I hate, I despise your solemnities, and I will not savour your assemblies.

Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD shall be darkness, and not light.

But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Ye who turn judgment to wormwood and leave off doing righteousness in the earth,

that strengthens the spoiler against the strong, so that the spoiler shall come against the fortress.

Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat, ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them.

Hear ye this word, because I raise up a lamentation upon you, O house of Israel.

For I have known of your many rebellions and your great sins that afflict the just and take a ransom and turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.

Therefore the LORD, the God of the hosts, the Lord, said this: Wailing shall be in all streets, and they shall say in all the highways, Alas! alas! and they shall call the husbandman to mourning and such as are skilful of lamentation to wailing.

And in all vineyards shall be wailing, for I will pass through the midst of thee, said the LORD.

Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time, for it is an evil time.

Did you perchance offer me any sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness in forty years, O house of Israel?

But thus hath the LORD said unto the house of Israel, Seek me, and ye shall live:

Take away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy instruments.

but do not seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and do not pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.

As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall and a serpent bit him.

The virgin of Israel has fallen; she shall not be able to rise again: she was forsaken upon her land; there is no one to raise her up.

Shall not the day of the LORD be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?

Though ye offer me your burnt offerings and your presents, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.

For thus hath the Lord GOD said: The city that sent out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which sent forth a hundred shall have ten, in the house of Israel.

Therefore I will cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, said the LORD, whose name is The God of the hosts.

look unto him that makes the seven stars and Orion and turns the shadow of death into the morning and makes the day dark with night, that calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name;

But ye have offered unto Sicut your king, and unto Chiun your idols, the star of your gods which ye made.

They hate him that rebukes in the gate, and they abhor him that speaks uprightly.

Seek that which is good, and not that which is evil that ye may live; and so the LORD, the God of the hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

Hate the evil and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate; it may be that the LORD God of the hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph and devour it, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel.