5 Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel:

² The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise. She is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.

³ For thus saith the Lord God: “The city that went out by a thousand shall be left a hundred, and that which went forth by a hundred shall be left ten to the house of Israel.”

⁴ For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel: “Seek ye Me, and ye shall live;

⁵ but seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not to Beersheba; for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.

⁶ Seek the Lord, and ye shall live; lest He break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel—

⁷ ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth!”

⁸ Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night, who calleth for the waters of the sea and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is His name,

⁹ who strengtheneth the despoiled against the strong, so that the despoiled shall come against the fortress.

¹⁰ They hate him that rebuketh in the gate, and they abhor him that speaketh uprightly.

¹¹ Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat, ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine from them.

¹² For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor at the gate from their right.

¹³ Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time; for it is an evil time.

¹⁴ Seek good and not evil, that ye may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

¹⁵ Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate. It may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

¹⁶ Therefore the Lord, the God of hosts, the Lord saith thus: “Wailing shall be in all streets, and they shall say in all the highways, ‘Alas! Alas!’ And they shall call the husbandman to mourning, and such as are skillful in lamentation to wailing.

¹⁷ And in all vineyards shall be wailing, for I will pass through thee,” saith the Lord.

¹⁸ Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what end is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light:

¹⁹ as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

²⁰ Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?

²¹ “I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell the scent in your solemn assemblies.

²² Though ye offer Me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

²³ Take thou away from Me the noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

²⁴ But let judgment run down like waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

²⁵ “Have ye offered unto Me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

²⁶ But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god which ye made for yourselves.

²⁷ Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,” saith the Lord, whose name is The God of Hosts.

6 Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, who are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

² Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath the great; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. Are they better than these kingdoms? Or their border greater than your border?

³ Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near,

⁴ that lie upon beds of ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock and the calves out of the midst of the stall;

⁵ that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent for themselves instruments of music, like David;

⁶ that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments— but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

⁷ Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed.

⁸ The Lord God hath sworn by Himself; saith the Lord the God of hosts: “I abhor the pretensions of Jacob, and hate his palaces; therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein.”

⁹ And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die.

¹⁰ And a man’s kinsman shall take him up, and he that burneth him, to bring the bones out of the house, and shall say unto him that is by the side of the house, “Is there yet any with thee?” And he shall say, “No.” Then shall he say, “Hold thy tongue, for we may not make mention of the name of the Lord.”

¹¹ For behold, the Lord commandeth, and He will smite the great house with breaches, and the little house with clefts.

¹² Shall horses run upon the rock? Will one plow there with oxen? For ye have turned judgment into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into hemlock,

¹³ ye that rejoice in a thing of nought, who say, “Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength?”

¹⁴ “But, behold, I will raise up against you a nation, O house of Israel,” saith the Lord the God of hosts; “and they shall afflict you from the entrance of Hemath unto the river of the wilderness.”