1 Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament,  * house of Israel:

2 She has fallen;

Virgin Israel  * will never rise again.  *

She lies abandoned on her land

with no one to raise her up.  *

3 For 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 For the Lord says to the house of Israel:

Seek me and live!  *

5 Do 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 Seek the Lord* 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 Those who turn justice into wormwood  *

also throw righteousness to the ground.

8 The one who made the Pleiades and Orion,  *

who turns darkness  * into dawn  *

and darkens day into night,  *

who summons the water of the sea  *

and pours it out over the surface of the earth  *  —

the Lord is his name.  *

9 He brings destruction  * on the strong,  *,*

and it falls on the fortress.  *

10 They hate the one who convicts the guilty  *

at the city gate,

and they despise  * the one who speaks with integrity.

11 Therefore, 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 For 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 city gates.

13 Therefore, those who have insight will keep silent  *,*

at such a time,

for the days are evil.

14 Pursue good and not evil

so that you may live,

and the Lord, the God of Armies,

will be with you

as you have claimed.  *

15 Hate evil and love good;  *

establish justice at the city gate.  *

Perhaps the Lord, the God of Armies, will be gracious  *

to the remnant of Joseph.  *

16 Therefore the Lord, the God of Armies, 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 There will be wailing in all the vineyards,  *

for I will pass among you.  *

The Lord has spoken.

18 Woe 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 It 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 Won’t the day of the  Lord

be darkness rather than light,  *

even gloom without any brightness in it?  *

21 I hate, I despise, your feasts!  *

I can’t stand the stench

of your solemn assemblies.  *

22 Even 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 Take away from me the noise of your songs!

I will not listen to the music of your harps.  *

24 But let justice flow like water,

and righteousness, like an unfailing stream.  *

25 "House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to me during the forty years in the wilderness?  *26 But you have taken up  * Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god,  * images you have made for yourselves.  *27 So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus."  * The Lord, the God of Armies, is his name.  * He has spoken.