Isaiah 2:5-22
5 House of Jacob,
come and let us walk in the Lord’s light.
6 For You have abandoned Your people,
the house of Jacob,
because they are full of divination from the East
and of fortune-tellers like the Philistines.
They are in league with foreigners.
7 Their land is full of silver and gold,
and there is no limit to their treasures;
their land is full of horses,
and there is no limit to their chariots.
8 Their land is full of idols;
they bow down to the work of their hands,
to what their fingers have made.
9 So humanity is brought low,
and man is humbled.
Do not forgive them!
10 Go into the rocks
and hide in the dust
from the terror of the Lord
and from His majestic splendor.
11 Human pride will be humbled,
and the loftiness of men will be brought low;
the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.
12 For a day belonging to the Lord of Hosts is coming
against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up—it will be humbled—
13 against all the cedars of Lebanon,
lofty and lifted up,
against all the oaks of Bashan,
14 against all the high mountains,
against all the lofty hills,
15 against every high tower,
against every fortified wall,
16 against every ship of Tarshish,
and against every splendid sea vessel.
17 So human pride will be brought low,
and the loftiness of men will be humbled;
the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.
18 The idols will vanish completely.
19 People will go into caves in the rocks
and holes in the ground,
away from the terror of the Lord
and from His majestic splendor,
when He rises to terrify the earth.
20 On that day people will throw
their silver and gold idols,
which they made to worship,
to the moles and the bats.
21 They will go into the caves of the rocks
and the crevices in the cliffs,
away from the terror of the Lord
and from His majestic splendor,
when He rises to terrify the earth.
22 Put no more trust in man,
who has only the breath in his nostrils.
What is he really worth?
Amos 5:18-27
18 Woe to you who long for the Day of the Lord!
What will the Day of the Lord be for you?
It will be darkness and not light.
19 It will be like a man who flees from a lion
only to have a bear confront him.
He goes home and rests his hand against the wall
only to have a snake bite him.
20 Won’t the Day of the Lord
be darkness rather than light,
even gloom without any brightness in it?
21 I hate, I despise your feasts!
I can’t stand the stench
of your solemn assemblies.
22 Even if you offer Me
your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them;
I will have no regard
for your fellowship offerings of fattened cattle.
23 Take away from Me the noise of your songs!
I will not listen to the music of your harps.
24 But let justice flow like water,
and righteousness, like an unfailing stream.
25 “House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to Me during the 40 years in the wilderness? 26 But you have taken up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star god, images you have made for yourselves. 27 So I will send you into exile beyond Damascus.” Yahweh, the God of Hosts, is His name. He has spoken.
Zechariah 12:1-Zechariah 13:6
1 An Oracle
The word of the Lord concerning Israel.
A declaration of the Lord,
who stretched out the heavens,
laid the foundation of the earth,
and formed the spirit of man within him.
2 “Look, I will make Jerusalem a cup that causes staggering for the peoples who surround the city. The siege against Jerusalem will also involve Judah. 3 On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who try to lift it will injure themselves severely when all the nations of the earth gather against her. 4 On that day”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“I will strike every horse with panic and its rider with madness. I will keep a watchful eye on the house of Judah but strike all the horses of the nations with blindness. 5 Then each of the leaders of Judah will think to himself: The residents of Jerusalem are my strength through the Lord of Hosts, their God. 6 On that day I will make the leaders of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves; they will consume all the peoples around them on the right and the left, while Jerusalem continues to be inhabited on its site, in Jerusalem. 7 The Lord will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of David’s house and the glory of Jerusalem’s residents may not be greater than that of Judah. 8 On that day the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that on that day the one who is weakest among them will be like David on that day, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the Lord, before them. 9 On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
10 “Then I will pour out a spirit of grace and prayer on the house of David and the residents of Jerusalem, and they will look at Me whom they pierced. They will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child and weep bitterly for Him as one weeps for a firstborn. 11 On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning of Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land will mourn, every family by itself: the family of David’s house by itself and their women by themselves; the family of Nathan’s house by itself and their women by themselves; 13 the family of Levi’s house by itself and their women by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself and their women by themselves; 14 all the remaining families, every family by itself, and their women by themselves.
1 “On that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the residents of Jerusalem, to wash away sin and impurity. 2 On that day”—this is the declaration of the Lord of Hosts—“I will erase the names of the idols from the land, and they will no longer be remembered. I will remove the prophets and the unclean spirit from the land. 3 If a man still prophesies, his father and his mother who bore him will say to him: You cannot remain alive because you have spoken falsely in the name of Yahweh. When he prophesies, his father and his mother who bore him will pierce him through. 4 On that day every prophet will be ashamed of his vision when he prophesies; they will not put on a hairy cloak in order to deceive. 5 He will say: I am not a prophet; I work the land, for a man purchased me as a servant since my youth. 6 If someone asks him: What are these wounds on your chest?—then he will answer: I received the wounds in the house of my friends.