In their mother’s womb he took his brother by the heel,
And in his maturity he contended with God.

He strove with the angel, and gat the victory: so that he prayed and desired him. He found him at Bethel, and there he talked with us.

So then, come back to your God; keep mercy and right, and be waiting at all times on your God.

So then Ephraim said, Surely I have gotten me riches, I have found wealth for myself, - in all my toils, they cannot find in me perversity which is sin.

"There's iniquity in Gilead, isn't there? They have become truly vain. They sacrifice bulls in Gilgal; their altars are like piles of stone in furrowed fields.

Ephraim has provoked bitter anger,
so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him
and repay him for his contempt.

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When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling and terror.
He exalted himself [above the other tribes] in Israel;
But through [the worship of] Baal he became guilty and died [spiritually, and then came ruin, sealing Israel’s doom as a nation].

And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.

So they will be like the morning cloud, like the dew which goes early away, like the dust of the grain which the wind is driving out of the crushing-floor, like smoke going up from the fireplace.

According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me.

So I will be like a lion to them;
I will lurk like a leopard on the path.

Thou hast destroyed thyself, O Israel, But in Me is thy help, Where is thy king now -- And he doth save thee in all thy cities? And thy judges of whom thou didst say, 'Give to me a king and heads?'

Ephraim’s guilt is preserved;
his sin is stored up.

When the time of childbirth comes, he will be so foolish that he will refuse to be born."

For though he flourishes among the reeds (his fellow tribes),
An east wind (Assyria) will come,
The breath of the Lord rising from the desert;
And Ephraim’s spring will become dry
And his fountain will be dried up.
Assyria will plunder his treasury of every precious object.

Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.

Asshur shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.

Israel's branches will spread out, and its beauty will be like an olive tree, with its scent like that of Lebanon.

Those who live under its protection will surely return. Their grain will flourish; they will blossom like a vine, and Israel's scent will be like wine from Lebanon.

Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found.

He who is wise will see these things; he who has good sense will have knowledge of them. For the ways of the Lord are straight, and the upright will go in them, but sinners will be falling in them.

This message from the LORD came to Pethuel's son Joel.

Tell your children of it, and let them show it to their children, and so they - to certify their posterity thereof.

For a nation has invaded our land. There are so many of them they are too numerous to count. Their teeth are like those of a lion; they tear apart their prey like a lioness.

It has made My vine (My people) a waste and object of horror,
And splintered and broken My fig tree.
It has stripped them completely bare and thrown them away;
Their branches have become white.

"Grieve like a virgin, who, dressed in her mourner's clothes, cries out in memory of the man she was going to marry.

The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD'S ministers, mourn.

The husbandmen and the wine gardeners shall look piteously, and make lamentation for the wheat, wine and barley; and because the harvest upon the field is so clean destroyed.

The vine dries up
And the fig tree fails;
The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree,
All the trees of the field dry up,
Indeed, joy dries up and withdraws
From the sons of men.

Clothe yourselves with sackcloth
And lament (cry out in grief), O priests;
Wail, O ministers of the altar!
Come, spend the night in sackcloth [and pray without ceasing],
O ministers of my God,
For the grain offering and the drink offering
Are withheld from the house of your God.

"Sound the ram's horn in Zion! Sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Tremble, all of you inhabitants of the land, because the Day of the LORD is coming. Oh, how near it is!

A day of darkness and gloom,
A day of clouds and of thick [dark] mist,
Like the dawn spread over the mountains;
There is a [pagan, hostile] people numerous and mighty,
The like of which has never been before
Nor will be again afterward
Even for years of many generations.

The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run.

People writhe in fear when they see them. All of their faces turn pale with fright.

The Lord utters His voice before His army,
For His camp is very great,
Because strong and powerful is he who [obediently] carries out His word.
For the day of the Lord is indeed great and very terrible [causing dread];
Who can endure it?

Even now—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
turn to Me with all your heart,
with fasting, weeping, and mourning.

Who knows? He may turn and relent
and leave a blessing behind Him,
so you can offer grain and wine
to the Lord your God.

"Sound the ram's horn in Zion! Dedicate a fast and call for a solemn assembly!

Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?

And the LORD envied for his land's sake and had compassion on his people.

Yea, the LORD will answer and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen:

But I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.

And so be glad, children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, because he has given you the right amount of early rain, and he will cause the rain to fall for you, both the early rain and the later rain as before.

So shall the threshing-floors, be filled, with corn, - and the vats, overflow, with new wine and oil.

And ye shall eat and eat, and be satisfied, and shall praise the name of Yahweh your God, who hath dealt with you wondrously, - so shall my people, not be abashed, unto times age-abiding.

So shall ye know that, in the midst of Israel, I am, and that, I, Yahweh, am your God, and none else, - and my people, shall not be abashed, unto times age-abiding.

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:

It will so happen that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered. For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be those who survive, just as the Lord has promised; the remnant will be those whom the Lord will call.

They cast lots for my people they sold a young boy in exchange for a prostitute, and a girl for wine, so they could drink."

"Furthermore, what have you to do with me, Tyre, Sidon, and all the sea coasts of Philistia? Are you taking revenge on me? If you are taking revenge on me, I'll send it back on you swiftly and promptly,

and sold Judah's and Jerusalem's descendants to the Greeks, so you can remove them far from their homeland!

See, I will have them moved from the place where you have sent them, and will let what you have done come back on your head;

Your sons and your daughters will I sell through the hands of the children of Judah, and so they shall give them forth to sell, unto them of Sheba, a people of a far country: for the LORD himself hath said it.

Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.

In that day
the mountains will drip with sweet wine,
and the hills will flow with milk.
All the streams of Judah will flow with water,
and a spring will issue from the Lord’s house,
watering the Valley of Acacias.

The words of Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

And he said, The Lord will give a lion's cry from Zion, his voice will be sounding from Jerusalem; and the fields of the keepers of sheep will become dry, and the top of Carmel will be wasted away.

So says Jehovah: For three transgressions of Damascus, yea for four, I will not turn away from it; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron.

“So I will send a fire [of war, conquest, and destruction] upon the house of Hazael,
And it shall devour the palaces and strongholds of Ben-hadad (Hazael’s son).

“I will also break the gate bar of Damascus,
And cut off the inhabitant from the valley of Aven,
And him who holds the scepter, from Beth-eden;
So the people of Aram will go exiled to Kir,”
Says the Lord.

So says Jehovah: For three transgressions of Gaza, yea for four, I will not turn away from it; because they deported as exiles to deliver up a complete population to Edom.

“So I will send a fire [of war, conquest, and destruction] on the wall of Gaza
And it shall consume her citadels.

And I will cut off the inhabitant out of Ashdod, and the holder of the sceptre out of Ashkelon, - and will turn my hand against Ekron, So shall perish the remnant of the Philistines, saith My Lord, Yahweh.

So says Jehovah: For three transgressions of Tyre, yea for four, I will not turn away from it. Because they delivered up as exiles a complete population to Edom, and did not remember the brotherly covenant.

“So I will send a fire [of war, conquest, and destruction] on the wall of Tyre,
And it shall consume her citadels.”

"Thus sayeth the LORD, 'For three and four wickednesses of Edom, I will not spare him, because he persecuted his brother with the sword, destroyed his mother's womb, bare hatred very long, and so kept indignation always by him.

“So I will send a fire [of war, conquest, and destruction] upon Teman,
And it shall consume the citadels of Bozrah [in Edom].”

These are the words of the Lord: For three crimes of the children of Ammon, and for four, I will not let its fate be changed; because in Gilead they had women with child cut open, so that they might make wider the limits of their land.

“So I will kindle a fire [of war, conquest, and destruction] on the wall of Rabbah [in Ammon]
And it shall devour its strongholds
Amid war cries and shouts of alarm on the day of battle,
And a tempest on the day of the whirlwind [when the enemy captures the city].

Ammon's king will be deported; he and his officials will be carried off together." The Lord has spoken!

Thus says the Lord,
“For three transgressions of Moab and for four (multiplied delinquencies)
I will not reverse its punishment or revoke My word concerning it,
Because he burned the bones of the king of Edom [Esau’s descendant] into lime [and used it to plaster a Moabite house].

“So I will send a fire [of war, conquest, and destruction] upon Moab
And it shall devour the strongholds of Kerioth;
And Moab shall die amid tumult and uproar,
With war cries and shouts of alarm and the sound of the trumpet.

I will remove Moab's leader; I will kill all Moab's officials with him." The Lord has spoken!

Thus says Yahweh: "For three transgressions of Judah, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment; because they have rejected Yahweh's law, and have not kept his statutes, and their lies have led them astray, after which their fathers walked;

“So I will send a fire [of war, conquest, and destruction by the Babylonians] upon Judah
And it will devour the strongholds of Jerusalem.”

So says Jehovah: For three transgressions of Israel, yea for four, I will not turn away from it; because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of sandals;

Who are panting for the dust of the earth on the head of the poor, And the way of the humble they turn aside, And a man and his father go unto the damsel, So as to pollute My holy name.

They stretch out on clothing seized as collateral; they do so right beside every altar! They drink wine bought with the fines they have levied; they do so right in the temple of their God!

For Israel's sake I destroyed the Amorites. They were as tall as cedars and as strong as oaks, but I destroyed the fruit on their branches and their roots in the ground.

And I took you up out of the land of Egypt, guiding you for forty years in the waste land, so that you might take for your heritage the land of the Amorite.

And I raised up some [of] your sons to [be] prophets and some [of] your young men to [be] Nazirites. Is it not so, O {people} of Israel? [This is] the declaration of Yahweh!

See, I am crushing you down, as one is crushed under a cart full of grain.

So the swift runner will not escape, the valiant will not fortify his strength, and the mighty warrior will not save his life.

Even the most courageous of the warriors
will flee naked on that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration.

Doth a lion roar in the woods, except he have prey? Or crieth a Lion's whelp out of his den, except he have gotten something?

If a ram’s horn is blown in a city,
aren’t people afraid?
If a disaster occurs in a city,
hasn’t the Lord done it?

Publish in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, Assemble yourselves upon the mountains of Samaria, and behold the great tumults in the midst thereof, and the oppressed in the midst thereof.

The people are incapable of doing right—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
those who store up violence and destruction
in their citadels.

So the Lord Jehovah says this: An enemy! And he shall be all around the land; and he shall bring you down from your strength, and your palaces shall be plundered.

Thus saith the LORD; As the shepherd taketh out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus in a couch.

“On that day when I punish Israel’s transgressions,
I shall also punish the altars of Bethel [with their golden calves];
And the horns of the altar shall be cut off
And fall to the ground.

I will demolish the winter house
and the summer house;
the houses inlaid with ivory will be destroyed,
and the great houses will come to an end.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Hear this word, ye kine of Bashan, that are in the mountain of Samaria, which oppress the poor, which crush the needy, which say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink.

The sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his own holy character: "Certainly the time is approaching when you will be carried away in baskets, every last one of you in fishermen's pots.

“And you shall go out through the breaches [made in the city wall],
Every woman straight before her [unable to turn aside],
And you shall be cast to Harmon,”
Says the Lord.

And perfume with leaven a thank-offering, And proclaim willing gifts, sound ye! For so ye have loved, O sons of Israel, An affirmation of the Lord Jehovah.

I gave you absolutely nothing to eat
in all your cities,
a shortage of food in all your communities,
yet you did not return to Me.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

"I therefore have withheld the rain from you three months before the harvest, causing rain to come upon one city, but not upon another, and upon one field but not upon another, so that it would wither.

So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.