“On garments taken as pledges they stretch out beside every altar,
And in the house of their God they drink the wine of those who have been fined.

“Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them,
Though his height was like the height of cedars
And he was strong as the oaks;
I even destroyed his fruit above and his root below.

“Behold, I am weighted down beneath you
As a wagon is weighted down when filled with sheaves.

Thus says the Lord,
“Just as the shepherd snatches from the lion’s mouth a couple of legs or a piece of an ear,
So will the sons of Israel dwelling in Samaria be snatched away—
With the corner of a bed and the cover of a couch!

“I overthrew you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
And you were like a firebrand snatched from a blaze;
Yet you have not returned to Me,” declares the Lord.

Hear this word which I take up for you as a dirge, O house of Israel:

Seek good and not evil, that you may live;
And thus may the Lord God of hosts be with you,
Just as you have said!

As when a man flees from a lion
And a bear meets him,
Or goes home, leans his hand against the wall
And a snake bites him.

So as to buy the helpless for money
And the needy for a pair of sandals,
And that we may sell the refuse of the wheat?”

“As for those who swear by the guilt of Samaria,
Who say, ‘As your god lives, O Dan,’
And, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives,’
They will fall and not rise again.”

“Are you not as the sons of Ethiopia to Me,
O sons of Israel?” declares the Lord.
“Have I not brought up Israel from the land of Egypt,
And the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir?

“For behold, I am commanding,
And I will shake the house of Israel among all nations
As grain is shaken in a sieve,
But not a kernel will fall to the ground.

“In that day I will raise up the fallen booth of David,
And wall up its breaches;
I will also raise up its ruins
And rebuild it as in the days of old;