Lamentation for Israel
1 Listen to this message that I am singing for you, a lament,house of Israel:
2 She has fallen;
Virgin Israelwill never rise again.
She lies abandoned on her land,
with no one to raise her up.
3 For the LordGodsays:
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 leftin the house of Israel.
Seek God and Live
4 For theLordsays 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 Yahwehand 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
throw righteousness to the ground.
8 The One who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns darknessinto dawn
and darkens day into night,
who summons the waters of the sea
and pours them out over the face of the earth—
Yahweh is His name.
9 He brings destructionon the strong,
and it falls on the stronghold.
10 They hate the one who convicts the guilty
at the city gate
and despisethe 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 justiceat the gates.
13 Therefore, the wise person will keep silent
at such a time,
for the days are evil.
14 Seek good and not evil
so that you may live,
and theLord, the God of Hosts,
will be with you,
as you have claimed.
15 Hate evil and love good;
establish justice in the gate.
Perhaps theLord, the God of Hosts, will be gracious
to the remnant of Joseph.
16 Therefore Yahweh, the God of Hosts, the Lord, says:
There will be wailing in all the public squares;
they will cry out in anguishin all the streets.
The farmer will be called on to mourn,
and professional mournersto wail.
17 There will be wailing in all the vineyards,
for I will pass among you.
TheLordhas spoken.
The Day of the Lord
18 Woe to you who long for the Day of theLord!
What will the Day of theLordbe 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 theLord
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 40 years in the wilderness?
26 But you have taken upSakkuthyour kingand Kaiwanyour star god, images you have made for yourselves.
27 So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus.”Yahweh, the God of Hosts, is His name.He has spoken.
—https://api-cdn.youversionapi.com/audio-bible-youversionapi/17/32k/AMO/5-a966083ef96a1c1b914832dd8d95ed9c.mp3?version_id=72—