that you were a loving God, full of pity, slow to be angry and great in mercy, and ready to be turned from your purpose of evil. 4:3So now, O Lord, give ear to my prayer and take my life from me; for death is better for me than life. 4:4And the Lord said, Have you any right to be angry? 4:5Then Jonah went out of the town, and took his seat on the east side of the town and made himself a roof of branches and took his seat under its shade till he saw what would become of the town. 4:6And the Lord God made a vine come up over Jonah to give him shade over his head. And Jonah was very glad because of the vine. 4:7But early on the morning after, God made ready a worm for the destruction of the vine, and it became dry and dead. 4:8Then when the sun came up, God sent a burning east wind: and so great was the heat of the sun on his head that Jonah was overcome, and, requesting death for himself, said, Death is better for me than life. 4:9And the Lord said to Jonah, Have you any right to be angry about the vine? And he said, I have a right to be truly angry. 4:10And the Lord said, You had pity on the vine, for which you did no work and for the growth of which you were not responsible; which came up in a night and came to an end in a night; 4:11And am I not to have mercy on Nineveh, that great town, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons without the power of judging between right and left, as well as much cattle?
Micah
1:1The word of the Lord which came to Micah the Morashtite, in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah: his vision about Samaria and Jerusalem. 1:2Give ear, you peoples, all of you; give attention, O earth and everything in it: let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from his holy Temple. 1:3For see, the Lord is coming out from his place, and will come down, stepping on the high places of the earth. 1:4And the mountains will be turned to water under him, and the deep valleys will be broken open, like wax before the fire, like waters flowing down a slope. 1:5All this is because of the wrongdoing of Jacob and the sins of the children of Israel. What is the wrongdoing of Jacob? is it not Samaria? and what are the high places of Judah? are they not Jerusalem? 1:6So I will make Samaria into a field and the plantings of a vine-garden: I will send its stones falling down into the valley, uncovering its bases. 1:7And all her pictured images will be hammered into bits, and all the payments for her loose ways will be burned with fire, and all the images of her gods I will make waste: for with the price of a loose woman she got them together, and as the price of a loose woman will they be given back. 1:8For this I will be full of sorrow and give cries of grief; I will go uncovered and unclothed: I will give cries of grief like the jackals and will be in sorrow like the ostriches. 1:9For her wounds may not be made well: for it has come even to Judah, stretching up to the doorway of my people, even to Jerusalem. 1:10Give no word of it in Gath, let there be no weeping at all: at Beth-le-aphrah be rolling in the dust. 1:11Be uncovered and go away, you who are living in Shaphir: the one living in Zaanan has not come out of her town; Beth-ezel is taken away from its base, even from its resting-place. 1:12For the one living in Maroth is waiting for good: for evil has come down from the Lord to the doorways of Jerusalem. 1:13Let the war-carriage be yoked to the quick-running horse, you who are living in Lachish: she was the first cause of sin to the daughter of Zion; for the wrongdoings of Israel were seen in you. 1:14For this cause give a parting offering to Moresheth-gath: the daughter of Achzib will be a deceit to the king of Israel. 1:15Even now will the taker of your heritage come to you, you who are living in Mareshah: the glory of Israel will come to destruction for ever. 1:16Let your head be uncovered and your hair cut off in sorrow for the children of your delight: let the hair be pulled from your head like an eagle's; for they have been taken away from you as prisoners.
2:1A curse on the designers of evil, working on their beds! in the morning light they do it, because it is in their power. 2:2They have a desire for fields and take them by force; and for houses and take them away: they are cruel to a man and his family, even to a man and his heritage. 2:3For this cause the Lord has said, See, against this family I am purposing an evil from which you will not be able to take your necks away, and you will be weighted down by it; for it is an evil time. 2:4In that day this saying will be said about you, and this song of grief will be made: The heritage of my people is measured out, and there is no one to give it back; those who have made us prisoners have taken our fields from us, and complete destruction has come to us. 2:5For this cause you will have no one to make the decision by the measuring line in the meeting of the Lord. 2:6Let not words like these be dropped, they say: Shame and the curse will not come to the family of Jacob! 2:7Is the Lord quickly made angry? are these his doings? do not his words do good to his people Israel? 2:8As for you, you have become haters of those who were at peace with you: you take the clothing of those who go by without fear, and make them prisoners of war. 2:9The women of my people you have been driving away from their dearly loved children; from their young ones you are taking my glory for ever. 2:10Up! and go; for this is not your rest: because it has been made unclean, the destruction ordered will come on you. 2:11If a man came with a false spirit of deceit, saying, I will be a prophet to you of wine and strong drink: he would be the sort of prophet for this people. 2:12I will certainly make all of you, O Jacob, come together; I will get together the rest of Israel; I will put them together like the sheep in their circle: like a flock in their green field; they will be full of the noise of men. 2:13The opener of the way will go up before them: forcing their way out they will go on to the doorway and out through it: their king will go on before them, and the Lord at their head.
3:1And I said, Give ear, now, you heads of Jacob and rulers of the people of Israel: is it not for you to have knowledge of what is right? 3:2You who are haters of good and lovers of evil, pulling off their skin from them and their flesh from their bones; 3:3Like meat they take the flesh of my people for their food, skinning them and crushing their bones, yes, cutting them up as if for the pot, like flesh inside the cooking-pot. 3:4Then they will be crying to the Lord for help, but he will not give them an answer: yes, he will keep his face veiled from them at that time, because their acts have been evil. 3:5This is what the Lord has said about the prophets by whom my people have been turned from the right way; who, biting with their teeth, say, Peace; and if anyone puts nothing in their mouths they make ready for war against him. 3:6For this cause it will be night for you, without a vision; and it will be dark for you, without knowledge of the future; the sun will go down over the prophets, and the day will be black over them. 3:7And the seers will be shamed, and the readers of the future will be at a loss, all of them covering their lips; for there is no answer from God. 3:8But I truly am full of the spirit of the Lord, with power of judging and with strength to make clear to Jacob his wrongdoing and to Israel his sin. 3:9Then give ear to this, you heads of the children of Jacob, you rulers of the children of Israel, hating what is right, twisting what is straight. 3:10They are building up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with evil-doing. 3:11Its heads take rewards for judging, and the priests take payment for teaching, and the prophets get silver for reading the future: but still, supporting themselves on the Lord, they say, Is not the Lord among us? no evil will overtake us. 3:12For this reason, Zion will be ploughed like a field because of you, and Jerusalem will become a mass of broken walls, and the mountain of the house like a high place in the woods.
4:1But in the last days it will come about that the mountain of the Lord's house will be placed on the top of the mountains, and be lifted up over the hills; and peoples will be flowing to it. 4:2And a number of nations will go and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will give us knowledge of his ways and we will be guided by his word: for from Zion the law will go out, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4:3And he will be judge between great peoples, and strong nations far away will be ruled by his decisions; their swords will be hammered into plough-blades and their spears into vine-knives: nations will no longer be lifting up their swords against one another, and knowledge of war will have gone for ever. 4:4But every man will be seated under his vine and under his fig-tree, and no one will be a cause of fear to them: for the mouth of the Lord of armies has said it. 4:5For all the peoples will be walking, every one in the name of his god, and we will be walking in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever. 4:6In that day, says the Lord, I will get together her who goes with uncertain steps, I will get together her who has been sent away, and her on whom I have sent evil; 4:7And I will make her whose steps were uncertain a small band, and her who was feeble a strong nation: and the Lord will be their King in Mount Zion from now and for ever. 4:8And you, O tower of the flock, Ophel of the daughter of Zion, to you it will come, even the earlier authority, the kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem. 4:9Now why are you crying so loudly? is there no king in you? has destruction come on your wise helper? so that pains have taken you like the pains of a woman in childbirth: 4:10Be in pain, make sounds of grief, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in childbirth: for now you will go out of the town, living in the open country, and will come even to Babylon; there you will have salvation; there the Lord will make you free from the hands of your haters. 4:11And now a number of nations have come together against you, and they say, Let her be made unclean and let our eyes see the fate of Zion. 4:12But they have no knowledge of the thoughts of the Lord, their minds are not able to see his purpose: for he has got them together like stems of grain to the crushing-floor. 4:13Up! and let the grain be crushed, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron and your feet brass, and a number of peoples will be broken by you, and you will give up their increase to the Lord and their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.