6 Hear what the Lord is saying:
Arise, lay out the lawsuit before the mountains;
        let the hills hear your voice!
² Hear, mountains, the lawsuit of the Lord!
        Hear, eternal foundations of the earth!
The Lord has a lawsuit against his people;
        with Israel he will argue.
³ “My people, what did I ever do to you?
        How have I wearied you? Answer me!
⁴ I brought you up out of the land of Egypt;
        I redeemed you from the house of slavery.
        I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam before you.
⁵ My people, remember what Moab’s King Balak had planned,
        and how Balaam, Beor’s son, answered him!
        Remember everything^[a] from Shittim to Gilgal,
        that you might learn to recognize the righteous acts of the Lord!”

⁶ With what should I approach the Lord
        and bow down before God on high?
Should I come before him with entirely burned offerings,
        with year-old calves?
⁷ Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
        with many torrents of oil?
Should I give my oldest child for my crime;
        the fruit of my body for the sin of my spirit?
⁸ He has told you, human one, what is good and
        what the Lord requires from you:
            to do justice, embrace faithful love, and walk humbly with your God.

⁹ The voice of the Lord calls out to the city;
        wisdom appears when one fears your name.^[b]
        Hear, tribe, and who appointed her!^[c]
10 Are the treasures of wickedness still in the house of wickedness,
        while the shorted basket^[d] is denounced?^[e]
11 Can I approve wicked scales and a bag of false weights
¹²     in a city^[f] whose wealthy are full of violence
        and whose inhabitants speak falsehood
            with lying tongues in their mouths?
¹³ So I have made you sick by striking you!
        I have struck you because of your sins.
¹⁴ You devour, but you aren’t satisfied;
        a gnawing emptiness is within you.
    You put something aside,
        but you don’t keep it safe.
        That which you do try to keep safe,
            I will give to the sword.
¹⁵ You sow, but you don’t gather.
    You tread down olives, but you don’t anoint with oil;
        you tread grapes, but don’t drink wine.
¹⁶ Yet you^[g] have kept the policies of Omri,
        all the practices of the house of Ahab;
    you have followed their counsels.
    Therefore, I will make you a sign of destruction,
            your^[h] inhabitants an object of hissing!
You must bear the reproach of my people.

7 I’m doomed!
    I’ve become like one who,
        even after the summer fruit has been gathered,
        after the ripened fruits have been collected,
            has no cluster of grapes to eat,
            no ripe fig that I might desire.
² Faithful ones have perished from the land;
        there is no righteous one among humanity.
    All of them lie in wait for bloodshed;
        they hunt each other with nets.
³ Their hands are skilled at doing evil.
    Official and judge alike ask for a bribe;
        the powerful speak however they like;
            this is how they conspire.
⁴ The good among them are like a briar;
        those who do the right thing are like a thorny thicket.
            (A day for your lookouts!^[i]
            Your punishment has arrived.
            The confusion of the wicked^[j] is nearby.)
⁵ Don’t rely on a friend;
        put no trust in a companion;
        guard the doors of your mouth from she who lies in your embrace.
⁶ Son disrespects father;
        a daughter rises up against her mother,
        a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
        the enemies of a man are those of his own household.
⁷ But me! I will keep watch for the Lord;
        I will wait for the God of my salvation;
            my God will hear me.

⁸ Do not rejoice^[k] over me, my enemy,
        because when I fall, I will rise;
            if I sit in darkness, the Lord is my light.
⁹ I must bear the raging of the Lord,
    for I have sinned against him,
        until he decides my case and provides justice for me.
    He will bring me out into the light;
        I will see by means of his righteousness.
¹⁰     Then my enemy will see;
        shame will cover her who said to me:
            “Where is the Lord your God?”
    My eyes will see her ruin;^[l]
        now she will become something to be trampled,
            like mud in the streets.

¹¹ A day for the building of your walls!
        On that day, the boundary will be distant.
¹²         On that day, they will come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt,
            from Egypt to the River,
            from sea to sea,
            and from mountain to mountain.
¹³ And the earth will become desolate because of her inhabitants,
        because of the fruit of their actions.

¹⁴ Shepherd your people with your staff,
        the sheep of your inheritance,
        those dwelling alone in a forest in the midst of Carmel.
    Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead, as a long time ago.

¹⁵ As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt,
        I will show Israel wonderful things.

¹⁶ Nations will see and be ashamed of all their strength;
        they will cover their mouths;
        their ears will be deaf.
¹⁷ They will lick dust like the snake,
        like things that crawl on the ground.
They will come trembling from their strongholds to the Lord our God;
        they will dread and fear you!
¹⁸ Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity,
        overlooking the sin of the few remaining for his inheritance?
    He doesn’t hold on to his anger forever;
        he delights in faithful love.
¹⁹ He will once again have compassion on us;
        he will tread down our iniquities.
You will hurl all our sins into the depths of the sea.
²⁰ You will provide faithfulness to Jacob, faithful love to Abraham,
        as you swore to our ancestors a long time ago.