set.
16gShear off your hair and make yourself bald
For the children you once delighted in;
Make yourself as bald as a vulture,
For they have been banished from you.
2
Ah, those who plan iniquity
And design evil on their beds;
When morning dawns, they do it,
For they have the power.
2They covet fields, and seize them;
Houses, and take them away.
They defraud men of their homes,
And people of their land.
3Assuredly, thus said the LORD: I am planning such a misfortune against this clan that you will not be able to free your necks from it. You will not be able to walk erect; it will be such a time of disaster.
4In that day,
One shall recite a poem about you,
And utter a bitter lament,
And shall say:
a-“My people’s portion changes hands;
How it slips away from me!
Our field is allotted to a rebel.b
We are utterly ravaged.”-a
5Truly, none of you
Shall cast a lot cordc
In the assembly of the LORD!
6“Stop preaching!” they preach.
“That’s no way to preach;
a-Shame shall not overtake [us].
7Is the House of Jacob condemned?-a
Is the LORD’s patience short?
Is such His practice?”
To be sure, My words are friendly
To those who walk in rectitude;
8But d-an enemy arises against-d My people.
You strip the mantle e-with the cloak-e
Off such as pass unsuspecting,
a-Who are turned away from war.-a
9You drive the women of My people away
From their pleasant homes;
You deprive their infants
Of My glory forever.
10Up and depart!
This is no resting place
a-Because of [your] defilement.
Terrible destruction shall befall.-a
11If a man were to go about uttering
Windy, baseless falsehoods:
“I’ll preach to you in favor of wine and liquor”—
He would be a preacher [acceptable] to that people.
12fI will assemble Jacob, all of you;
I will bring together the remnant of Israel;
I will make them all like sheep g-of Bozrah,-g
Like a flock inside its pena—
They will be noisy with people.
13One who makes a breach
Goes before them;
They enlarge it to a gate
And leave by it.
Their king marches before them,
The LORD at their head.
3
I said:
Listen, you rulers of Jacob,
You chiefs of the House of Israel!
For you ought to know what is right,
2aBut you hate good and love evil.
3You have devoured My people’s flesh;
You have flayed the skin off them,
And their flesh off their bones.
b-And after tearing their skins off them,
And their flesh off their bones,-b
And breaking their bones to bits,
You have cut it up c-as into-c a pot,
Like meat in a caldron.
4Someday they shall cry out to the LORD,
But He will not answer them;
At that time He will hide His face from them,
In accordance with the wrongs they have done.
5Thus said the LORD to the prophets
Who lead My people astray,
Who cry “Peace!”
When they have something to chew,
But launch a war on him
Who fails to fill their mouths:
6Assuredly,
It shall be night for you
So that you cannot prophesy,
And it shall be dark for you
So that you cannot divine;
The sun shall set on the prophets,
And the day shall be darkened for them.
7The seers shall be shamed
And the diviners confounded;
They shall cover their upper lips,d
Because no response comes from God.
8But I,
I am filled with strength by the spirit of the LORD,
And with judgment and courage,
To declare to Jacob his transgressions
And to Israel his sin.
9Hear this, you rulers of the House of Jacob,
You chiefs of the House of Israel,
Who detest justice
And make crooked all that is straight,
10Who build Zion with crime,
Jerusalem with iniquity!
11Her rulers judge for gifts,
Her priests give rulings for a fee,
And her prophets divine for pay;
Yet they rely upon the LORD, saying,
“The LORD is in our midst;
No calamity shall overtake us.”
12Assuredly, because of you
Zion shall be plowed as a field,
And Jerusalem shall become heaps of ruins,
And the Temple Mount
A shrine in the woods.
4
aIn the days to come,
The Mount of the LORD’s House shall stand
Firm above the mountains;
And it shall tower above the hills.
The peoples shall gaze on it with joy,
2And the many nations shall go and shall say:
“Come,
Let us go up to the Mount of the LORD,
To the House of the God of Jacob;
That He may instruct us in His ways,
And that we may walk in His paths.”
For instruction shall come forthb from Zion,
The word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
3Thus He will judge among the many peoples,
And arbitrate for the multitude of nations,
However distant;
And they shall beat their swords into plowsharesc
And their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation shall not take up
Sword against nation;
They shall never again knowd war;
4But every man shall sit
Under his grapevine or fig tree
With no one to disturb him.
For it was the LORD of Hosts who spoke.
5Though all the peoples walk
Each in the names of its gods,
We will walk
In the name of the LORD our God
Forever and ever.
6In that day
—declares the LORD—
I will assemble the lame [sheep]
And will gather the outcast
And those I have treated harshly;
7And I will turn the lame into a remnant
And the expellede into a populous nation.
And the LORD will reign over them on Mount Zion
Now and for evermore.
8And you, O Migdal-eder,f
g-Outpost of Fair Zion,
It shall come to you:-g
The former monarchy shall return—
The kingship of h-Fair Jerusalem.-h
9Now why do you utter such cries?
Is there no king in you,
Have your advisors perished,
That you have been seized by writhing
Like a woman in travail?
10Writhe and scream,g Fair Zion,
Like a woman in travail!
For now you must leave the city
And dwell in the country—
And you will reach Babylon.
There you shall be saved,
There the LORD will redeem you
From the hands of your foes.
11Indeed, many nations
Have assembled against you
Who think, “Let our eye
g-Obscenely gaze-g on Zion.”
12But they do not know
The design of the LORD,
They do not divine His intent:
He has gathered them
Like cut grain to the threshing floor.
13Up and thresh, Fair Zion!
For I will give you horns of iron
And provide you with hoofs of bronze,
And you will crush the many peoples.
Youi will devote their riches to the LORD,
Their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.
14Now you gash yourself g-in grief.-g
They have laid siege to us;
They strike the ruler of Israel
On the cheek with a staff.
5
And you, O Bethlehem of Ephrath,a
Least among the clans of Judah,
From you one shall come forth
To rule Israel for Me—
One whose origin is from of old,
From ancient times.
2b-Truly, He will leave them [helpless]
Until she who is to bear has borne;c
Then the rest of his countrymen
Shall return to the children of Israel.-b
3He shall stand and shepherd
By the might of the LORD,
By the power of the name
Of the LORD his God,
And they shall dwell [secure].
For lo, he shall wax great
To the ends of the earth;
4And that shall afford safety.
Should Assyria invade our land
And tread upon our fortresses,d
We will set up over ite seven shepherds,
Eight princes of men,
5Who will shepherd Assyria’s land with swords,
The land of Nimrod f-in its gates.-f
Thus he will deliver [us]
From Assyria, should it invade our land,
And should it trample our country.
6The remnant of Jacob shall be,
In the midst of the many peoples,
Like dew from the LORD,
Like droplets on grass—
Which do not look to any man
Nor place their hope in mortals.
7The remnant of Jacob
Shall be among the nations,
In the midst of the many peoples,
Like a lion among beasts of the wild,
Like a fierce lion among flocks of sheep,
Which tramples wherever it goes
And rends, with none to deliver.
8Your hand shall prevail over your foes,
And all your enemies shall be cut down!
9In that day
—declares the LORD—
I will destroy the horses in your midst
And wreck your chariots.
10I will destroy the cities of your land
And demolish all your fortresses.
11I will destroy the sorcery you practice,
And you shall have no more soothsayers.
12I will destroy your idols
And the sacred pillars in your midst;
And no more shall you bow down
To the work of your hands.
13I will tear down the sacred posts in your midst
And destroy your cities.g
14In anger and wrath
Will I wreak retribution
On the nationsh that have not obeyed.
6
Hear what the LORD is saying:
Come, present [My] case before the mountains,
And let the hills hear you pleading.
2Hear, you mountains, the case of the LORD—
a-You firm-a foundations of the earth!
For the LORD has a case against His people,
He has a suit against Israel.
3“My people!
What wrong have I done you?
What hardship have I caused you?
Testify against Me.
4In fact,
I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
I redeemed you from the house of bondage,
And I sent before you
Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
5“My people,
Remember what Balak king of Moab
Plotted against you,
And how Balaam son of Beor
Responded to him.
[Recall your passage]
From Shittim to Gilgalb—
And you will recognize
The gracious acts of the LORD.”
6With what shall I approach the LORD,
Do homage to God on high?
Shall I approach Him with burnt offerings,
With calves a year old?
7Would the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
With myriads of streams of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for my sins?
8“He has told you, O man, what is good,
And what the LORD requires of you:
Only to do justice
And to love goodness,
And c-to walk modestly with your God;-c
9d-Then will your name achieve wisdom.”-d
Hark! The LORD
Summons the city:
e-Hear, O scepter;
For who can direct her
10 but you?-e
Will I overlook,f in the wicked man’s house,
The granaries of wickedness
And the accursed short ephah?g
11Shall heh be acquitted despite wicked balances
And a bag of fraudulent weights?—
12iWhose rich men are full of lawlessness,
And whose inhabitants speak treachery,
With tongues of deceit in their mouths.
13I, in turn, have beaten you sore,
Have stunned [you] for your sins:
14You have been eating without getting your fill,
e-And there is a gnawing at your vitals;
You have been conceiving without bearing young,-e
And what you bore I would deliver to the sword.
15You have been sowing, but have nothing to reap;
You have trod olives, but have no oil for rubbing,
And grapesj but have no wine to drink.
16Yet k-you have kept-k the laws of Omri,
And all the practices of the House of Ahab,
And have followed what they devised.
Therefore I will make you an object of horror
And l-her inhabitants-l an object of hissing;m
And you shall bear the mockery of peoples.n
7
Woe is me!a
I am become like leavings of a fig harvest,
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