3. The Sovereign lord says:“When a city sends a thousand men to battle,only a hundred will return.When a town sends a hundred,only ten will come back alive.”
4. Now this is what the lord says to the family of Israel:“Come back to me and live!
5. Don’t worship at the pagan altars at Bethel;don’t go to the shrines at Gilgal or Beersheba.For the people of Gilgal will be dragged off into exile,and the people of Bethel will be reduced to nothing.”
6. Come back to the lord and live!Otherwise, he will roar through Israel like a fire,devouring you completely.Your gods in Bethelwon’t be able to quench the flames.
7. You twist justice, making it a bitter pill for the oppressed.You treat the righteous like dirt.
8. It is the lord who created the stars,the Pleiades and Orion.He turns darkness into morningand day into night.He draws up water from the oceansand pours it down as rain on the land.The lord is his name!
9. With blinding speed and power he destroys the strong,crushing all their defenses.
10. How you hate honest judges!How you despise people who tell the truth!
11. You trample the poor,stealing their grain through taxes and unfair rent.Therefore, though you build beautiful stone houses,you will never live in them.Though you plant lush vineyards,you will never drink wine from them.
12. For I know the vast number of your sinsand the depth of your rebellions.You oppress good people by taking bribesand deprive the poor of justice in the courts.
13. So those who are smart keep their mouths shut,for it is an evil time.
14. Do what is good and run from evilso that you may live!Then the lord God of Heaven’s Armies will be your helper,just as you have claimed.
15. Hate evil and love what is good;turn your courts into true halls of justice.Perhaps even yet the lord God of Heaven’s Armieswill have mercy on the remnant of his people.
16. Therefore, this is what the Lord, the lord God of Heaven’s Armies, says:“There will be crying in all the public squaresand mourning in every street.Call for the farmers to weep with you,and summon professional mourners to wail.
17. There will be wailing in every vineyard,for I will destroy them all,”says the lord.
18. What sorrow awaits you who say,“If only the day of the lord were here!”You have no idea what you are wishing for.That day will bring darkness, not light.
19. In that day you will be like a man who runs from a lion—only to meet a bear.Escaping from the bear, he leans his hand against a wall in his house—and he’s bitten by a snake.