Your silver has become dross,
your beer is diluted with water.

The Lord brings this charge
against the elders and leaders of His people:
“You have devastated the vineyard.
The plunder from the poor is in your houses.

Why do you crush My people
and grind the faces of the poor?”
This is the declaration
of the Lord God of Hosts.

the Lord will put scabs on the heads
of the daughters of Zion,
and the Lord will shave their foreheads bare.

Woe to those who rise early in the morning
in pursuit of beer,
who linger into the evening,
inflamed by wine.

Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine,
who are fearless at mixing beer,

Their roaring is like a lion’s;
they roar like young lions;
they growl and seize their prey
and carry it off,
and no one can rescue it.

It will pour into Judah,
flood over it, and sweep through,
reaching up to the neck;
and its spreading streams
will fill your entire land, Immanuel!

For this is what the Lord said to me with great power, to keep me from going the way of this people:

to keep the poor from getting a fair trial
and to deprive the afflicted among my people of justice,
so that widows can be their spoil
and they can plunder the fatherless.

Look, the Lord God of Hosts
will chop off the branches with terrifying power,
and the tall trees will be cut down,
the high trees felled.

Then a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

but He will judge the poor righteously
and execute justice for the oppressed of the land.
He will strike the land
with discipline from His mouth,
and He will kill the wicked
with a command from His lips.

The cow and the bear will graze,
their young ones will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

But they will swoop down
on the Philistine flank to the west.
Together they will plunder the people of the east.
They will extend their power over Edom and Moab,
and the Ammonites will be their subjects.

Then the firstborn of the poor will be well fed,
and the impoverished will lie down in safety,
but I will kill your root with hunger,
and your remnant will be slain.

For their cry echoes
throughout the territory of Moab.
Their wailing reaches Eglaim;
their wailing reaches Beer-elim.

When Moab appears on the high place,
when he tires himself out
and comes to his sanctuary to pray,
it will do him no good.

They will all be left for the birds of prey on the hills
and for the wild animals of the land.
The birds will spend the summer on them,
and all the animals, the winter on them.

Look, the Lord is stripping the earth bare
and making it desolate.
He will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants:

people and priest alike,
servant and master,
female servant and mistress,
buyer and seller,
lender and borrower,
creditor and debtor.

The earth will be stripped completely bare
and will be totally plundered,
for the Lord has spoken this message.

They no longer sing and drink wine;
beer is bitter to those who drink it.

For You have been a stronghold for the poor,
a stronghold for the needy person in his distress,
a refuge from the rain, a shade from the heat.
When the breath of the violent
is like rain against a wall,

For the Lord’s power will rest on this mountain.

But Moab will be trampled in his place
as straw is trampled in a dung pile.

Feet trample it,
the feet of the humble,
the steps of the poor.

These also stagger because of wine
and stumble under the influence of beer:
priest and prophet stagger because of beer,
they are confused by wine.
They stumble because of beer,
they are muddled in their visions,
they stumble in their judgments.

Stop and be astonished;
blind yourselves and be blind!
They are drunk, but not with wine;
they stagger, but not with beer.

The humble will have joy
after joy in the Lord,
and the poor people will rejoice
in the Holy One of Israel.

Indeed! Topheth has been ready
for the king for a long time now.
Its funeral pyre is deep and wide,
with plenty of fire and wood.
The breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone,
kindles it.

For this is what the Lord said to me:

As a lion or young lion growls over its prey
when a band of shepherds is called out against it,
and is not terrified by their shouting
or subdued by their noise,
so the Lord of Hosts will come down
to fight on Mount Zion
and on its hill.

The scoundrel’s weapons are destructive;
he hatches plots to destroy the needy with lies,
even when the poor says what is right.

Shudder, you complacent ones;
tremble, you overconfident ones!
Strip yourselves bare
and put sackcloth around your waists.

The sand partridge will make her nest there;
she will lay and hatch her eggs
and will gather her brood under her shadow.
Indeed, the birds of prey will gather there,
each with its mate.

The surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward.

See, the Lord God comes with strength,
and His power establishes His rule.
His reward is with Him,
and His gifts accompany Him.

Look up and see:
who created these?
He brings out the starry host by number;
He calls all of them by name.
Because of His great power and strength,
not one of them is missing.

The poor and the needy seek water, but there is none;
their tongues are parched with thirst.
I, Yahweh, will answer them;
I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

So He poured out on Jacob His furious anger
and the power of war.
It surrounded him with fire, but he did not know it;
it burned him, but he paid no attention.

For I will pour water on the thirsty land
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour out My Spirit on your descendants
and My blessing on your offspring.

“Come, gather together,
and draw near, you fugitives of the nations.
Those who carry their wooden idols,
and pray to a god who cannot save,
have no knowledge.

I will be the same until your old age,
and I will bear you up when you turn gray.
I have made you, and I will carry you;
I will bear and save you.

Those who pour out their bags of gold
and weigh out silver on scales—
they hire a goldsmith and he makes it into a god.
Then they kneel and bow down to it.

They lift it to their shoulder and bear it along;
they set it in its place, and there it stands;
it does not budge from its place.
They cry out to it but it doesn’t answer;
it saves no one from his trouble.

I call a bird of prey from the east,
a man for My purpose from a far country.
Yes, I have spoken; so I will also bring it about.
I have planned it; I will also do it.

Take millstones and grind meal;
remove your veil,
strip off your skirt, bare your thigh,
wade through the streams.

Look, they are like stubble;
fire burns them up.
They cannot deliver themselves
from the power of the flame.
This is not a coal for warming themselves,
or a fire to sit beside!

Can the prey be taken from the mighty,
or the captives of the righteous be delivered?

For this is what the Lord says:
“Even the captives of a mighty man will be taken,
and the prey of a tyrant will be delivered;
I will contend with the one who contends with you,
and I will save your children.

Why was no one there when I came?
Why was there no one to answer when I called?
Is My hand too short to redeem?
Or do I have no power to deliver?
Look, I dry up the sea by My rebuke;
I turn the rivers into a wilderness;
their fish rot because of lack of water
and die of thirst.

Wake up, wake up!
Put on the strength of the Lord’s power.
Wake up as in days past,
as in generations of long ago.
Wasn’t it You who hacked Rahab to pieces,
who pierced the sea monster?

Yet He Himself bore our sicknesses,
and He carried our pains;
but we in turn regarded Him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.

Therefore I will give Him the many as a portion,
and He will receive the mighty as spoil,
because He submitted Himself to death,
and was counted among the rebels;
yet He bore the sin of many
and interceded for the rebels.

“Poor Jerusalem, storm-tossed, and not comforted,
I will set your stones in black mortar,
and lay your foundations in sapphires.

Instead of the thornbush, a cypress will come up,
and instead of the brier, a myrtle will come up;
it will make a name for Yahweh
as an everlasting sign that will not be destroyed.

“Come, let me get some wine,
let’s guzzle some beer;
and tomorrow will be like today,
only far better!”

>

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
to bring the poor and homeless into your house,
to clothe the naked when you see him,
and not to ignore your own flesh and blood?

The Spirit of the Lord God is on Me,
because the Lord has anointed Me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives
and freedom to the prisoners;

They will not labor without success
or bear children destined for disaster,
for they will be a people blessed by the Lord
along with their descendants.

You will see, you will rejoice,
and you will flourish like grass;
then the Lord’s power will be revealed to His servants,
but He will show His wrath against His enemies.