14. Seek good, not evil,that you may live.Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you,just as you say he is.
15. Hate evil, love good;maintain justice in the courts.Perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercyon the remnant of Joseph.
16. Therefore this is what the Lord, the Lord God Almighty, says:‘There will be wailing in all the streetsand cries of anguish in every public square.The farmers will be summoned to weepand the mourners to wail.
17. There will be wailing in all the vineyards,for I will pass through your midst,’says the Lord.
18. Woe to you who longfor the day of the Lord!Why do you long for the day of the Lord?That day will be darkness, not light.
19. It will be as though a man fled from a liononly to meet a bear,as though he entered his houseand rested his hand on the wallonly to have a snake bite him.
20. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light –pitch-dark, without a ray of brightness?
21. ‘I hate, I despise your religious festivals;your assemblies are a stench to me.
22. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings,I will not accept them.Though you bring choice fellowship offerings,I will have no regard for them.
23. Away with the noise of your songs!I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24. But let justice roll on like a river,righteousness like a never-failing stream!
25. ‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offeringsfor forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?
26. You have lifted up the shrine of your king,the pedestal of your idols,the star of your god –which you made for yourselves.
27. Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Damascus,’says the Lord, whose name is God Almighty.