The calf itself will be taken to Assyria
as an offering to the great king.
Ephraim will experience shame;
Israel will be ashamed of its counsel.

The high places of Aven, the sin of Israel,
will be destroyed;
thorns and thistles will grow over their altars.
They will say to the mountains, “Cover us!”
and to the hills, “Fall on us!”

Ephraim is a well-trained calf
that loves to thresh,
but I will place a yoke on her fine neck.
I will harness Ephraim;
Judah will plow;
Jacob will do the final plowing.

Sow righteousness for yourselves
and reap faithful love;
break up your unplowed ground.
It is time to seek the Lord
until He comes and sends righteousness
on you like the rain.

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I surrender you, Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
I have had a change of heart;
My compassion is stirred!

They will be roused like birds from Egypt
and like doves from the land of Assyria.
Then I will settle them in their homes.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Ephraim surrounds me with lies,
the house of Israel, with deceit.
Judah still wanders with God
and is faithful to the holy ones.

Ephraim chases the wind
and pursues the east wind.
He continually multiplies lies and violence.
He makes a covenant with Assyria,
and olive oil is carried to Egypt.

The Lord also has a dispute with Judah.
He is about to punish Jacob according to his ways;
He will repay him based on his actions.

In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel,
and as an adult he wrestled with God.

Yahweh is the God of Hosts;
Yahweh is His name.

I have been Yahweh your God
ever since the land of Egypt.
I will make you live in tents again,
as in the festival days.

Since Gilead is full of evil,
they will certainly come to nothing.
They sacrifice bulls in Gilgal;
even their altars will be like heaps of rocks
on the furrows of a field.

Where now is your king,
that he may save you in all your cities,
and the rulers you demanded, saying,
“Give me a king and leaders”?

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

Labor pains come on him.
He is not a wise son;
when the time comes,
he will not be born.

I will ransom them from the power of Sheol.
I will redeem them from death.
Death, where are your barbs?
Sheol, where is your sting?
Compassion is hidden from My eyes.

Take words of repentance with you
and return to the Lord.
Say to Him: “Forgive all our sin
and accept what is good,
so that we may repay You
with praise from our lips.

Assyria will not save us,
we will not ride on horses,
and we will no longer proclaim, ‘Our gods!’
to the work of our hands.
For the fatherless receives compassion in You.”

Ephraim, why should I have anything more
to do with idols?
It is I who answer and watch over him.
I am like a flourishing pine tree;
your fruit comes from Me.

Let whoever is wise understand these things,
and whoever is insightful recognize them.
For the ways of the Lord are right,
and the righteous walk in them,
but the rebellious stumble in them.

The fields are destroyed;
the land grieves;
indeed, the grain is destroyed;
the new wine is dried up;
and the olive oil fails.

The grapevine is dried up,
and the fig tree is withered;
the pomegranate, the date palm, and the apple—
all the trees of the orchard—have withered.
Indeed, human joy has dried up.

Woe because of that day!
For the Day of the Lord is near
and will come as devastation from the Almighty.

Blow the horn in Zion;
sound the alarm on My holy mountain!
Let all the residents of the land tremble,
for the Day of the Lord is coming;
in fact, it is near—

a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and dense overcast,
like the dawn spreading over the mountains;
a great and strong people appears,
such as never existed in ages past
and never will again
in all the generations to come.

A fire destroys in front of them,
and behind them a flame devours.
The land in front of them
is like the Garden of Eden,
but behind them,
it is like a desert wasteland;
there is no escape from them.

Their appearance is like that of horses,
and they gallop like war horses.

They bound on the tops of the mountains.
Their sound is like the sound of chariots,
like the sound of fiery flames consuming stubble,
like a mighty army deployed for war.

They attack as warriors attack;
they scale walls as men of war do.
Each goes on his own path,
and they do not change their course.

The Lord raises His voice
in the presence of His army.
His camp is very large;
Those who carry out His command are powerful.
Indeed, the Day of the Lord is terrible and dreadful—
who can endure it?

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

Tear your hearts,
not just your clothes,
and return to the Lord your God.
For He is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger, rich in faithful love,
and He relents from sending disaster.

Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers,
weep between the portico and the altar.
Let them say:
“Have pity on Your people, Lord,
and do not make Your inheritance a disgrace,
an object of scorn among the nations.
Why should it be said among the peoples,
‘Where is their God?’”

Children of Zion, rejoice and be glad
in the Lord your God,
because He gives you the autumn rain
for your vindication.
He sends showers for you,
both autumn and spring rain as before.

You will know that I am present in Israel
and that I am Yahweh your God,
and there is no other.
My people will never again be put to shame.

Then everyone who calls
on the name of Yahweh will be saved,
for there will be an escape
for those on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
as the Lord promised,
among the survivors the Lord calls.

Swing the sickle
because the harvest is ripe.
Come and trample the grapes
because the winepress is full;
the wine vats overflow
because the wickedness of the nations is great.

Multitudes, multitudes
in the valley of decision!
For the Day of the Lord is near
in the valley of decision.

Egypt will become desolate,
and Edom a desert wasteland,
because of the violence done to the people of Judah
in whose land they shed innocent blood.

The words of Amos, who was one of the sheep breeders from Tekoa—what he saw regarding Israel in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah, and Jeroboam son of Jehoash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

They stretch out beside every altar
on garments taken as collateral,
and in the house of their God,
they drink wine obtained through fines.

Yet I destroyed the Amorite as Israel advanced;
his height was like the cedars,
and he was as sturdy as the oaks;
I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath.

I raised up some of your sons as prophets
and some of your young men as Nazirites.
Is this not the case, Israelites?
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Look, I am about to crush you in your place
as a wagon full of sheaves crushes grain.

The archer will not stand his ground,
the one who is swift of foot
will not save himself,
and the one riding a horse will not save his life.

Does a bird land in a trap on the ground
if there is no bait for it?
Does a trap spring from the ground
when it has caught nothing?

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?

The Lord says:

As the shepherd snatches two legs
or a piece of an ear
from the lion’s mouth,
so the Israelites who live in Samaria
will be rescued
with only the corner of a bed
or the cushion of a couch.

Listen and testify against the house of Jacob—
this is the declaration of the Lord God,
the God of Hosts.

Listen to this message, you cows of Bashan
who are on the hill of Samaria,
women who oppress the poor
and crush the needy,
who say to their husbands,
“Bring us something to drink.”

You will go through breaches in the wall,
each woman straight ahead,
and you will be driven along toward Harmon.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

Offer leavened bread as a thank offering,
and loudly proclaim your freewill offerings,
for that is what you Israelites love to do!
This is the Lord’s declaration.

I overthrew some of you
as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
and you were like a burning stick
snatched from a fire,
yet you did not return to Me—
this is the Lord’s declaration.

Therefore, Israel, that is what I will do to you,
and since I will do that to you,
Israel, prepare to meet your God!

He is here:
the One who forms the mountains,
creates the wind,
and reveals His thoughts to man,
the One who makes the dawn out of darkness
and strides on the heights of the earth.
Yahweh, the God of Hosts, is His name.

The One who made the Pleiades and Orion,
who turns darkness into 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.

Therefore, the wise person will keep silent
at such a time,
for the days are evil.

Seek good and not evil
so that you may live,
and the Lord, the God of Hosts,
will be with you,
as you have claimed.

So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus.” Yahweh, the God of Hosts, is His name. He has spoken.

Cross over to Calneh and see;
go from there to great Hamath;
then go down to Gath of the Philistines.
Are you better than these kingdoms?
Is their territory larger than yours?

Therefore, they will now go into exile
as the first of the captives,
and the feasting of those who sprawl out
will come to an end.

But look, I am raising up a nation
against you, house of Israel—
this is the declaration of the Lord,
the God of Hosts—
and they will oppress you
from the entrance of Hamath
to the Brook of the Arabah.

When the locusts finished eating the vegetation of the land, I said, “Lord God, please forgive! How will Jacob survive since he is so small?”

Then I said, “Lord God, please stop! How will Jacob survive since he is so small?”

but don’t ever prophesy at Bethel again, for it is the king’s sanctuary and a royal temple.”

Therefore, this is what the Lord says:

Your wife will be a prostitute in the city,
your sons and daughters will fall by the sword,
and your land will be divided up
with a measuring line.
You yourself will die on pagan soil,
and Israel will certainly go into exile
from its homeland.

And in that day—
this is the declaration of the Lord God—
I will make the sun go down at noon;
I will darken the land in the daytime.

Hear this! The days are coming—
this is the declaration of the Lord God—
when I will send a famine through the land:
not a famine of bread or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord.

Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria
and say, “As your god lives, Dan,”
or “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”—
they will fall, never to rise again.

He builds His upper chambers
in the heavens
and lays the foundation of His vault
on the earth.
He summons the waters of the sea
and pours them out on the face of the earth.
Yahweh is His name.

Israelites, are you not like the Cushites to Me?
This is the Lord’s declaration.
Didn’t I bring Israel from the land of Egypt,
the Philistines from Caphtor,
and the Arameans from Kir?

for I am about to give the command,
and I will shake the house of Israel
among all the nations,
as one shakes a sieve,
but not a pebble will fall to the ground.

All the sinners among My people
who say: “Disaster will never overtake
or confront us,”
will die by the sword.

In that day
I will restore the fallen booth of David:
I will repair its gaps,
restore its ruins,
and rebuild it as in the days of old,

so that they may possess
the remnant of Edom
and all the nations
that are called by My name—
this is the Lord’s declaration—

He will do this.

The vision of Obadiah.

This is what the Lord God has said about Edom:

We have heard a message from the Lord;
a messenger has been sent among the nations:
“Rise up, and let us go to war against her.”

Though you seem to soar like an eagle
and make your nest among the stars,
even from there I will bring you down.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

How Esau will be pillaged,
his hidden treasures searched out!

In that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
will I not eliminate the wise ones of Edom
and those who understand
from the hill country of Esau?

Teman, your warriors will be terrified
so that everyone from the hill country of Esau
will be destroyed by slaughter.

For the Day of the Lord is near,
against all the nations.
As you have done, so it will be done to you;
what you deserve will return on your own head.

As you have drunk on My holy mountain,
so all the nations will drink continually.
They will drink and gulp down
and be as though they had never been.

Then the house of Jacob will be a blazing fire,
and the house of Joseph, a burning flame,
but the house of Esau will be stubble;
Jacob will set them on fire and consume Edom.
Therefore no survivor will remain
of the house of Esau,
for the Lord has spoken.

People from the Negev will possess
the hill country of Esau;
those from the Judean foothills will possess
the land of the Philistines.
They will possess
the territories of Ephraim and Samaria,
while Benjamin will possess Gilead.

The exiles of the Israelites who are in Halah
and who are among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath
as well as the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
will possess the cities of the Negev.

Saviors will ascend Mount Zion
to rule over the hill country of Esau,
but the kingdom will be the Lord’s.

The captain approached him and said, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up! Call to your god. Maybe this god will consider us, and we won’t perish.”

“Come on!” the sailors said to each other. “Let’s cast lots. Then we’ll know who is to blame for this trouble we’re in.” So they cast lots, and the lot singled out Jonah.

Then they said to him, “Tell us who is to blame for this trouble we’re in. What is your business and where are you from? What is your country and what people are you from?”

Then the men were even more afraid and said to him, “What is this you’ve done?” The men knew he was fleeing from the Lord’s presence, because he had told them.

So they said to him, “What should we do to you to calm this sea that’s against us?” For the sea was getting worse and worse.

He answered them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea so it may quiet down for you, for I know that I’m to blame for this violent storm that is against you.”

So they called out to the Lord: “Please, Yahweh, don’t let us perish because of this man’s life, and don’t charge us with innocent blood! For You, Yahweh, have done just as You pleased.”

As my life was fading away,
I remembered Yahweh.
My prayer came to You,
to Your holy temple.

but as for me, I will sacrifice to You
with a voice of thanksgiving.
I will fulfill what I have vowed.
Salvation is from the Lord!

Then he issued a decree in Nineveh:

By order of the king and his nobles: No man or beast, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water.

Furthermore, both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. Each must turn from his evil ways and from the violence he is doing.

And now, Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

The Lord asked, “Is it right for you to be angry?”