For behold, the Lord is coming forth from His place.
He will come down and tread on the high places of the earth.

The mountains will melt under Him
And the valleys will be split,
Like wax before the fire,
Like water poured down a steep place.

All this is for the rebellion of Jacob
And for the sins of the house of Israel.
What is the rebellion of Jacob?
Is it not Samaria?
What is the high place of Judah?
Is it not Jerusalem?

For I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in the open country,
Planting places for a vineyard.
I will pour her stones down into the valley
And will lay bare her foundations.

All of her idols will be smashed,
All of her earnings will be burned with fire
And all of her images I will make desolate,
For she collected them from a harlot’s earnings,
And to the earnings of a harlot they will return.

For her wound is incurable,
For it has come to Judah;
It has reached the gate of my people,
Even to Jerusalem.

For the inhabitant of Maroth
Becomes weak waiting for good,
Because a calamity has come down from the Lord
To the gate of Jerusalem.

Make yourself bald and cut off your hair,
Because of the children of your delight;
Extend your baldness like the eagle,
For they will go from you into exile.

Woe to those who scheme iniquity,
Who work out evil on their beds!
When morning comes, they do it,
For it is in the power of their hands.

Therefore thus says the Lord,
“Behold, I am planning against this family a calamity
From which you cannot remove your necks;
And you will not walk haughtily,
For it will be an evil time.

“Therefore you will have no one stretching a measuring line
For you by lot in the assembly of the Lord.

“Arise and go,
For this is no place of rest
Because of the uncleanness that brings on destruction,
A painful destruction.

And I said,
“Hear now, heads of Jacob
And rulers of the house of Israel.
Is it not for you to know justice?

Who eat the flesh of my people,
Strip off their skin from them,
Break their bones
And chop them up as for the pot
And as meat in a kettle.”

Therefore it will be night for you—without vision,
And darkness for you—without divination.
The sun will go down on the prophets,
And the day will become dark over them.

Her leaders pronounce judgment for a bribe,
Her priests instruct for a price
And her prophets divine for money.
Yet they lean on the Lord saying,
“Is not the Lord in our midst?
Calamity will not come upon us.”

Many nations will come and say,
“Come and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord
And to the house of the God of Jacob,
That He may teach us about His ways
And that we may walk in His paths.”
For from Zion will go forth the law,
Even the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for mighty, distant nations.
Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation will not lift up sword against nation,
And never again will they train for war.

Each of them will sit under his vine
And under his fig tree,
With no one to make them afraid,
For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.

Though all the peoples walk
Each in the name of his god,
As for us, we will walk
In the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.

“As for you, tower of the flock,
Hill of the daughter of Zion,
To you it will come—
Even the former dominion will come,
The kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.

“Writhe and labor to give birth,
Daughter of Zion,
Like a woman in childbirth;
For now you will go out of the city,
Dwell in the field,
And go to Babylon.
There you will be rescued;
There the Lord will redeem you
From the hand of your enemies.

“But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord,
And they do not understand His purpose;
For He has gathered them like sheaves to the threshing floor.

“Arise and thresh, daughter of Zion,
For your horn I will make iron
And your hoofs I will make bronze,
That you may pulverize many peoples,
That you may devote to the Lord their unjust gain
And their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.

“But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
Too little to be among the clans of Judah,
From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel.
His goings forth are from long ago,
From the days of eternity.”

Then the remnant of Jacob
Will be among many peoples
Like dew from the Lord,
Like showers on vegetation
Which do not wait for man
Or delay for the sons of men.

Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams,
In ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?

The voice of the Lord will call to the city—
And it is sound wisdom to fear Your name:
“Hear, O tribe. Who has appointed its time?

“For the rich men of the city are full of violence,
Her residents speak lies,
And their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.

“You will eat, but you will not be satisfied,
And your vileness will be in your midst.
You will try to remove for safekeeping,
But you will not preserve anything,
And what you do preserve I will give to the sword.

“The statutes of Omri
And all the works of the house of Ahab are observed;
And in their devices you walk.
Therefore I will give you up for destruction
And your inhabitants for derision,
And you will bear the reproach of My people.”

Woe is me! For I am
Like the fruit pickers, like the grape gatherers.
There is not a cluster of grapes to eat,
Or a first-ripe fig which I crave.

The godly person has perished from the land,
And there is no upright person among men.
All of them lie in wait for bloodshed;
Each of them hunts the other with a net.

Concerning evil, both hands do it well.
The prince asks, also the judge, for a bribe,
And a great man speaks the desire of his soul;
So they weave it together.

For son treats father contemptuously,
Daughter rises up against her mother,
Daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
A man’s enemies are the men of his own household.

But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord;
I will wait for the God of my salvation.
My God will hear me.

Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy.
Though I fall I will rise;
Though I dwell in darkness, the Lord is a light for me.

I will bear the indignation of the Lord
Because I have sinned against Him,
Until He pleads my case and executes justice for me.
He will bring me out to the light,
And I will see His righteousness.

It will be a day for building your walls.
On that day will your boundary be extended.